Day 8: Nordkapp

Day 8 — Nordkapp. The northernmost point in Europe accessible by car. A popular destination for RVs, motorcyclists, and cyclists with tents exploring northern Scandinavia. A box that just *had* to be checked on my wife's bucket list.

It was our first organized tour — up until now we'd only had adventures on our own, wherever the ship happened to stop. Here we put ourselves in the guides' hands and rode the tour bus, like "normal" people. Not our style, but we didn't have another option. It was fine.

Geesche, who has a bit of Norwegian blood in her, absolutely wanted a photo with the globe monument at Nordkapp. Just like her mother did, and her mother's mother before her. Now she has one. Bucket list updated.

Life is short. When you lose someone dear, that brutal truth comes rushing back and you start checking boxes. Then you check them and reproach yourself for checking them alone, only now, instead of having done it long ago, together. Reproach yourself for what more you could have done, with or for the ones who are gone.

That feels normal to me. I've been through it too. When everything's fine you have all the time in the world. You fight your own waves and think only of yourself. Then someone dear loses their fight with their own waves, and you find yourself having to live with everything you didn't do in time, for the rest of your life. There's no fixing any of it anymore. And new joys and experiences aren't the same either. They're different — more… serious, more melancholic.

Not to mention the emotional rollercoaster. It's overwhelming when your feelings take off up and down and in loops like a stunt plane. When you're with someone going through that, there's nothing you can do for them — but the good news is you don't need to. It's enough to just be there, with a tissue and a hug within reach. And when you're the one on the rollercoaster, there's exactly one thing that's always helped me keep my composure in extreme situations, or when I've been overwhelmed by emotion. A two-part piece of advice:

1. Focus on your breath
2. Observe, don't react

Breathe deeply. Observe — don't react.

For me that's the quintessence of every teaching and life philosophy out there. And it's nothing new or original — it shows up in one form or another on every continent, in every culture. Americans are the funniest about it: when someone's having a panic attack, the solution is always the same: Breathe in the bag! 😁🤣😂 Breathe into a paper bag. Just like in the movies. Why? Because it helps you focus on your own breathing, and instantly turns you from Hapless Stan — the guy things always "happen to," who's forever having some misfortune "befall" him — into Observer Stan, who detaches from whatever's causing the panic around him and internalizes, by watching his own breath, whether he realizes it or not, the exact same simple things a Buddhist monk internalizes through meditation:

1. You are not your thoughts
2. You are not your pain

I'm no expert in anything, I don't have a therapist's degree, or a psychologist's, or any kind of professional counselor's credential. But some things just seem plainly obvious to me in this life.

My thoughts belong to me! (For now — until Elon Musk talks me into signing his Terms and Conditions.) Which means… my thoughts and I are two different entities, and between us there's a relationship of ownership. **They** belong to **me.** So there's no way I can be them. All I can do is breathe, and observe them. Same goes for pain.

I am above them.
They're downhill from Nordkapp, heading south.
And I am north of Nordkapp. Heading north.