Ecstasy
There are moments in life that words fail to describe, instants of perfection and emotion that only a massive grin and formless hoots and hollers can truly express. It’s the neck-deep pow turn, the giddy anticipation at the top of an untracked line, the utter contentment after a long day in the mountains with friends—a picture is worth a thousand words, and the ecstasy of skiing is beyond any language.
It’s a great tragedy we’re unable to speak in emotions. Not just communicate them, but actually communicate with them. A radical notion to be sure, but imagine being able to step outside of the constructs of the 26 letters and some 170,000 words that make up the English language and say what you truly feel. We try. And we catch glimpses of others trying. Peering into someone’s emblazoned eyes. Feeling them cry, or laugh or stare up to the sky with arms outstretched. But still, we’re left to guess. Our emotional language is imprisoned within our own essence—we know how we feel, we just can’t share that feeling as it truly exists.
So we’re left to words. Our emotions articulated outside of ourselves travel via physical expressions: fear, joy, excitement, sadness, love, hatred. If we choose, we categorize our feelings, dropping each experience into an emotion folder logged in the recesses of our soul…