Skiing the lift line

Is ego a good motivator?

As some of you know, I’m in Utah on a month long ski vacation. Well, I’m about 12 days into it and this ol’ middle aged body finally said “enough!!” and I find myself on a couch recovering whilst; eating tamales, drinking coffee and catching up on my Substack friend’s posts. I also realize I haven’t posted anything in quite awhile.

Hey, there’s powder man!!

That line right there is a free pass out of just about any commitment in ski country. For real!!

Before I get to the real juice of this story, I have to clarify a term skiers use: ‘the lift line’. This is a term that you hear a lot when skiing resorts. It refers to several different things and you have to know the context in which it’s being used. All resort skiers know about skiing ‘the lift line’. This refers to the skiable terrain located right under the ski lift. Sometimes it can be an actual run on the map and have a name or it can just be something you access by cutting through the trees from another run. Or, it can even be a closed area but still skied by the ‘poachers’ that ducked a closed rope put up by ski patrol. Everybody riding up the lift gets to watch, access, judge, sometime envy (on powder days or if they are good and tear it up) all the people skiing under them. It’s really good entertainment. The lift riders which, in mass, can also be referred to as the ‘lift line’ by the people skiing ‘the lift line’ and not to be confused with the actual lift ‘line’ of people waiting to board the chairlift at the bottom. Confused? Nah!! It will all make sense by the end of the story. I promise. And for the skiers reading this going; “so what dude, we all know this already!!”, stay with me because the ‘skiing the lift line’ phenomena is something all skiers can relate to…and it’s kind of an interesting and fun psychology to think about.

So, now I have to talk some quick psychology and perhaps spiritualiy to frame this whole thing. In psychology and certainly spirituality, the ego tends to be somewhat of a problem. Most certainly it can be. In Jungian psychology we see the ego as the interface to the conscious outside world and problems arise when we rely on the ego to do everything. Jungians would say we are ‘over-identified’ with the ego conscious thereby shutting ourselves off from all the rest of the psyche: the shadow (repressed memories or behaviors and ideas that don’t fit the image or ‘persona’ that the ego is presenting to the outside world) and the archytypes (primal images or blueprints of things like: the mother, the father, the warrior, the healer and most importantly the God, Buddha, Divine or whatever your word is for that which is greater than my self ). That all said, I’ve always struggled with the strict condemnation of the ego. It seems to me as long as I’m making a choice to stay active in this matrix of doing stuff, the ego has a role.

So, now about skiing ‘the lift line’. Every skier and athlete knows about performance pressure. Musicians and other stage performers are acutely aware of it as well. It can push your performance to exceed what you’ve ever done before or it can make you too self conscious (or perhaps better: self judging) and crumble you. It’s very facinating and I’m interested in the actual psychological mechanism involved.

I ski ‘the lift line’ frequently. Why? Because, yes, I want to get noticed. If I do a good job, stay in the line, smooth, no stops, consistent speed control… maybe I’ll get “whooped” by the ‘lift line’. For a middle-ager, and probably anybody, that feels good!! It does!! It’s an applause thing just like musicians hope for at the end of a smokin’ solo. The “I nailed it!!” feeling. It’s all ego. I know that. But to what harm? Nobody suffered at my expense. People on the ‘lift line’ felt good whooping me. I felt good skiing harder and perhaps better with the performance pressure. I certainly loved getting acknowledged for the effort. Is this ego driven situation bad for me or anybody else? I really can’t see how. What I can see, is the potential for getting addicted to the rush of being acknowledged. That certainly happens to athletes, musicians and performers. Maybe that’s why we see so many of them get hooked on substances.

So the ego, like just about everything, has the potential to be used for something good. In this case; a motivator to perform better and push my abilities further. Tipped the other way, the ego can be a potential for the bad; attachments to the rush of being acknowledged and all kinds of subsequent terrible behaviors driven by these attachments. It is a balance, no doubt.

I like skiing ‘the lift line’!! My ego likes getting whooped by the ‘lift line’!! It’s not causing me problems that I’m aware of and if it does….well, I’ll have to do something different.

To be sure, I still don’t like standing in the lift ‘line’!!!

All the best to you my dear Substack friends!! I love you all!! Tear it up!!