2022: The Year That Crazy Broke

Intermittently, at this time of the year, I’ve written a “year in review” post. In 2014, it was the seven best trips of the year, which I repeated with less literary skill at the end of 2017. 2020, which was the year lock-down madness peaked, I wrote about local adventures. I could call 2022 the year that crazy broke, as the world went from full scale draconian lock-downs with police enforcement to learning to live with the ‘Rona, which, of course, should have been the goal from the very beginning given an infection fatality rate of well under a single percent before the availability of any “vaccines.”

PC: DB

First, the best trips of 2022 were, in no particular order:

• Crossing eastern Bass Strait by sea kayak.
• A 500 kilometre sea kayak trip 80 kilometres off the coast of North Queensland.
• Bushwalking trips in the Namadgi Wilderness, particularly Mount Gudgenby and Sentry Box Mountain and Mounts Kelly and Burbridge.

A couple of shorter, easier trips make the list simply because they were local and memorable because normal was a little bit mixed up and I believe strongly in adventuring locally:

• Rock platforms at sunrise.
• Islands at sunset on the winter solstice.

More important, however, than the ramblings of someone far too old still trying to perform at activities for the much younger are the lessons learnt in 2022:

• Challenge yourself to think differently.
• Understand that “experts” are frequently biased, corrupt, incompetent or all of the aforementioned.
• Keep working at the seemingly impossible, eventually you might just succeed.
• Celebrate every day that you can still do what you love by doing what you love, even if you only manage a few minutes or hours a day.
• Don’t waste time, that most irreplaceable of resources, trying to argue, convince, influence or change anyone else. Use your influence on yourself.

And, what do you know, that adds to five, which is a big enough number to be meaningful but small enough for us to wrap our heads around.  Get out there into 2023 and don’t let the anyone convince you that barricading playgrounds and perpetuating a culture of fear has anything to do with public health.