Delayed Gratification by Peter Nilsson

Text: Peter Nilsson
Photo: Martin Wichardt

Sometimes I feel like the world is spinning faster and faster. Overwhelmed by an abundance of instant pleasures, it’s like we’re drowning in a flood of constant stimulation. There’s always something poking on us, craving our attention. Everything is supposed to happen now. Fast food. Fast fashion. Fast forward. No time for reflection or second thoughts.

This increased pace and volume of experiences affects us. Attention spans are getting shorter and our ability to wait is getting weaker. As soon as a void opens up, we tend to fill it with something else. There’s just not enough time to take it all in.

It’s like the more and faster we consume, the less we seem to care. Always having access to low hanging fruits of easy digestible experiences, ready to be had here and now, quickly affects our preferences. As it becomes the new normal, we start to miss out on things. Things that take time. Things that are worth the wait.

What if we could do the opposite? 

These were thoughts I had in my mind last spring. At the moment, we were finally heading for a couple of mountains outside of Hemavan, Sweden, that I’d been wanting to ski for many years, but never took the time to explore. When I thought about why, I couldn’t really find any good reason. I was just always busy doing something else. Something easier and more convenient. I got distracted.

Or maybe I felt that it was too far away. That skiing these mountains required too much time and effort. Especially when weather and snow conditions make it a kind of a gamble. Would we find what we were hoping for? Would those lines even be skiable? This time, I was looking at things differently.

Not focusing that much on results or rewards, but rather on the sensation of the search. The simple joy of just being out there, looking for lines together with a friend. Still putting value on the big runs we were aiming for, but also on the small steps forward. Instead of just picturing the long way there and the steep climbs as necessary obstacles to get over with as quickly as possible, I saw them as part of the process.  Embracing the struggle opened up for enjoying the journey in a new way. Slow. Conscious. Aware of the moment.

Reducing the pace of experiences somehow made room for something else. An open space where thoughts could grow free. Where ideas and conversations extend beyond the first surface. To me, spending time out in the mountains is a way to re-calibrate. Out there, I don’t do nearly as many things as I do otherwise. Without internet, e-mails or even phone connection, I’m deliberately cut off from my regular world. In one way, life is stripped down to a bare minimum. Yet it becomes so rich.

I’ve noticed that I experience things in a different manner. How sensations become more vivid. The smell of mountain wind. The cold sweeping around my eyes. The feeling of snow crystals bouncing on my skin as they whirl through the valley. We went out on this trip to try out an idea. Not with the intention to achieve anything, really, but for the passion of creating something together. Exploring both new areas and new ways of communication. Curious to see where it would lead us. One small step at the time.

This text was written as part of a bigger project resulting in a short film titled Delayed Gratification.