It is possible to interpret postmodern skiing as the loss of foundation. Today, we are not interested in understanding the rationale behind our desire to ski, our objectives or techniques involved; we simply desire to enjoy skiing ‘now’.
In the modern era, the long term was the height of modernity; today there is only the very short term, an era of instantaneousness in which skiing is an immediate gratification, a way to avoid responsibilities and consequences.
Postmodern skiing implies a process of individualization that involves the emancipation of the skier from social obstacles and the ascent of a liberated skiing, albeit with associated insecurity and risk. As postmodern skiers, we have become the sole agents and producers of our destiny. We are constantly faced with the challenge of deciding between multiple options, and adapting to a rapidly changing and unpredictable environment.
In an era where spending time in a state of calmness can make us feel deprived of a valuable possession, the term “speed” has become a prevalent phrase. Skiing in postmodern times is characterized by its transience and constant change. We produce an instantaneous skiing experience wherein speed and simultaneity of situations prevail over duration and sequence. Postmodern skiing has accelerated, and while it has reduced access time to the summits, it is fragmented by multiplying the options of slopes and experiences.
Living in a state of constant immediateness can lead us to a loss of enthusiasm for skiing and can result in unwarranted errors in the pursuit of optimal utilization of time. Because of this immediacy, we stop learning about our experiences.
It would be interesting here to reflect on the time we spend in a ski resort, and to stop to think and value the opportunity that we have, that life gives us because we are skiing.
Sigmund Freud argued that humans must limit their drives in order to live in a society. On the contrary, it can be observed that in the current postmodern era of skiing, a drive for satisfaction is being enforced, promoting the enjoyment of all activities and pushing the boundaries a little further. The present no longer sets a limit to drive satisfaction, but instead tends to immediacy, and this is also reflected in the new trends of skiing. As postmodern skiers, we are interested in “states of experience“, more than in activities, and our guilt does not arise from not enjoying what we ski, but from not enjoying it enough.
Hartmut Rosa explains the phenomenology of postmodern acceleration as follows: “The rhythm, speed, duration and sequence of our activities and practices are almost always not determined by us as individuals but almost always prescribed by temporal patterns and synchronic requirements of society.”
What we are experiencing today is a phenomenon of an acceleration of the pace of life, an acceleration of the present, in which the relationship between our expectations and our experiences diminishes. This phenomenon has become a pathology, a dominant force with adverse consequences as we are witnessing such an acceleration in which ethical and moral attitudes have no place or time.
Accelerated skiing also undermines the idea of good and ethical behavior, because there is ‘no time‘ to display empathetic behavior towards others. The pressure to ski ‘more’ is greater and everything else is superfluous. A symptom of postmodern skiing is that everyone interprets ethics and morals in their own way and does not feel obligated to practice them.
Rosa identifies four aspects that can be considered in the accelerated experience of postmodern skiing: accelerated individual actions, the elimination of pauses, the superimposition of activities, and the substitution by activities with high temporal demands.
This phenomenon can also be observed among a personality trait as an accelerated trait, represented by a feeling of urgency or ‘rush disease‘, which demonstrates the following characteristics:
- We are always in a rush to reach the end of the slope.
- Because time projects us into the future, towards the next slope to descend, we cannot live situations calmly.
- The fact of having ‘little’ time to ski disturbs us, and we worry about how to make the most of it.
- We recognize having a fast pace, but we become slower when an activity is not habitual for us.
- We associate speed with our emotions, with immediate action, and with intense and brief skiing.
- We are afraid that we will not be able to ski as much as we wish to ski.
