The Man on the Mountain

A 45-year old man was climbing up a snow-covered mountain. He was suffering from multiple health problems due to age and the hardships of his life. He carried a little medicine with him and had received some homeopathic treatment for his aches and pains. His teeth were bad and he suffered from cavities. His attire was simple, but kept him warm enough. Tattoos covered his body, especially his legs and back.

As this man made his way up a mountain, he was dying. He'd been beaten and shot and he was soon to fall and become a frozen corpse on the mountain. His body would lie there for over 5,000 years and later would be studied meticulously so that the story of his life would be known down to the last meal he ate and the time he ate it. Intense interest in his life and death continues and occasionally new tidbits of information about him make it into major news outlets.

It is a great irony that this one man, who lived a fairly simple life thousands of years ago is of such interest while the rest of us are of so little. It is likely the fact that he was alone, likely murdered, and provided academics with a focus for their attention that creates such scrutiny. The rest of us... well, there are just so many of us now and we all have a story and multiple ways with which to tell it so we are lost in the shuffle. Unless we titillate, mystify, or incite, no one cares about the stories we tell, the ideas we hold, or what we last ate for dinner.

People don't seem to be curious about each other anymore. We all compete with glowing screens, brains conditioned by 140-character line limits, and exaggerated and enhanced content. Photos are made with HDR so colors are brighter and more colorful than reality. The world is one we search while holding a cell phone in hand so we can see imaginary characters superimposed on it. People are often just mirrors into which we can see ourselves reflected. Normal people aren't interesting, unless they do something shocking or something shocking is done to them.

So, nobody cares about my stories or what I have to say. I am not a needle in a haystack, but just another bit of straw in the stack. Of course, so was Otzi. He was likely pretty average until the right people found him and had an interest in his story. I put my words and experiences out there, in case there are any people who find me and are interested in my stories - real ones, not fiction. The worst that can happen is that I stay frozen and hidden on the mountain, never to be found, and my stories never heard.