For years I was obsessed with this mountain. Old habits die hard – I always try to fly only at sunrise or sunset in Seattle. Just to get a glimpse of this awesomeness in perfect lighting. Seeing Rainier is a hit or miss. It is not visible everyday. Yesterday, I fell asleep on the way and we ended up there sooner than I had expected and I woke up with a start and looked out the window and saw Rainier almost behind us already. Very quickly I put on my lens and used a 200mm w/ 1.4x teleconverter to get at least this. And yes my heart had stopped beating for that entire time ❤️
Isn’t this such a special thing? Almost the same size as Mt Everest (just that Everest starts higher, so ends higher). Having a mountain near us keeps our egos in check. It makes it easier to give in to awe. To be big picture. To have a holistic perspective.
I have always wondered what would Silicon Valley & the tech industry be like if there was a huge mountain right outside reminding everyone of their place.
Us people here in the Bay Area – our thoughts, attitudes, desires, values etc. have a disproportionately outsized impact on the world through the mediums of things like Google, Facebook, Instagram, Uber, AirBnB, Slack, etc. The decisions we make here are always biased towards the contexts we find ourselves in. And most of us here are usually quite unhappy, in survival mode, delaying gratification, playing the race to the bottom game, with a hope to someday be able to cash out or make it to finally make it all sustainable for ourselves. With that mindset, what are we optimizing for and for whom? And what impact does it have? 😀
