On Mountains and Retreats

More or less by accident, crossing the ridge of Mount Aibga in Krasnaya Polyana — a ski resort in the Russian Caucasus — my guide and I got to talking about who goes into the mountains, and why. A casual trade of observations turned, unexpectedly, into a longer reflection of mine on what the modern “spiritual landscape” actually looks like.

Turns out women today sign up for mountain treks hoping to meet men — and end up in the company of other women doing the exact same thing. Men, the other way around, are leaving en masse for psychological retreats, sanatoriums and spa hotels — in search of harmony, a “reboot”, and themselves. The poles have swapped places.

I often hear that men “have a hard time handling stress”. But let’s be honest: real stress belonged to the days when a single word could get you called out to a duel, and honor was defended not with social-media posts but with your life. Today we live in a fairly safe, comfortable world — air conditioning, delivery, Zoom calls. Is that really the same thing?

The search for meaning, for spirituality — and often, traveling right alongside them, for self-pity and self-compassion — has become an almost mandatory item on the self-actualization checklist. Fine, it matters, but there’s a thin line: the point where self-discovery turns into an end in itself and crowds out real life. Where a person keeps searching for himself and never finds it, because he’s lost contact with matter.

The world has drowned in cheap dopamine — likes, filters, endless TikTok clips. We need ever stronger stimuli just to feel something, or the reverse — to “reset” the receptors. Enlightenment in Bali, meditation in Tibet, vipassanas, ascetic fasts, seasonal downshifting — especially popular with those who’ve made their money and suddenly felt the emptiness. And there’d be nothing wrong with any of it, if it didn’t turn into a form of escape. One of my business partners once went off to India to rest like that — and on his return voluntarily walked away from the business.

I love hiking myself, as a form of meditation — a way to hear the silence and clear my head. But the important part is coming back — to reality. The skill of living in the material world (from “matter”, not “money”) is like a muscle: leave it untrained and it atrophies. And once you’ve skipped the gym long enough, you keep finding fresh reasons not to go “today”. And then it starts: “I’m just not into that anymore, I’ve outgrown matter, and you’re simply on a lower vibration.” Right, of course. My apologies.

Stoicism, by the way, is precisely about this — the strength to accept the world as it is, ambitious goals, usefulness to society, a legacy, and, most important of all, mental steadiness in getting through hardship when it comes.

Here’s to all of us seeking and finding ourselves wherever we like — in the mountains, on retreats, on the road. But without losing touch with reality and the people around us — they’re our real field for growth, the training ground for spirit and body. 💪😎