Sometimes when I finish doing something and suddenly think, “Wait… what did I just spend three hours doing?” Sometimes I grind away for three whole days, only to realize the result could be explained in under three minutes.

That strange feeling as if life quietly took a few pointless detours without telling me.

Today, something clicked. I realized those “wasted” hours feel exactly like walking up a mountain trail.

Mountain paths are rarely neat. Most of the time it’s weeds grabbing my ankles, soft mud pretending to be solid ground, stones leaning at suspicious angles, slopes that make no geometric sense at all.

I never really know whether the step I'm about to take will hold me or send me sliding down in a very undignified way.

And yet, I step anyway. Because even when it looks like random chaos from the outside, inside my head there’s always a tiny calculation running: “This rock feels like it has maybe… 70% grip. Statistically, I probably won’t die.”

No one stands at the foot of the mountain auditing my steps. No one checks whether my route was elegant, efficient, or textbook correct. If I reach the top, the view never asks: “Did you take a wrong turn back there?” The view only says: “Ah. You made it.”

Suddenly, all those hours that felt useless, the loops, the pauses, the messy little detours, didn’t feel like mistakes anymore.

They weren’t deviations. They were the mountain.



—— XC Scribbles · 參拾 XXX 🍃