{"id":3055,"date":"2019-10-09T11:40:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T09:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/?p=3055"},"modified":"2023-10-22T14:34:36","modified_gmt":"2023-10-22T12:34:36","slug":"icarus-2-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/2019\/10\/icarus-2-0\/","title":{"rendered":"ICARUS 2.0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

He\u2019s unstoppable, unyielding, tempestuous. A professional snowboarder, a musician, and a free spirit. Acknowledging no limits, accepting no norms, no hurdles can slow him down. Pat Burgener has flown to the sun and beyond \u2013 and kept his wings intact.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pat Burgener was born in Lausanne in 1994, the middle child of three brothers. Max, Pat, and Marc-Antoine \u2013 three sons whose parents expected them to play one sport and one instrument each. Age five, Pat took up the guitar. Although his first sport was tennis, he soon switched to skiing, and ultimately to snowboarding. School wasn\u2018t for him. He did show an interest in languages, music and the arts, but when it came to maths, biology, and chemistry, the wild child could hardly be kept in his chair. He rebelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggles of a free spirit<\/strong>
\u201cSchool did nothing for me \u2013 really, nothing!\u201d the now 25-year-old Pat tells me, with feeling. We\u2019re sitting in a cafe in Lausanne, the sun illuminating the old town\u2019s cobbles, a couple of rooibos teas on the table in front of us. \u201cAt the time, other people had a tendency to make life difficult for me, because I questioned the \u2018normal\u2019 way of doing things, simple as that. And I stood up for myself,\u201c he says and takes a sip of tea. \u201cToo often, we pay too much attention to what other people think, or what the \u2018done\u2019 thing is. I\u2018m not a disrespectful person, you know. But I do believe we have to free ourselves from the reins of what society tells us to do in order to find our own way in life. Unfortunately, people who don\u2019t stand up for themselves end up letting others dictate their lives,\u201d and it\u2018s such a waste, says Pat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He took his time learning that lesson himself. \u201cBelieve it or not, for a long time, I was actually ashamed to tell people that I was a professional snowboarder.\u201d He catches my eye and pauses, lingering on the significance of what he\u2018s just said. After a moment, he continues, \u201cBeing a professional snowboarder – that way of life – it just didn\u2019t fit the system so it was \u2018wrong.\u2019\u201d For free-spirit Pat, that way of thinking is a nonsensical and boring thought prison. But in Switzerland, anything that is not strictly business tends to get a bad rap. Sports and music included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, Pat did not let the constraints of society\u2019s accepted values and life choices stop him. His father rented an apartment in Saas-Fee each summer so that Pat could ride his board year-round. As ever, he veered from the norm and chose not to focus on any particular discipline. He took to all three \u2013 halfpipe, slopestyle, and big air. And, at the age of 14, his exceptional talent earned him a spot on the Swiss national team, at which point he left school, quickly becoming the rising star of the national team. Soon, all eyes were on him, awaiting Olympic medals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trouble with fame<\/strong>
\u201cHow did finding fame at such a young age affect you?\u201d I ask, and Pat goes silent for a moment. \u201cIt was never my goal to get famous. I only ever trod my own path and followed my heart\u201d he explains. But travelling the world at 14 years old, having nothing but the slopes and the spotlight to worry about, does come with its own challenges. Pat\u2018s own rebellious nature, his inability to accept limits, and his desire to enjoy life to the fullest, almost ended his career early. The victories were drying up, and he was always injured. \u201cThe pressure was too much and I got distracted,\u201c he continues. The injuries started in 2013, and they kept coming, one after the other. \u201cSuddenly I realized that snowboarding could be over for me. In 2014, I was so far from a comeback that I was thinking about quitting altogether,\u201c he reveals somberly. Exiled from the slopes, he turned to music, playing guitar and piano for days on end, composing songs born from his fears. He found peace in music, as well as renewed inspiration and strength\u2026 ultimately he found himself. The music brought a newfound modesty, it brought him back to earth. With this new mindset, he managed the jump back to the top of the snowboard world with ease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freedom and the meaning of life<\/strong>
\u201cI need my music as well as my sport. It grounds me, makes me stronger,\u201d he explains taking in the cafe around him. The tea in his cup grows cold as he tells his story. In addition to his pro snowboarder career, Pat writes songs, records them, produces his own videos and goes on tour. He\u2019s now under contract with Universal Music. However, he only signed the deal on the condition that he would retain complete artistic freedom, something he\u2019s keen to emphasize. He\u2019s uncompromising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how do you define freedom? I ask, expecting a contemplative silence. Pat fires back almost instantly: \u201cQuite simply: deciding for yourself where you go and what you do each day. You control your life, nobody else.\u201d I throw a second punch: \u201cAre you free?\u201d He laughs, \u201cI am the freest person in the world! I have arrived at a point where no one gives me instructions or decides what I should do. It\u2019s taken some time, but I\u2019ve got there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor a long time, I was actually ashamed
to tell people that I was
a rofessional snowboarder!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Pat often travels alone, to make sure he is always exposing himself to new experiences. And he always packs his guitar. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Icarus and the moral of the story<\/strong>
We talk about his songs for a while, then about his last album. In the meantime, day has turned to night. Soon Pat will be on stage in the club underneath the cafe we\u2018re sat in. He should be sparing his voice, but he wants to tell me about why he named his album \u201cIcar\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know the myth of Icarus. The commonly held moral of the story is that you shouldn\u2019t get overconfident because if you push too far, something bad always happens. But that\u2018s not the whole story. Icarus\u2019 father said that he shouldn\u2019t fly too high, nor too low. In other words, stick to the middle ground, and don\u2019t take any risks. But that\u2019s a terrible message, we all need to find our own way. We should follow Icarus, and fly as high as we want and as high as we can!\u201c Pat says, voice shaking with passion. \u201cBut in the myth, Icarus dies in the end? His death was his punishment for reaching for the divine\u2026\u201c I reply, struggling with my own grasp of mythology. Pat shakes his head: \u201cThat\u2018s the problem! That\u2019s the way the Icarus myth is interpreted, but who came up with that message? You have to live life! Don\u2019t let anyone tell you how high you should fly or where you can go. Nobody gets to tell me whether I can fly to the sun or even go further. Yes, sometimes you\u2018ll fly too high. And if you crash, then you simply get up and keep trying. If instead, out of fear, you never try, never follow your heart, you may never find what truly makes you happy. And we all deserve to find that. Don\u2018t we?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFreedom is deciding for yourself where you go and what you do each day.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photos: Wabs\/Etienne Claret<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He\u2019s unstoppable, unyielding, tempestuous. A professional snowboarder, a musician, and a free spirit. Acknowledging no limits, accepting no norms, no hurdles can slow him down. Pat Burgener has flown to the sun and beyond \u2013 and kept his wings intact. Pat Burgener was born in Lausanne in 1994, the middle child of three brothers. Max, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[288,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3058,"href":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055\/revisions\/3058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saas-fee.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}