The Wrong Kind Of Competition

On any other day, I think I would spend some time talking crap about gnomes (one did show me his backside yesterday), but something else has been bubbling around in my head for a while. When I first started working on Texas Challenge 2026, I remembered that someone mentioned to me that I should look at other MegaEvents as competition and that I was trying to effectively draw people away from those to this one. People, the logic went, only have so many dollars and them attending this Mega meant they wouldn’t be attending another Mega elsewhere. That logic is more flawed than Pascal’s Wager, but that is an argument for another time. I’ve spoken to people about the idea of getting information from the organizers of other Megas for issues we had never run into, but have often been told that my idea was a fools errand because the organizers seriously defended their intellectual property. I once had someone tell me that I needed to be careful about how much information I allowed other people to have about how this Mega was put together lest someone attempt to put on another Texas Mega to compete with Challenge.

When did this kind of competition become a thing? I have come to realize that a repeating MegaEvent must be, to some extent, a money making enterprise. If it doesn’t make enough money to go on the next year or the year after that, that’s no good. Would that I were a wealthy man and could fund Megas as a side thing, but if wishes were horses… I also understand that once significant money becomes involved in anything, things start being seen as a zero-sum game. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. In a more perfect world, there would be more Megas everywhere each year. There are currently 12 Megas (and/or Gigas) listed in North America upcoming for 2026 with a couple more having already happened. There’s another 47 in Europe (boy, does Czecia love their Megas!) with the final two in Australia and New Zealand. Why couldn’t there be half a dozen more in the United States? Or Canada? Has Mexico ever had one? South America? Africa? Surely Asia has managed to have a few thus far? Obviously, not everywhere could realistically manage one these days (Russia, Israel, Iran maybe not so much at the moment), but more Megas means more connection means more community and more happy cachers. So why not help someone how is trying to build something for the greater community? So maybe odds are slim that I could attend an Indian Mega, but I would love the idea that Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi cachers would have the chance to get together. And the same thing here! The only time I have ever considered my fellow cacher to be an opponent is when I’m on Team CenTex for a few hours one day a year. And after that, we are all brothers and sisters (or however you identify – I don’t mean to be gender exclusive) again.

My point here (and I do have one) is that no Mega anywhere is my rival. I would be happy to help any Mega any way I can because that is, in theory, what we should do. We should stick together. Too many parts of our lives are diced up and disconnected for a lot of reasons, some rational, others ridiculous. Can’t we all set all that by the way side and enjoy the thing that unites us? Or am I being too naive? That’s never been a word used to describe me, but this once I’ll take on the descriptor. More roadtrips. More tree climbs. More Megas. More…