In mountaineering, there is not only the activity, but the philosophy behind it. Some say a moral, but I am against that because all morality is dangerous.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that mountaineering is not just a physical endeavor, but also an exploration of deeper philosophical ideas, which can sometimes conflict with conventional morality.
Reinhold Messner emphasizes that mountaineering transcends mere physical activity; it encompasses a way of thinking and understanding the world. He challenges the idea that morality should govern such pursuits, arguing that strict moral frameworks can be limiting or detrimental to the authentic experience of adventure and exploration in nature. This perspective highlights the importance of personal interpretation and the subjective nature of values in the pursuit of extreme challenges.
In practice
During a motivational speech at a mountaineering conference.
I became famous for the fact that I would break many, many limits. People said, 'He does all these crazy things.' But oddly it was a crazy thing only because scientists and climbers said, 'Everest and the 8,000-meter peaks without oxygen - impossible. Messner is becoming sick in his head.'
A 30-year-old rock climber is an old man. At 40, one is in the middle of his high-altitude power. At 50, a crosser of deserts is at his best age. But at 60, each of us is out of the game.
I think my cultural work is more important than the adventures I did. The adventures are not important for human beings. It's the conquering of the useless.
I was the first man to climb the world's 14 tallest peaks without supplementary oxygen, but I never asked how high I would go, just how I would do it.
In my state of spiritual abstraction, I no longer belong to myself and to my eyesight. I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits.
I go to the mountains for an adventure and each time I pray I will get up and down again.
Men make their own history but not in circumstances of their own choosing.
The good news is the gospel of God, about Christ, according to Scripture, for the nations, unto the obedience of faith, and for the sake of the Name.
The poor are great! The poor are wonderful! The poor are very generous! They give us much more than what we give them.
There is no mysterious essence we can call a 'place'. Place is change. It is motion killed by the mind, and preserved in the amber of memory.
They can fatten me up. They can give me a full body polish, dress me up, and make me beautiful again. They can design dream weapons that come to life in my hands, but they will never again brainwash me into the necessity of using them. I no longer feel allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despite being one myself.
I emphasize the reply that the liberty which a citizen enjoys is to be measured, not by the nature of the governmental machinery he lives under, whether representative or other, but by the relative paucity of the restraints it imposes on him.
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