The mainstream audience has a certain picture of what climbing is all about: man conquering mountain. But you can't conquer a mountain, though it may conquer you.
Interpretation
Climbing mountains is not about conquering them, but rather about the experience and challenges they present.
Jimmy Chin suggests that the popular perception of mountain climbing as an act of conquering nature is misguided. Instead, he emphasizes that mountains are powerful forces that can humiliate and overwhelm climbers, and that the true essence of climbing lies in the journey and personal growth rather than mere triumph over physical obstacles.
In practice
During a motivational speech about adventure and personal growth.
On climbs, there is a general way we manage fear. We look at things objectively, separating out perceived risk from real risk. You can really bring down the level of fear by knowing the real risks and setting aside the others. You also know that panicking just makes things worse.
You learn over years of expeditions that having faith, and putting one foot in front of the other, you do end up pulling off climbs that seem completely impossible. There's a certain beauty to that. It has an allure.
You do wonder - when you are at 28,000 feet, the height that aeroplanes cruise at, when you are struggling to draw breath and every limb aches - why do I do this?
The two great risks are risking too much but also risking too little. That's for each person to decide. For me, not risking anything is worse than death. By far.
Becoming a parent has changed the risk calculus for me. But it might be age, too, and seeing a lot of friends die in the mountains. Will I take the same risks I took in my 20s? Probably not, but I will always push myself in the mountains.
It's hard to take people seriously who say you're totally irresponsible if you go out and climb mountains when you have kids, because they clearly don't understand the circumstances. You can't impose your own acceptance of risk on other people - that's not fair.
There is not a flower that opens, not a seed that falls into the ground, and not an ear of wheat that nods on the end of its stalk in the wind that does not preach and proclaim the greatness and the mercy of God to the whole world.
And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springsβ Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. No more can it be dismissed as science fiction; we are already feeling the effects.
Next to the laborer in the fields, the walker holds the closest relation to the soil; and he holds a closer and more vital relation to nature because he is freer and his mind more at leisure.
Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again, it is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence. How happens it that the associations it awakens are always pleasing, never saddening, reminiscences of our sanest hours. The voice of nature is always encouraging.
Here is Menard's own intimate forest: 'Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade...I live in great density...Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage...In the forest, I am my entire self. Everything is possible in my heart just as it is in the hiding places in ravines. Thickly wooded distance separates me from moral codes and cities.
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