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.
At about 10 o'clock in the morning the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows and in and out of the beam flies shot like rushing stars.
The morrow was a bright September morn; The earth was beautiful as if newborn; There was nameless splendor everywhere, That wild exhilaration in the air, Which makes the passers in the city street Congratulate each other as they meet.
The earth has grown old with its burden of care, But at Christmas it always is young.
Morning drew on apace. The air became more sharp and piercing, as its first dull hue: the death of night, rather than the birth of day: glimmered faintly in the sky. The objects which had looked dim and terrible in the darkness, grew more and more defined, and gradually resolved into their familiar shapes. The rain came down, thick and fast; and pattered, noisily, among the leafless bushes.
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.
We are living in a science-fiction nightmare where children are gasping for breath on bad-air days because somebody gave money to a politician. And my children and the kids of millions of other Americans can no longer go fishing and eat their catch because somebody gave money to a politician.
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