Because It Is There

Over the next month small groups of men and women will travel to the exotic lands of Nepal and China. Not for the purpose of experiencing the culture, not to taste the cuisines, but for one reason and that is the opportunity to “stand on top”. On top of Everest, on top of Lhotse, on top of Annapurna and many, many of the other great mountains of the world. The will gamble with their very lives for the opportunity. They will spend more money than the average Nepalese would see in several lifetimes. All for a small chance, that if they succeed, to stand on a small rocky, snow covered summit for merely a matter of minutes. Why would one participate in what appears to be a whimsical folly? Is the reason to climb Everest, as George Leigh Mallory said, “Because it is there”? Perhaps it is that simple, but if so we should remember that Mallory died high on Everest pursuing such simplicity. No doubt it is much more complex and it for that reason that volumes upon volumes have been written on the subject and countless readers have held on to every word in an attempt to understand the wherefores and the whys. Do some of us have a need to challenge our self set limitations, to prove that the mind can control the body, to do something “heroic” so that we can feel, if only momentarily, as if we are just a tad better than mere mortals. Is it a spiritual quest? I myself have climbed into the cold, thin air. I have strapped tanks on my back and dove deep into the sea, donning helmet and headlamp I have crawled deep inside the earth. That question of why no longer becomes a rhetorical exercise for others, but a personal question that helps me to understand who I am. I could write pages exalting the great adventurer in me, the spirit of the Arthurian Grail Quest, the desire to face death to truly experience life and it would be nothing but delusional ramblings. It was pointed out to me, by a very wise man, that I was one of those that needed to do such things to feel above the masses. Several years later, I returned to this man, reminded him of what he had said and informed him he had been wrong. I desired not to be better than, but to be simply as good as others, based on how I saw them and how I felt about myself. I had always compared my insides to others outsides and came up short every time. With that realization came the desire to change. To change from comparing to not comparing. To honestly look at myself. What I like, what I don’t like, what is good, what is not good, what is respectable, what is not and from that list isolate what about me needs changed and develop a plan for making those changes. Not doing so, simply “because they are there”, but because if I desire to continue on a spiritual journey I must, if I desire to find happiness generated from within I must and if I desire to improve myself so that I may better be of service to my fellow man I must. Remember that change starts today. What is it about yourself you desire to change, knowing you have the ability to change it? Will I continue to climb and cave and dive? Yes I will, but not because I must to be fulfilled by such endeavors, not because it defines all that I am, not because I seek to be better or as good as others…but I will climb the mountains, dive the seas and wander the endless passages inside the earth…because they are there.