Its Not Always Necessary To Be Strong,

Now What Is History? It Is The Centuries Of Systematic Explorations Of The Riddle Of Death, With A View To Overcoming Death. That's Why People Discover Mathematical Infinity And Electromagnetic Waves, That's Why They Write Symphonies.

My Reasoning, If One Can Call It That, Was Inflamed By The Scatter Shot Passions Of Youth And A Literary Diet Overly Rich In The Works Of Nietzshe, Kerouac, And John Menlove Edwards.

Having Stumbled Upon A Tolerable Career, For The First Time In My Life I Was Actually Living Above The Poverty Line. My Hunger To Climb Had Been Blunted, In Short, By A Bunch Of Small Satisfactions That Added Up To Something Like Happiness.

Early On A Difficult Climb, Especially A Solo Climb, You’re Hyper-aware Of The Abyss Pulling At Your Back, Constantly Feeling Its Call, Its Immense Hunger. To Resist Takes Tremendous Conscious Effort, You Don’t Dare Let Your Guard Down For An Instant. The Void Puts You On Edge, Makes Your Movements Tentative And Clumsy. But As The Climb Continues, You Grow Accustomed To The Exposure, You Get Used To Rubbing Shoulders With Doom, You Come To Believe In The Reliability Of Your Hands And Feet And Head. You Learn To Trust Your Self-control.

It Is Easy, When You Are Young, To Believe That What You Desire Is No Less Than What You Deserve, To Assume That If You Want Something Badly Enough, It Is Your God-given Right To Have It.