You Are Wrong If You Think Joy

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.

I Think I Understand That Religious Faith Which Makes The Holy Brave And Strong; My Strength Is Just Somewhere Else--it's In Myself...i Do Not Fear What May Await Me, Though I'm Equally Confident That Nothing Awaits.

I Thought Climbing The Devil's Thumb Would Fix All That Was Wrong With My Life. In The End, Of Course, It Changed Almost Nothing. But I Came To Appreciate That Mountains Make Poor Receptacles For Dreams.

Antarctica Has This Mythic Weight. It Resides In The Collective Unconscious Of So Many People, And It Makes This Huge Impact, Just Like Outer Space. It's Like Going To The Moon.