Believe in the mountain, not the ropes

Since I read the astounding mountain adventure book, Beyond Possible by Nimsdai Purja, I’ve gotten interested in knowing more about high alpine mountaineering.

In recent news, Mingma G has summited the true summit of Manaslu with his Sherpa and client team from Imagine Nepal. One of the strongest climbers in the community, he has shared a video to justify his claim. Manaslu has been shrouded in mystery and controversy for quite some time as many teams have taken their clients to false summits either knowingly or unknowingly.

For me both are commendable and am not a person who has ever ventured into this sport and I have deep respect for everyone who has even reached base camps. These are treacherous and really risky mountains and no one but a climber is allowed to judge anyone.

What entices me is the analogies it has with life. Each of us in some way is on a mountain and there are many peaks in life to be conquered. But if we don’t see the mountain that we are climbing for what it is and just believe what has been done to be the truth, it is like blindly trusting the rope to reach the false summit and believing it to be true. It takes great courage to move beyond what is already done, in the hearts and in the mind but it keeps you away from deceiving yourself.

I hope there will be no more fore summit in future. Top is always Top, no more ups, everything below you. - Mingma G

Some friends from solitude

As I write this, somewhere, a cloud is being born, as the sun kisses the oceans. It will go through infancy and trials and tribulations all through until it condenses and makes its way back into the soil creating life wherever it flows.

Meanwhile, a seed carried away from its parent by an unforeseen circumstance made its way to a far-off land. It thrives in the company of new friends, much to take and much to give than its thought could have ever anticipated. A tree blooms to reach the sky.

The untouched river flows and ebbs with the seasons. Accepting the season’s abundance as its gifts, accepting its lacks too as its gifts. It inhales and exhales time. Flows and ebbs. Plays and rests.

The wind reaches out to everyone, the primordial and the modern, the colossal and the tiny, in a bid to make friends. All the while being itself. It crushes some and is called wrath, it dances with others is called grace. Still the wind all along it is, not a want to become anything else.

LIVING on your toes

Being ’on one’s toes’ could mean to be alert or ready for any eventuality but in a way also warns us against the dangers of being firmly rooted in the ground.

One of the highest virtues of being human is being able to adapt to the times and the situations. But at times our memories and our conditioning binds us into an inflexible identity. More we relate to this identity lesser we can adapt and in turn we become a slave to our identity, a lesser human.

He not busy being born is busy dying - Bob Dylan (Its alright ma)

Our adaptability is the thing that keeps us alive to ourselves and to the world around us.

Time sculpts everything with its tools, our minds and our bodies and everything around us. How we take each mark on us and how we align ourselves to it and attune is the thrust of our life.

Life doesn't run a clear course It flows through from within It's supposed to take you places And leave markings on your skin And those marks are just a sign of something true You witnessed in your time of something new Like the start of something fine Like morning dew - Poets of the Fall (Love will come to you)