When the Mountain to Climb is Not Climbing the Mountain

Sometimes the mountain you have to climb is not to climb the mountain. Sometimes you have to learn to live without the rush that comes from tempting fate and embarking on some extreme activity. Sometimes you have to get by without testing your limits. Naturally there are many personality types who have no problem avoiding just these kinds of challenges. They're risk and loss averse and content to avoid danger and certainly the prospect of stress and failure. They don't need the highs and have spent their life avoiding situations that threaten to bring about the lows. On the other hand, perhaps carrying a generational burden, a whole other personality seems to thrive only in an aspirational state where there's constant striving for what, at the time, seems impossible. This may involve anything from a job, to a physically desirable love object or a wave. While some may be content reading on the beach in Hawaii, there are surfers who put their lives in danger seeking the Big Kahuna. Marathon runners talk about the wall and there's going to come a day when those with insatiable appetites may find that they're either starving or getting sick and it's at this time that the gamble may lie in taking that big risk, i.e. in not choosing to do what one has always done, in not following the well trodden path with all its familiar signposts. Indeed one of the most difficult and trying parts of this particular endeavor may rest in watching the other climbers from the distance.

{This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture}