6/1/09
Although I feel I have wasted a lot of my time with movies and tv shows, I have occupied much of my time by reading. I am reading a number of books including Thoreau’s “Walden”, a Tom Brown book, and a book about a modern Sioux medicine man and his traditional methods of healing. I just finished another book that made a profound impression on me. It is so strange, but sometimes it seems as if books find a way into my hands just when I need to read them. Many times it seems they match up with my sentiments, and often I really identify to a particular message that seems very pertinent to my personal life. One of the best things about reading is coming away from the words and experiences of others encouraged or a bit more clearheaded. This particular book was Reinhold Messner’s account of his solo climb of Nanga Parbat. It was about far more than just the climbing aspect, but the experience as a whole. About him facing his own fear, and using his immense loneliness to his advantage. I love his way of writing. I feel I can relate to him. He always seems to notice the beauty that surrounds him, he constantly raises questions about himself and everything society says, and he strives to live in the moment. What some would call arrogance on his part, I find as honesty. I think he is the greatest mountaineer this world has ever seen. Here are a few quotes I have taken away from his book:
“I can’t live my daily life like other people. It would finish me. That’s why I go my own way; only when I am doing what’s right for me, can I feel strong. I don’t know where this strength comes from, and I don’t try to explain it; its enough that its there, I use it. Till now I have found my full strength in wild gorges, high lonely valleys and high mountain country.”
“Its only when you live alone that you can go your own way, completely make your own decisions, and take full responsibility for them.”
“Anyone who can keep hold of his religion has been very lucky-or unlucky.”
“Nor is it easy to give up a world I’m used to and find another for myself in order to be able to carry on living. I have clung desperately to everything for too long and in the process worn myself out and those to whom I have held fast. Now I want to play my own game, without hesitation, without regret, and I want to play it, even if on Nanga Parbat I lose.”
“Loneliness is a force that can kill you if you are unprepared for it, but it will carry you beyond your own horizon if you understand how to use it to your advantage.”
“…in the high mountains the desperate business of living can be transcended by the sheer joy of being alive. In such moments one can discover god inside oneself.”
“There is a right way of life for each one of us. Whoever finds his own way and has the courage to follow it can’t go far wrong. Its just that most people get talked out of who they really are.”
“As soon as one ceases to cling to things or worry about oneself and others, when one no longer strives towards progress, towards building things; if one can cut free of his own past-then one doesn’t need a home beyond one’s own mind.”
“There are five requirements for a lonely bird:
the first that he flies to the highest point;
the second that he doesn’t yearn for company, even of his own kind;
the third, that he points his beak towards heaven;
the fourth, that he has no specific color of his own;
the fifth, that he sings very softly.” --San Juan de la Cruz
“The art of walking lies in going the right way; that’s where you find your friends and where you are strong; let yourself go in the direction you feel able to go, if at all possible. If you find your own way and travel by it, strength, direction, and purpose are yours, and nothing and no one can hold you back.”
--Mohammed Tahir, Baluchi from Queta
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