The mountains in our lives

Insurmountable (adj.) /??n.s??ma?n.t?.b?l/ (especially of a problem or a difficulty) so great that it cannot be dealt with successfully.

Anger management is attainable. Your own fears can be summited. I did not believe this, so I fled as far away from them as humanly possible.

Going up the Khumbu icefall, stedfastly jamming my crampons into walls of ice to the squeaking sound of it - breaking up in crystals and tiny, superficial chunks until the weight of my body stabilized the hold - I sensed total freedom from petty affairs being within reach.

Learning the ropes, I was given fresh insight into a world of intensity and rage. My own insatiable hunger for justice. As I thrusted my Black Diamond Raven ice axe into the pearly white wall of resistant frozen water in the wall above me, I started to lose the urge for revenge.

Every new step was a month's worth of therapy.

The reason for the rieking ginger tea in the morning and its subsequent smell and taste, inside a tent pegged to a seemingly volatile piece of unreliable sheets of snow that could break off at any given force of unpredictable tectonic movement deep below our mantle of understanding, made perfectly sense. It rejuvenated my childhood's longing for epiphany.

Substance can release essence. Essence will provide substance.

The crossing of the invisible death zone, above 8000 meters above sea level (26,000 ft) marked a final end to my own will to live, just for the sake of living.

I needed to feel alive, in order to stay alive.

I was away for a brief semester. When I came back, I told everyone I had been attending film school in New York. Yes, I also did this. But only for a mere eight weeks, from mid January until March 26th.

During my stay I wrote a WGA-registered movie script that made it to the quarter finals in the official Oscars' competition, the Academy Nicholl Fellowships. Never told anyone at the time.

After meeting a fellow writer in my class, a Dutch guy exhibiting what I perceived at the time as having weird outlooks on life, who invited me to go climbing, I said I am not good with heights. He said he did not believe this was my problem.

Then, after a few weeks of persuation, I succumbed to the forces within. Early April, I landed in Lukla Airport, in a small plane that just barely managed to brake before it would have hit a wall of stone in the end of runway 06. The takeoff runway is named 24, even though these are the only two runways available.

As we touched tarmac, I suddenly felt the need to give my former employee a shoutout. If only they could see me now.

Why this urge to condemn them to eternal suffering emerged the very second we had set wheels on the ground came, I to this day still have no explanation of.

I still remember whispering out the window to the wild cherry trees in the hills above.

Who are you to judge me? Stay the fuck away from me. You are constantly underestimating me. You really think I am willing to listen to these accusations? Go to hell.

In recent years, I have faced difficulties in my personal life that has seemed impossible to deal with. My understanding of what the real problem stems from, has been clogged by my inability to deal with my inner fears.

I developed patterns to sedate the pain. Small, errate patterns so miniscule they weren't even visible to my closest friends or partner. Or to me.

Now, all of a sudden, I knew all about it, and I could see how my actions at the time had surfaced as the only possible choice for me. To give in and let the anger flow.

How do you feel, right now, Sir?

My friend, Dorje, asked me in order to make sure that I wasn't drained of all energy, or beginning to developing HACE. High altitude sickness.

I feel sad, I told him. Sad that my father never really confirmed me.

Come again, Sir?

Instead of visiting my wounds, I had traveled away from them. All the way to the Himalayan Mountain Range. To the endless lines of adventurers waiting to exhale as they were jammed in traffic below the Hillary Step.

I was baffled to the fact that nobody wanted to yield in this line. The obsession of getting to the summit made no room for gentlemanship or empathy. Getting up means the sherpa receive their summit bonus. The nameless sherpa people, risking their lives for the sake of their customer's self indulgment.

News reports sent back home to our pond of Western conformity about success. An adventure crowned with victory. Reaching the summit all by themselves, so it seemed.

No man is an island. No man can do this without his team. Your life is lived alongside others, in collaboration with others.

Your achievements are the results of a number of people working together or supporting you.

My most precious friends, they became. Dorje Sherpa. Dawa Sherpa. We were not on the mountain to prove anything. We were here because we loved the serenity and the long sought after tranquility of the soul.

This driving force had brought us to nearby summits for practice. And complete rest of mind.

I felt the excruciating pain rippling through my body, as if the mountain tried to suck every inch of life out of me. The struggle to reach the highest point felt pointless. This peak is insurmountable. And yet, we were sure to reach it, for some reason I now couldn't remember.

As I stood there, now, in this long line of attending nothingness, I realized how deeply we seek to surmount the dominance of others, other people's need to suppress you.

Revenge over those bastards.

I forgave them, every single one of them. By name, by profession, by significance and order. I wasn't here to summit, I was here to submit.

We turned around and headed down the North Face. I wanted to live, even for the sake of being alive. Ever since, I have faced the pain, even welcomed it. Staying with it has healed me.

I chose the path less traveled by.

And that has made all the difference.