I think my cultural work is more important than the adventures I did. The adventures are not important for human beings. It's the conquering of the useless.
Interpretation
The essence of cultural work outweighs personal adventures as it contributes more profoundly to humanity.
Reinhold Messner emphasizes the significance of cultural contributions over personal adventures, suggesting that the work one does to enrich culture and society is of greater value than individual experiences. He posits that true achievement lies in overcoming trivial pursuits and fostering meaningful development that benefits humanity as a whole.
In practice
In a discussion about priorities in life, one might quote Messner to stress the importance of contributing to society over personal gains.
I became famous for the fact that I would break many, many limits. People said, 'He does all these crazy things.' But oddly it was a crazy thing only because scientists and climbers said, 'Everest and the 8,000-meter peaks without oxygen - impossible. Messner is becoming sick in his head.'
A 30-year-old rock climber is an old man. At 40, one is in the middle of his high-altitude power. At 50, a crosser of deserts is at his best age. But at 60, each of us is out of the game.
In mountaineering, there is not only the activity, but the philosophy behind it. Some say a moral, but I am against that because all morality is dangerous.
I was the first man to climb the world's 14 tallest peaks without supplementary oxygen, but I never asked how high I would go, just how I would do it.
In my state of spiritual abstraction, I no longer belong to myself and to my eyesight. I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits.
I go to the mountains for an adventure and each time I pray I will get up and down again.
I do not think our successes can compete with those of Lourdes. There are so many more people who believe in the miracles of the Blessed Virgin than in the existence of the unconscious.
O Time the fatal wrack of mortal things,_x000D_ That draws oblivion's curtains over kings;_x000D_ Their sumptuous monuments, men know them not,_x000D_ Their names without a record are forgot,_x000D_ Their parts, their ports, their pomps all laid in th' dust_x000D_ Nor wit nor gold, nor buildings scape time's rust;_x000D_ But he whose name is graved in the white stone_x000D_ Shall last and shine when all of these are gone.
Like looking through a telescope into the Milky Way and wondering if we're alone in the universe, it made me realize with the glaring clarity of desert light how scarce and delicate life is, how insignificant we are compared with the forces of nature and the dimensions of space.
I believe it was God's will that we should come back, so that men might know the things that are in the world, since, as we have said in the first chapter of this book, no other man, Christian or Saracen, Mongol or pagan, has explored so much of the world as Messer Marco, son of Messer Niccolo Polo, great and noble citizen of the city of Venice.
By myth I mean the arrangement of the incidents
I guess my overall life plan is to think about issues that concern me and try to use culture generally to make sense of them. I'm more worried that I'm going to die before I've had time.
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