Climbing is all about freedom, the freedom to go beyond all the rules and take a chance, to experience something new, to gain insight into human nature.
Interpretation
Climbing symbolizes personal freedom and the opportunity to explore beyond limitations.
In this quote, Reinhold Messner emphasizes that climbing represents more than just a physical activity; it embodies the essence of freedom to challenge societal norms and take risks. Through climbing, individuals can discover new experiences and gain deeper understanding of themselves and human nature, highlighting the transformative power of adventure.
In practice
During a motivational speech about embracing challenges, this quote can be used to inspire others.
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.
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.
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.
He put his foot on one pedal, scooted a few yards and swung his other leg over the saddle. He soared left into the vertiginously sloping hillside road and sped, without touching his brakes ... The hedgerows and sky blurred; he imagined himself in a velodrome as the wind whipped his hair clean...
But what manner of use would it be ploughing through that darkness?' asked Drinian. Use?' replied Reepicheep. 'Use, Captain?' If you mean by filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honour and adventures. And here is as great an adventure as I have ever heard of, and here, if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honours.
Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet.
I have ever been prone to seek adventure and to investigate and experiment where wiser men would have left well enough alone.
I think the only thing I knew for sure is that I wanted to, whatever I did, I wanted to travel with my work, an adventurous spirit.
We must always remember with gratitude and admiration the first sailors who steered their vessels through storms and mists, and increased our knowledge of the lands of ice in the South.
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