Conquer The Heights

BIMBO CABIDOG

About a decade ago, the highest summit in the world beckoned three intrepid Pinoy adventure buffs to taunt danger and the limits of ordinary man by scaling it. They were Leo Oracion, Erwin Pastour Emata and Romy Garduce.

The crown was the zenith of Mount Everest, a destination that already belongs to the sky. They conquered it proving ain’t no mountain high to Filipinos.

When their mountaineering team embarked on the historic expedition of sending three fellow countrymen to the Earth’s highest peak, its members surely knew what they were up to. They figured every feature and element of the terrain and tucked them in memory, like the backs of their hands: from base camp to Camp 1, 2, 3 and 4.

The climbers must have mentally negotiated the Kumbo Icefall, imagined rappelling over the 14 feet vertical wall, and figured the effects of night and day on the snowy routes.

What would make the conquest was the advanced view from the summit. They assumed a different perspective than probably that of the ordinary mortal: conquering the heights. By taking that view, the picture changed from eye-level to the level of the summit-mind. It cast out frailty and powered the human body with confidence.

Without an Everest, or even lesser peaks, man may not have the chance to scale summits beyond his known limits. Not every one of the three Everest climber’s 105 million fellow Filipino at present may have the same chance. Not even one percent.

But along life’s journey, a figurative mountain blocks the path. To keep on going on, there’s no other recourse but to climb. This is not just for Oracion, Emata and Garduce . This is for everyone.

It may not be possible to live at the top, but some time you need to go up there. Life may not be worth living anymore being down below all the time. You need to conquer the heights.

When you summon the courage to scale the heights, and actually scale them, you change just by arriving at a level never gone before. And you are awarded with the rare experience of seeing the world you live in from a different standpoint: the summit.

Don’t spend a life stuck on the ground, crawling along the sordid routes of drab daily existence. Encounter the once-in-a-lifetime excitement of climbing to the top and seeing the breathtaking panorama of vast terra firma and new horizons of reality.

The view from the summit crowns courage and pushing beyond the known limits. The intent may only have been to get over an obstacle, go up and go down the other side to the destination. But an unexpected award awaits reaching the top, as always is the case.

The summit rewards with amazing enlightenment. Such is what they are for. The commanding peak pores down upon the eternal plain of the here and now with a new look. And upon this, humanity rises to greater achievement, the highest excellence: a painter‘s obra maestra, a musician’s ultimate composition, a writer’s prodigious work, a scientist’s phenomenal discovery, or the simple goal of a perennially indigent family to get over the hump.

Everyone can choose his/her zenith and devote a life to reaching it. But oftentimes it’s really not a matter of choice. It is destiny, like being in this world.

Life is not one choice out of many, there is no other choice, just it. Breathing is not for anyone to say no. It is in computer language a default command, hardest to delete by self-choice.

In the factory setting of the product called man, there is a feature named “Climb,” for everyone in life to get over there, above, one time or another, and fulfill oneself.

Perhaps where choice comes is what you do with your figurative mountain. You can choose to make of it a forbidding wall, and reason out not to go on anymore. Or you can make it a stairway to rise and get to where you must be.

If life does not offer any other option than to live, not so with how you may live. Once here, you can decide or at the very least assume the illusion of making a decision which way to go. Be reminded that choice doesn’t stem from realities, for things are plainly there whether you want them or not. It stems from perspective.

The opportunity to climb a mountain – that is, a vision, the apex of excellence, the height of achievement, a literary imprint, a masterpiece of art, an ultimate mission in life, an epic stunt, the greatest challenge, comes to each one’s time on earth. When that presents itself right before you, think no longer of the hard and perilous venture. Think of the once-in-a-lifetime confrontation with fate, the amazing finds and spectacular experience of an essentially different plane of existence at being on top of the world. Be empowered, unlimited, and freed by the advance view there. Go up!

To ascend one’s mountain is to discover at every step the marvelous horizons afar. To climb it is to surpass the trees that obstruct the view, and the structures that confine earthly experience to just seeing the paling complexion of day-to-day.

Summits are not only another level, but a worldview. Once up there, you acquire greater self-awareness and a deeper faith. And you have a power look into the possibility of the impossible, the reachability of the unreachable.

Don’t make being stuck forever below an unbendable fate. Climbing is also a fact of life. Don’t have a mind perpetually cast in limitations, and persist on seeing possibilities to be impossible. Conquer the heights!