Thursday, July 07, 2005
lessons from Everest
It. is. astounding.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet with the NUS Everest Team for an interview. Their 3-year journey in conquering the greatest height in the world was amazing, to say the least. They were such nice guys too; acceded to our request to view the Everest photos and brought a whole chunk. Even agreed to let us reproduce some breathtaking shots for the magazine spread.
I was burning these photos into a CD for my publishing house to take away but couldn't resist saving them on my harddisk to view at a later time. And the photos almost blew me away.
I remember one Everest team member saying that scaling Everest put alot of things into perspective for him. That you don't really cherish life until you find yourself in such a precarious situation where your life is literally hanging in the balance. He said he learnt, on Everest, that there is life and then there is death. So simple. So clear.
We often grouse about having a "bad day", but I figure he has found that we should be happy we even have a day.
Which is so true, don't you think? We so often get caught up in the wheels of life that we forget what we're even doing on this planet. We lose sight of the important things in life and it's quite sad that it takes the world's greatest mountain to remind you of this.
I figure that by fighting elements as harsh as those on Everest, you'd gain a new respect for Mother Nature and the power she wields. It puts us in our place, really, to understand that perhaps the human race doesn't "own" Earth even though we often act as if we do.
So many lessons I have learnt from Everest, without going to Everest. Thanks guys.
P/S I'm awfully tempted to upload the beautiful, beautiful photos, but I didn't exactly ask for permission from the team, so I shan't. (Who wants to get embroiled into an IP lawsuit nowadays?)
// posted by the commentator @ 11:52 am 
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