"...Upward and forever upward..", George Mallory
Mountains rise up from the earth over tens of millions of years, and are torn down over tens of millions more. Our greatest civilizations are but ant hills at their bases. Or are they? The oldest mountains are not the highest, toughest and rockiest of ranges. The oldest are those with their tops ground to dust from ages of rivers of ice and winds whittling them down. Some have risen and fallen, and been completely ground to dust like the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado. Some of the youngest have risen from four miles beneath the ocean floor as two plates collided for over a half billion years. Now they rise to nearly six miles above the ocean surface. Sound familiar?
Some of humankind's oldest civilizations have risen out of the nothingness in deserts thousands of years ago. They rose to great heights in their time, and fell to the ages. Their bones still lie there in the way of great pyramids, castles, and cathedrals. Now that they are gone many of us hold them in reverence and realize that they can teach us so much. The youngest of civilizations, in the modern age, are the largest the earth has seen. Are they still built from the same ingredients?
Many of the ancient civilizations, and some which still exist; have a reverence of nature. Modern civilizations are built from the bones of the ancient ones, just as the highest mountains are built from ancient ranges. Yet the youngest of civilizations might disrespect nature the most. Economic growth is good. Should our stock market be based upon individual buying power and unlimited growth with no higher limit? If it were really based upon permanence and the growth of happiness why is it that we tear down the mountains?
Mountains certainly have moving parts and grow larger until they succumb to natural forces and are ground to bits of sand. There are fossil sea shells, millions of years old, from past environmental apocalypses found in the Himalayas. We can learn so much from the history of a mountain. Yet we drill for oil and frack for natural gas in them, decimating the very stuff they are built from. In the past, and in the current age, we tear them apart in search of diamonds and precious metals. Or we lop their tops off for coal to fuel the insatiable furnaces of that unbounded economic growth. IS THIS REALLY SUSTAINABLE? Does humanity really think that tearing down the greatest of natural monoliths is going to push us, "..upward and forever upward..?" Really??
Mountains exist for millions of years yet a civilization which might not last another fifty has deemed itself worthy to tear apart the greatest of them, or blow them apart with forces much greater than dynamite. What happens, even with the green revolution, when we run of resources? "Reduce, reuse, recycle", not visa-versa. The solution is simple. Simplify your life. "It's so easy to complicate it, but so difficult to simplify it." (Yvon Chouniard) So out of reverence for those high places let's at least try.. "I'm pessimistic about the overall situation, but that doesn't mean that I can't be a small part of the solution. I'd rather take that route than be a part of the problem." - paraphrased from Chouniard's philosophies. Perhaps we can go forever upward, but not by taking the easiest route or the quickest one. "How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top." - Chouniard.
There are many pathways to the top of a mountain, but there is only one best path. It takes time to search for it. It takes effort to find it. It takes even more effort to map it out, and eventually make a go of it. Don't measure a mountain by its' height. Measure it by the difficulty of the route, the time it takes to climb, the methods use to get there, and ultimately what you can learn from it. Challenge is enjoyable, it fulfills us and gives us happiness when to climb difficult peaks. We learn from our failures and give it another shot from a different angle. What if we literally applied these philosophies to the largest of environmental problems? Wouldn't solving those trickle down to the very stones upon which society is built upon? Consider that..
~Nick Whittemore (December 22nd, 2013)
Related Video about the power of simplicity: The Simplest Solution
