As many before, I learned that the moment we think we have attained the goal, we lose it. Success is empty. The sum of all our luck, judgments, lessons learned and heeded, elevation gained and lost, our fitness and skill is zero.

“Climb up by looking down,” he says in my mind.

Fears are overcome incrementally. Increasing skill, ambition and experience has eroded my fear of exposure and isolation.

I have exorcised my own expectations and embraced life in the moment.

“Climb smart Steve. Technique. Relax and breathe. Climb smart Steve. Relax. Breathe.”

As my body acquired muscle, and in turn strength, there was gradually born within me the tendency towards positive acceptance of pain, and my interest in physical suffering deepened.”

Climbing is the only vehicle I have to achieve that odd sensation of both emptiness and fullness where I no longer feel alone.

I’ve read that a samurai endeavors to make every decision within the space of seven breaths.

Success, when achieved, is deceptive – for there lies praise, closure, achievement.

Failure is the more valuable fruit, borne as it is from the knurled vine of process.

Adopt a beginner’s approach to climbing; prepare myself for the partner that will once again provide that magical synergy.

Every climb ends, as does every life. And each ends where it began: on the ground, and eventually, in the ground. We always return again and again to earth, the beginning. The sum always equals zero.

We should not be blamed for thinking our undertakings beautiful and grand, for they are. Meaning is born from struggle, and each of us has our own unique battle.