Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you
can present every moment with the cumulative
force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the
adopted talent of another you have only an
extemporaneous half possession. ... Do that
which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope
too much or dare too much.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-RelianceMount Analogue
"He may. But in the end, it's the mountain that will
decide who will climb it."
(Everest climb leader when asked whether an older
veteran climber would get a chance at the summit)
There are outer mountains and inner mountains.
Their very presence beckons to us, calls us to
ascend. Perhaps the full teaching of a mountain is
that you carry the whole mountain inside yourself, the
outer one as well as the inner. And sometimes you
search and search for the mountain without finding it