The Mountains Teach You Everything You Need to Know About Perspective
If these red outcrops play host to immortal garden parties, Pike’s Peak is mighty Zeus standing splendid atop Mount Olympus, time’s vengeance against blackened sky and darkest void.
We parked the car and instantly transported to another world.
We gazed up at the majesty that lay before us. For 300 million years powerful forces carved, chiseled and scraped this patch of Earth into an arena suitable for the gods themselves, hence the name, “Garden of the Gods.”
Water bottle filled, sandwich packed, I was ready to explore one of Colorado’s most famous mountain outcrops.
What I wasn’t ready for was how many questions the mountains would raise, and how many answers I didn’t have.
Feeling small is just the beginning
When you’re in the presence of something great, you can’t help but feel humbled.
My life is a drop in the bucket of cosmic time. The scenery around me had endured unimaginable violence for hundreds of millions of years. Features forged in fire.
I picked up a rock on the side of the trail. Its story was greater than all the stories humans have told since we bothered telling stories. It held a shape so pure and so resolute it predated the first dinosaurs.
Who was I to behold such a thing? Who was I to dare comprehend such a thing?
Getting to the top isn’t about getting to the top
You’ve undoubtedly heard the phrase, “It’s not about the destination it’s about the journey.” I prefer a slight variation:
“It’s not about the journey, it’s about who you make the journey with.”
Our crew climbed and explored like we set out to do. But we also told silly jokes. Reminisced about past events. Contemplated the future. We were more than three family members participating in an experience. We were three breathing, thinking, utterly alive beings sharing our assurances, our fears, our desires, our ambitions.
You gain new perspective on the people you love when you’re in the mountains.
You realize they’re more than how you’ve experienced them. More than stimuli dotting impressions on your brain. More than a little sister, more than a father. More than a dear friend, more than a mentor. They’re just as human as you. Just as scared, just as unsure, just as confident, just as sturdy.
Not flawless, but perfect.
Getting to the top isn’t about stopping at the top
You’ll notice something strange about the photo above. The snowy cap peaking through the rock is Pike’s Peak, one of Colorado’s famous “14ers,” 14,115 feet above sea level and roughly 8 miles west of Garden of the Gods.
If these red outcrops play host to immortal garden parties, Pike’s Peak is mighty Zeus standing splendid atop Mount Olympus, time’s vengeance against blackened sky and darkest void.
There is always another mountain to climb. Simply because one adventure ends does not mean all adventures end.
The further outward your gaze, the further inward your sight
The beauty of the mountaintop is how far you can see.
Nothing but trees and Earth and the empire of winds for miles and miles. A storm in the distance. A crack in the clouds. Sunlight streaming down from the heavens.
I didn’t have all the answers when I reached the summit that day. I still don’t. But I have more answers now because I climbed the mountain.
I know more about the universe and my place in it. I have more respect for what came long before and will remain long after. I have more appreciation for you, for me, for any human who calls this tiny blip in time and space home, no matter how lengthy or brief the trip.
The mountains are incredible. They are to be honored for their defiance of the ages. But their greatest gift is not their majesty or their beauty.
Their greatest gift is giving “breathing, thinking, utterly alive” beings the freedom to make sense of their lives and, ultimately, improve them.