(The Summit of Mt. Pulag, the highest mountain in Luzon)
I’ve never really been much of a physically active person (despite the fact that I’ve been an ROTC officer for the past couple of years) but what I’m sure I am is stubborn (and severely spontaneous). Perhaps it’s the Cancer in me, but I’ve always felt that if I wanted something, the last person to tell me I couldn’t do it should be myself – injuries, allergies, and other priorities be damned. It’s not a very good outlook, I admit, but it’s helped me be who I am today.
And who I am most currently is a mountaineer.
It’s all so surreal, honestly. How, five months ago, I couldn’t even run a kilometre without having to clutch my chest or hang on to my shaking knees; how, just last June, I couldn’t imagine carrying a pack 1/3 my weight (which is heavy, considering how bulky I am); and how, during the start of the semester, I looked above the heads of a couple hundred students and realized I couldn’t do it — but I had to.
And I did, but not with the help of a multitude of others.
I don’t know, I guess, more than anything, it’s the reason why I started this blog (one among three other online sanctuaries), because I wanted to remind myself that sometimes the best decisions made are the ones made on a whim and the best lives lived are the ones that are not let go of. It’s easy as hell to give up because it’s far too lovely to stop moving when every fibre of your body is stretched, or pulled, or cramping, but when you realize that you haven’t seen anything yet, that the world you see is not everything that the world has to offer, then it’s even easier to stand up, metaphorically give your detractors the bad finger, and trudge on.
Because that’s what we do — we trudge on. Sometimes we have a smile on our faces, sometimes it’s tears more than anything; sometimes it’s a combination of both… but we do. We trudge on, we move forward, we climb, because we know that the view from heaven is so much more than the view we have in the ground. We store our energies as we climb, always saving a little bit of who we are as we inch ourselves to the sky just so we can scream when we reach the peak, “Wow.” No pretention, no big words, just little bodies staring at the glory of greatness. Just “wow.” That’s when we’ll feel glad we didn’t give up halfway through, especially since many people have done so…
…especially since you almost did.
A wise man once told me that life wasn’t a succession of destroying boundaries, but rather of pushing them further. Don’t destroy anything, he liked to say, because destruction is dangerous. Instead, carefully push everything even further, silently finding comfort in things you’ve always known to be foreign as things now completely familiar. Don’t push too much too sudden, because it might cause you irreversible pain, but push enough to realize you’re not being stagnant. Push enough so you can be able to look around once in a while and quietly whisper to yourself, “Damn, I never knew this was possible.”
And then continue pushing.
Continue pushing until, finally, you’re where you want to be; you’re who you want to become. Continue pushing because that’s what makes you human. The goosebumps you get when you witness your first sunrise on the top of the highest mountain in the land, the revived energy you get when you finally realize you’re at the peak and there are no more steep ascents to conquer – at least for the time being, the understanding that you’re surrounded by the world around you, and your problems seem nothing compared to the greatness of creation… they let you know that you just have to move. Continue to devour the sights. Continue to lie on the ground feeling like stardust as you stare at the night sky and revel at the multitude of stars there are. Continue to understand that the world is much too grand for us to not attempt to find out what it has to share.
And then, when you go down, remember everything.
Remember how it was hard. Remember how you almost gave up. Remember how your sore ankle or your wretched knee or your pained back made it even harder for you to climb — but remember, above all, how you continued to move. Remember the first shooting star, the first fall, the first time you had to relieve yourself with the use of a trowel, the first time you got drenched because you were unprepared for the downpour, and then smile. Laugh, even. Be happy because in that quick trip up the mountains, you have become a visitor of the gods, and they have welcomed you well. In fact, they have welcomed you with so much warmth that even while you trek down, you’re already thinking of other mountains whose wonders you want to see.
That’s when you’ll know – it’s well worth it. It’s well worth it.
I’ve only recently climbed my fourth mountain, and I know I have a whole lifetime ahead of me filled with summits and trekking and slipping and being as close as I can get to the heavens while I’m alive, but I’m excited. I now know that I want to witness the world, and I want to go back and tell everyone about what I felt, and saw, and heard, and smelled, and tasted even.
I’m excited. And while I know that there will be hardships along the way, I wouldn’t really mind so much. If the price you get for sweat and tears and blood is a front seat to the best shows on earth, then to hell with pain. If what you get for hardships are the stars, then I don’t mind falling; because while I generally dislike scrapes and wounds and extreme temperatures, I love the views from the balconies of the gods much more.
And I can’t wait for more of them.
(Thank you, Loyola Mountaineers.)
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