Everyone has an Everest
What do you say to a man who has done something most of us can’t even dream of? How can one string those words into coherence of a feeling of absolute appreciation and respect that stems from the gut? What sort of gene structure enables an otherwise ordinary seeming human being to undertake feats of Herculean, not to mention lethal, proportions?
These questions, and more, inhabited my sleepy hollow of a mind last week as an effect. The cause was meeting a man named Marco Cayuso. When he walked into the auditorium there was little about him that gave any indications of what he was personifying. ‘This better be good…’ I said to myself as I realized it was going to be a ninety-minute presentation. A time I would probably be happy wiling away into something mundane – but familiar. But no, destiny had it in the cards that bright morning that I sit myself down and witness what Marco had to share. And I did.
An electronic engineer by profession, Marco has three things to be proud of - he was on the first Venezuelan mountaineering team to scale the Mount Everest, he has been to the North Pole and well, yes, he has been to the South Pole too.
He began his presentation with the usual ‘I am going to show some pictures and videos now…’ routine. A bit I have become all too familiar with at this place. I was expecting to see endless miles of nothingness filled with snow capped peaks judging the mortals below with their majestic, almost bully-like, demeanor. I was certain this would be dotted with four or five almost invisible dots dragging or carrying things on their non existent backs. Add a little wind to this picture and Lo! You have the ninety minutes rolled into one summarizing photograph followed by a hundred similar looking ones.
Fortunately I was in for a major disappointment. Having surrounded myself with a lot of mediocrity I guess I too have become a tragic casualty for the same. I tend to be cynical, dismissive, judgmental and impatient. An attribute that has cost me dearly in the recent past. But then here it was – as naked as the Himalayas themselves, a slap-in-the-face reality of how meaningless and juvenile I really was. As the images of tanned and snow-bearded mountaineers grinning back painfully with the Venezuelan flag flashed before me, I had an epiphany.
This was not about him climbing something or going somewhere. This wasn’t even about an engineer who actually had an accommodating job that allowed him to pursue such time and cost heavy hobbies. No. This was about a man making a point – loud and clear. The dozens of reasons he might have found to abandon his mission might seem like a joke if he looks around him now. The hundreds of sleepless nights he might have spent freezing his blood in the middle of nowhere cursing his decision to make this unnecessary move might now seem meaningless. The close to death encounters he might have had where he was convinced he would die this way, might now seem like a refreshing reminder of how amazing life really is.
I don’t know. But as far as I am concerned I was glad to shake hands with a man who, despite having scaled the extremes of this planet, still remained with two important things – a head on the shoulder and feet on the ground. For this, I walked up to him later and shook his hand all the while thanking him for crushing my cocky self with just a mirror to his achievements. One person’s success is definitely another one’s inspiration, I thought.
I hope I too can scale my life’s Everest like him someday. I just hope my reasons do not die like my arrogant pride. Amen.
..ShaKri..
© Shashi Krishna., all rights reserved.
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