At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence.

Short form media is reductionist by nature.

This forms the nub of a dilemna that every Everest climber eventually comes up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but if you're too driven you're likely to die.

Most climbers aren't in fact deranged, they're just infected with a particularly virulent strain of the Human Condition.

Having stumbled upon a tolerable career, for the first time in my life I was actually living above the poverty line. My hunger to climb had been blunted, in short, by a bunch of small satisfactions that added up to something like happiness.

Children can be harsh judges when it comes to their parents, disinclined to grant clemency.

Its not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.