Woody Allen: It's just an accident that we happen to be on earth, enjoying our silly little moments, distracting ourselves as often as possible so we don't have to really face up to the fact that, you know, we're just temporary people with a very short time in a universe that will eventually be completely gone. And everything that you value, whether it's Shakespeare, Beethoven, da Vinci, or whatever, will be gone. The earth will be gone. The sun will be gone. There'll be nothing. The best you can do to get through life is distraction. Love works as a distraction. And work works as a distraction. You can distract yourself a billion different ways. But the key is to distract yourself.
Colin Dickey: Early mountaineers were a product of early modernism; they were nationalists, scientists, and individualists. The current crop are by-products of capitalism and corporate guruism, CEO alpha males (and, less often, females) who've been raised to believe that any obstacle can be overcome with sheer determinism and willpower, Richard Bransons who believe success in business can translate to domination of nature ... Alongside these corporate adventurers are climbers like Ueli Steck and Simone Moro, the men who were involved in the fight on Everest in April 2013. But these athletes, too, are all about business. Steck, a recent New Yorker profile revealed, has been able to live primarily on sponsorships and the lecture circuit by coming up with ever more new climbing feats and stunts, which was what he was attempting with Moro in April when the trouble started. The conflict on the side of Mount Everest was perhaps less about East versus West, or even rich versus working class, than it was two competing business models, both milking the mountain for as much cash as they can get out of it. In this sense, our age gets the mountaineers it deserves. It is said that from the top of Everest one can see the curve of the Earth. One has to wonder if those who make it up there -- the ones who've been willing to gamble away their humanity, who've come to kill dragons and end up becoming monsters themselves -- can also see the arc of history.
Anil Dash: People will move mountains to earn a gold star by their name on the Internet.
Ann Friedman, on LinkedIn: It's an Escher staircase masquerading as a career ladder.
Li Po: We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.
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