I don’t understand why people climb Mt. Everest. In some ways it’s obvious: a monumental challenge of the body’s limits, conquering the tallest mountain in the world.

But I don’t get it.

Maybe it’s more accurate that I understand why people want to climb the tallest mountain in the world, but I think it’s a little stupid to do so.

Honestly, it makes me rageous. The expense! The risk! The expense! The risk!

I’m not an athletic person and I only get competitive in board games and quiz nights, so I know that I am not Everest’s target audience. So there’s that. Maybe I’m just jealous that I have never been brave enough to trust my body that much. I can appreciate that unlike yours truly, there’s a world of people who DO want to push themselves, who work towards physical goals, and achieve them. I, we, respect, admire, and celebrate individuals who have done so.

But. Isn’t there something odd about the fact that we celebrate people who have climbed Everest as conquerors, while largely ignoring a) the privilege and wealth it requires to afford the trip, let alone the time it takes to train for and complete such a feat, and b) the fact that in order to climb Everest, you absolutely could never, would never get there without a team of people (in particular sherpas) who do everything for you enable the trip? To make the climbers’ trek possible, sherpa teams climb the next day’s stage of the mountain at night, carrying all of the team’s gear and laying the path. They then climb back down, and climb the stage again in the morning with the paying intrepid hikers, before climbing the next stage again that night. Climbers do not, cannot, climb without a team to support them.

You should have seen me watching the movie Sherpa. I was uncomfortable and angry, yelling at the screen throughout. The risks and historically unacknowledged role that the Himalayan guides play to enable the Western desire of ‘conquering nature’ is crazy. As one reviewer put it, the movie was;

A beautiful yet tragic, terrifying and revealing doco that showed the undeniable differences in values and attitudes between the Nepalese culture and beliefs and the West’s insatiable desire for thrill, adventure and self glorification at any cost.

– Reviewer, IMDB

The West’s insatiable desire for thrill, adventure and self-glorification at any cost.

The west’ project of the ego, as it were.

Climbing Everest is not a solo task. It’s actually the opposite. Yet in our cultural mythology, when one conquers Everest, or Everestesq ambitions, it is only the individual – and perhaps their ego – that we celebrate.

That is a problem.

Again, I’m not, nor have I ever been, one who is motivated by big goals or achievements. I am far more likely to help someone else flesh out a dream of theirs than I do of my own. This is not false modesty, as this trait has its shadow side: most of my professional and personal life has been a battle of fighting my sense of inadequacy or imposter syndrome, the loser amongst the ‘real’ competitors. I really wish I was more driven most of the time. I’m not an objective bystander in this game. BUT. BUT,

I have been having several conversations with friends and colleagues of late, many lamenting the failure they feel, the despondency with their own career choice, often because they feel a sense of ‘not having made it’, not having conquered their field like they thought (or ought to have) at this age/stage in life. There’s a sense of time slipping away, where their window of relevancy and voice is quickly diminishing.

They haven’t conquered [their] Everest, whatever it is. Maybe they never will. And that means they’ve failed as a human.

Perhaps it’s not just an individual problem though, here friends. We can’t all statistically be failures. Maybe it’s a broader social phenomenon.

Some social context: We are living in a world increasingly shaped by neoliberalism. It’s a broad philosophy which I will not do complete justice here to1, but a core function of the worldview is endorsing liberal rights and the free-market economy to protect freedom and promote economic prosperity. The freelancer is one of the sovereign figures of neoliberalism, the person on contract, who makes shortterm deals for limited obligation and thrives through the hustle over the long haul (Berlant, 2011)².

Think about it. The individual, ‘alone’ against the world, free to hustle, free to market themselves as a commodity, and THRIVING on the freedom, on the conquest. You are not hindered by the expectations of institutional, religious, national or familial loyalties: you are free to do whatever you want to win. The system is set up in adoration of said success stories – you too can ‘make it’, make your mark on the world (and in particular, on an identified mountain) if you simply have the will to do so.

It’s a seductive story, right? not just about climbing everest, but the desire to be the sovereign figure in our world, the one who has identified a need/market/niche career choice that you can work at, get a name for, rise to the top of, and then rest, satisfied, or perhaps reassured that your life has been worth something.

However we must remember, dear friends, that the mythology of the successful individual is still just that – a mythology. Some may rise to the top; some do, and that is glorious. But they don’t do it without significant help. And that’s ok. In fact, that’s wonderful. People can and do make amazing things with support from human – and now technological – achievement. BUT. At the same time, we criticise those who don’t succeed on their own, and we perhaps may lay self hate if we aren’t the ones who have identified what they want their everest to be, let alone attempt or achieve a summit. But the system isn’t set up for everyone to succeed on their own. Nor are we as humans built to do so. So maybe it’s time for us to allow some grace when we haven’t conquered the mountain – yet – or ever will.

Maybe we as a society need to stop idolising individual pursuit as the ultimate success. And importantly, we need to stop judging those who don’t – or can’t – make the attempt to ‘make it on their own’.

Because really, conquering is lonely. By its definition, you have to defeat the ‘other’ in order to succeed. It’s the feeding of ego. This type of confidence needs energy to properly feed it. So we feed it by telling ourselves that this is what success is, this is victory – this means that I’m worth something, because I’ve achieved the ‘impossible dream’, ignoring or relishing the expense of others who help us get there

Please hear me. People should have goals. Dreams. Pursuits. Incredible things are [only] made and done in this world when they do. But they shouldn’t come at the expense of a) other people, or b) your sense of self worth without it.

If everything in the world is a mountain to climb, don’t you feel tired?

If the world of conquest is a lonely one, maybe we’re made for contribution rather than conquest.

Participation doesn’t always lead to summit climbing. There is perhaps something to be said for the life that is not ordinary or boring, but is absent of the anxiety of proof or conquest. There is something to be said for the beautiful act of contribution for its own sake, rather than a means to an end. There is something to be said for the life in which we champion each other and readily support a collective goal rather than an individual one. Where the blessings can be felt by many. where the pride can be found too.

If you’ve climbed Everest, I applaud you. You are incredible. But if you haven’t, you’re still cool too, by the way. If you’ve been the one to haul up other’s equipment; if you don’t know what your mountain is, but you’d love to climb one one day, don’t be afraid to not do it on your own. It’s counter cultural. but its far more realistic, and much more enjoyable.

Maybe we’re made for contribution rather than conquest.

K X

1. You can read up on the vast literature on the relation of the emergence of neoliberal economic and state practices in relation to social and cultural formations and forms of subjectivity, such as David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism ; Wendy Brown’s Edgework ; Aihwa Ong’s Neoliberalism as Exception ; Bob Jessop’s The Future of the Capitalist State ; and many pieces by Silvia Federici, including “Precarious Labor” and “The Reproduction of Labour Power in the Global Economy.”
2. Berlant, L.G. (2011). Cruel optimism / Lauren Berlant. Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press