like those in the valley behind us

most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships. some travel into the mountains accompanied by more experienced guides who know the best and least dangerous routes by which they arrive at their destination. still others, inexperienced and untrusting, attempt to make their own routes. few of these are successful, but occasionally some, by sheer will and luck and grace, do make it. once there they become more aware than any of the others that there is no single or fixed numbers of routes. there are as many routes as there are individual souls...

when you try to climb a mountain to prove how big you are, you almost never make it. and even if you do, it's a hollow victory. in order to sustain the victory you have to prove yourself again and again in some other way, and again and again and again, driven forever to fill a false image, haunted by the fear that the image is not true and someone will find out.

that's never the way.