The months of being disingenuously friendly and the resulting self-hatred taught me that self-confidence cannot be based on the approval of others.

I scavenged for sensation, sought myself in the rewards of being out there, across the Border.

Memories and hope are not so different; one is “having done” the other is “to do.” Neither constitutes action. You are what you do; thus, if you do nothing, you are nobody. If you once did great things, you think you are great. You coast along on dead, preserved laurels, lifeless and wasting away.

Frostbite? I consider that a failure.

Apperance is a Consequence of Fitness.

I don’t actually care what I climb, only how it affects me. Which means the summit doesn’t matter as much as the emotional process.

Eventually, I sickened of people, myself included, who don’t think enough of themselves to make something of themselves-people who did only what they had to and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better.

So go ahead, break stuff. Break yourself on the once-hard edges of yourself. And recycle the debris into the foundation of your future.

Everything costs something everyone pays.

You become what you do. How and what you become depends on environmental influence so you become who you hang around. Raise the standard your peers must meet and you’ll raise your expectations of yourself. If your environment is not making you better, change it.