In spite of relentlessly climbing the mountain we never make it to the top. Or if we do, it’s either the end of the road or it’s downhill thereafter. The summit is the allure. It is the point from which all else is perceived. And from every angle, unshielded by no more than temporary cloud. It represents the acme of one’s effort; the sudden but expansive perspective enabling one to summarize a lifetime of effort and devotion to production.

The rampant speculation concerning whence we’ve come and whither we go is heedless to interruption by selective curiosity. Day by day, climbing the mountain we seek to codify our prescription for success, our personal formula for fulfillment of native yearnings and distinguishing talents or strengths. It is the natural eruption of the seed from which we derive our singularity and maybe even our purpose in life. And because it is sometimes volcanic, the burst may be violent. Who can predict what intelligence or opportunity will boil from below, released from the confines imposed by nurturing habit, from within the earth upon which we daily tread and struggle for elevation?

But life stops for nothing. Inertia itself promotes its own absorption and straight line motivation. Yet it is as well this very unpredictable sequence which captivates its audience like the hummingbird drawn to the nectar in the pistol of the flower. As much or as little as we may resist, life is a series of change. Like it or not it is our accommodation of change that identifies our progress. Often I have sought to manage or contain the evolution. But change is governed by powers and elements far beyond our limitation. Climbing the mountain is every day presented with its own obstacles and impediments. It is neither our duty nor within our capacity to alter these unimaginable insinuations. We can perhaps ignore them. Or maybe redefine them to a degree. But the ultimate confession is that the theme of life must yet endure the remaining passage while climbing to the top of the mountain.