Peaks

If you ever took a personality test in your life, one of those silly ones often found online, that are nothing more than an endless stream of binary choices (Cats or Dogs? Sunrise or Sunsets? Waking up early or Staying up late?), you probably answered the inevitable question “Sea or Mountain?”.

The reason why those two are almost always the presented options is obvious, since they represent the two morphological extremes of what’s available to us human beings while staying with our feet attached to the earth. But in addition to being obvious physical extremes, inescapably linked to each other since mountains are measured starting at sea level, they also represent two very distinct ways to live life.

To me though, those two options don’t carry the same spiritual value, and I don’t think I am alone in this. There’s a reason why humanity has always searched for deeper meaning going upwards, towards the sky, summiting mountains. Moses didn’t take a stroll down to the sea to get his tablets; he ascended Mount Sinai. It’s the same reason why you can expect to find a cross or a small chapel pretty much on every peak throughout the Alps (and I suspect that’s true in other places as well).

Peaks have something different, something special. The act of going up towards them carries a different meaning. That is because, back in the days, reaching a summit required effort, preparation, and a willingness to embrace discomfort. And the prize, at the end of the journey, was a new perspective on the world around and beneath you.

It can still be that way, if you’re willing to go through the effort, but sadly, in our never-ending quest to make everything accessible to everyone, we have slowly turned secluded peaks into tourist attractions, easily reachable by cable car in exchange for money. And in doing so, the true meaning of going up is lost, and what remains is an endless stream of Instagram selfies, snapped in locations that in a not-too-distant past were dominated by silence and inner contemplation.

And even though the call of the peaks still persists, through generations and civilisations, and at the same time, life down on the beaches is as lively as ever. Because life has always been busy down to the sea. Civilisation did not evolve on top of mountains after all, we needed water—either rivers or the sea—to move stuff around, to do commerce, to trade, to import what we didn’t have and to export what we had. Something that is still true to this day, since ports are vital to the functioning of our society.

But as more and more people continue the journey downwards, abandoning the mountains to find more comfortable lives in more hospitable places, the earth is doing what it can to push us back up, with sea levels rising, putting our precious coastal cities at risk.

As it’s often the case in life, everything is an act of balance.

— M