The formative experiences of a human’s life defines their character, provided s/he can interpret the value in the experience. Late August, 1999. -20F. >20,000 feet. Fumbling to fit borrowed crampons, Americo’s hands were being conductively robbed of their warmth and dexterity. Astonished that he was not taking precautions against this manner of heat loss by wearing “contact” gloves, I reached a polar fleece clad hand into my pack and extracted a multi-tool to adjust his crampons. What I took for granted as a fundamental piece of alpine-craft this man, that had dozens of high altitude summits, did not possess until it was revealed. And so it is with knowledge. Until we absorb it through experience or abstraction its value is unknown and we are preyed upon by ignorance.

We have no claws, or fur or feathers to protect us from this wilderness so we must rely on our intellect and ability to think to survive and thrive. Any person with the self-respect and wonder to live well will value the pursuit of a good life by virtue of the constant illumination of their previously undiscovered capabilities as well as the honing of those capabilities s/he deems of value.

Fundamentally this world exists. It is a challenging place that has been observed and lived in for an amount of time that is beyond any one individual’s capability to experience. We must rely on our senses to experience what is proximal to us and our intellect to abstract the rest from knowledge passed to us from those who have come before. This world is cleaved in two by the human experience. The tangible, physical world outside us is brought in by the sensory system and the rest is made real by our contemplation of it. This ontology of self inherently creates a self-centric view of existence so we must be wary not to fall into the illusion that the things we cannot perceive do not exist.

Our senses can be fooled and our minds can be ridged unless we seek to clarify and expand them. This vestal we inhabit, these bodies have inherent needs that only the world that sustains us can provide. Maslow most eloquently articulated the hierarchy of human needs. The base two of physical and safety needs inextricably bind us to this physical world. Yet the top three of love, belonging and self-actualization seem to push us further and further out of the natural world in today’s American society.

The extent and understanding of human experience is continually evolving and expanding through our experience and absorption of knowledge passed to us. Ultimately it is up to us to assign understanding about our environment based on our individual interpretive authorities. This is a slippery slope, as we cannot chose to redefine the elemental world but we can select what the elements truly mean.

All things are absolute until we experience otherwise, therefore we must seek out the limits of our ignorance so that we may make a well informed assumption on the validity of “truth.”  We must seek out alternate perspectives and grind theme against one another to reduce them to what is elemental and foundational according to ourselves. Most in this world rely on an interpretive authority or some manner of historicism to determine morality. And this is sound so long as the source is vetted and challenged. Our values are ultimately self-determinant and reliant on well investigated perspective. It is our lot to associate everything with our movement through the world. This life’s journey through the howling winter wilderness will claim us lest we prepare against its thievery by seeking to understand it.