I’ve had a lot of words about Half Dome rolling around my head since then, but I think they’re only for me. I will say this, though: hiking Half Dome by myself was the start of a giant ball rolling. Maybe that’s not fair. It was the continuation of a giant ball rolling, but it was a significant push, and it’s one I’m so thankful for. There’s no end to what we’re capable of, and it’s a beautiful thing to have the body and mind and space and time to remind myself of that. This Humans of New York quote sums it up pretty well:
I’ve spent my life trying to undo habits—especially habits of thinking. They narrow your interaction with the world. They’re the phrases that come easily to your mind, like: ‘I know what I think,’ or ‘I know what I like,’ or ‘I know what’s going to happen today.’ If you just replace ‘know’ with ‘don’t know,’ then you start to move into the unknown. And that’s where the interesting stuff happens.
I don’t know a better way to describe it.
