Storie.

Nowadays, there are many young mountain climbers who seek to climb many mountains around the world. They were young and wore brightly clothing so as to be easily spotted should they become lost in the snow. They knew the right path to follow to the peaks.

The heights were already festooned with aluminium pins; all they had to do was to attach their lines to them, and they could climb safely. They were there for a holiday adventure, and on Monday they would return to their jobs with the feeling that they had challenged nature—and won.

But this wasn’t really true. The adventurous ones were those who had climbed there first, the ones who had found the routes to the top. Some, who had fallen to their death on the rocks, had never even made it halfway up. Others had lost fingers and toes to frostbite. Many were never seen again. But one day, some of them had made it to the summit.

And their eyes were the first to take in that view, and their hearts beat with joy. They had accepted the risks and could now honour—with their conquest—all those who had died trying.

There were probably some people down below who thought, “There’s nothing up there. It’s just a view. What’s so great about that?”

But the first climber knew what was great about it: the acceptance of the challenge of going forward. He knew that no single day is the same as any other and that each morning brings its own special miracle, its magic moment in which ancient universes and destroyed and new stars are created.

The first one who climbed those mountains must have asked, looking down at the tiny houses with their smoking chimneys, “All of their days must seem the same. What’s so great about that?”

Now all the mountains had been conquered and astronauts had walked in space. There were no more islands on earth—no matter how small—left to be discovered. But, there are still great adventures of the spirit that many people still do not have the courage to take on.