Staring into a blank canvas or empty screen, toeing the starting line of an endurance race, taking the first step of a 2100 mile journey - the end seems so far away, impossible to conceive. Yet the human spirit never stops craving the unknown, the obscure - whether it be a scientific breakthrough or a foggy mountain peak. Maybe it's that challenge that drives change, fueling humanity's movement forward.
In a recent expedition to the top of Mt. Katahdin, arguably the most formidable mountain of the Northeastern US, this energy was physically tangible amid the intrepid climbers, as thick in the air as the clouds themselves. In many ways everybody on the peak was at the high point of their own pilgrimage - some were completing a six-month hike of the Appalachian trail, others had scrambled over the lichen covered granite for a challenging one-day hike. Everyone was together - smiling, congratulating, stripping to their skivvies for a well deserved photo-op - yet each individually had just completed their own trip into the unknown, overcoming their own pains and challenges, bringing their own creativity and two feet to get them to the top.
Every painting, every movie, every climb begins with the same inner quandary: insurmountable? Maybe. But there's only one way to find out. Commit to the first step, then put one foot in front of the other.'
VW text EE photos
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