Lichen

On the mountain, the vegetable kingdom has limited options. The lack of oxygen imposes ineluctable restrictions. Lichen is the mountaineer’s only companion, encouraging him to lick the rock in accordance with the maximalist postulate that life is stronger than nothingness. In its double scaffolding of fungus and alga, two-faced Janus of the botanical order, with its effective alliance against sterility, lichen colonises, dominates the high peaks. But it is a king without subjects: it has sovereignty, it has territory, but its dominion is diluted in the vastness of mineral abstraction. There are microorganisms, of course. But there is no merit in subduing those too weak to depose us. It is said that there are lichens that survive even suspension in the cosmic void. There is no reason to disbelieve this. But lichen desires something else. Its pride is not resistance to hostility, but rather expansion – imperial lust.

The same could be said for the climbers. What purpose could they have in throwing themselves into an unnatural ascent towards the unbreathable summit of the Himalayas? What is the point in exhausting your capabilities, getting distracted, staggering, and hurtling eight, eleven, twelve metres just to crash onto a ledge? It isn’t self-improvement, as they try to claim. Quite the contrary, to best themselves would be to dispense with their objectives. What they’re really seeking is the illusion of subjugation. Egomaniacs, naïfs – and especially those who fall under the record-holding influence of Everest – yearn to dominate the vacuum. And they fail. Whether they give up or they summit, they always fail.

Meanwhile, the Sherpa is Zarathustra. For him the important part starts when he’s coming back down from the mountain. Filled with rage and without any trace of mercy. Like the German philologist, he knows that if he gazes into the abyss for long enough, he’ll catch the abyss gazing back.