One Life

For the fact that I have lived not enough

but that I have life left to live

I am challenged by every breath I take

Adrian Lamond 2013

Life - What's it worth?

Isn't it frightening that in a world full of knowledge and understanding, a world where humans have the capacity for choice, the ability to reason and choose the noble path, there are still those who will choose profit over all else.

During a recent expedition to Everest, during one of the driest seasons on record there are people like respected mountaineer Russel Brice chose not to climb due to the dangers and an unwillingness to put people in harms way.

Yet there are those like Arnold Coster and Everest Parivar Expeditions when faced with the tragic injury of a young Sherper named Lhakpa Nuru who was suspected of having a traumatic brain injury after being struck by a falling rock which left his jaw broken and his eye badly injured, have the audacity to say that there is no money for a helicopter evacuation. People who decide that others like Nuru who was putting his life on the line for there expedition are worth less than the $5000.00 it would cost for the rescue.

What a shameful state the world is in if we and people like Russel Brice who try to stand tall are living side by side with people who value money more than people, more than our own humanity.

In the end they did agree to pay and the Sherpa was evac'ed to Kathmandu. Thanks in part to Melissa Arnot the paramedic at Camp II, who was treating Nuru and said to Arnold  Coster, "I told him to look me in the eye and tell me this guy's life isn't worth $5,000," 

The things we do

Its amazing how life can throw so many curve balls at you and yet we still don't see them coming. Everytime something comes along that looks to good to be true we are so blinded by it that the curve ball knocks us straight off our feet.

To use the words of Peter Tosh

"I really try try try


But I got to


Pick myself up


Dust myself off


Start all over, again"

So up we get and forward we go. Well at least I think its forward, some days I am not so sure.

No Fear

Standing on the cusp of a life changing event I find myself drawn to a poster that has been hanging on the wall in my office for many years.

It simply states

We take these risks

Not to escape life,

but to prevent life

from escaping us

Dont let your fears stand in the way of your dreams.

Powerful words that make me remember, that being afraid is ok, as long as you still follow your dreams.

So with the desicion already made, I find that even though my heart sits in my gut I am still confident about the upcoming changes in my life.

I have done some truly scary things in life, climbed mountains, rafted rivers, skydived, got married and had children yet it is the choices that affect those very things that are the scariest.

Choices about life and the future, choices where you cannot know the outcome.

Hard choices that you are forced to make, choices that you make because you cannot now what the future holds. You can only make the best choice possible with the information you have at hand and then go forward and live it to it's fullest.

Embrace the change and the challenge.

No regrets



Escaping the System

My first post in this blog was the lyrics from Mozambique in their entirety, but the core part of the song that gets me is below

Everyday I wake up dreaming
This is where I want to stay
Far from the black city
Where the dragon wants your soul
The system wants control
But I will not go
I will stay here where the water meets the sand
In this wild and wonderful land

How true are those words - I live in a city where the dragon wants my soul and the system wants control.


Apparently JP Botha wrote those words on his visit to Mozambique to play at the first STRAB Festival. I can see how he felt.

Its amazing how the system eats us all alive and in an effort to cope we create lives that are routine and comfortable with no surprises.

Unfortunately this means that we also stop living and just exist.

Life is not supposed to be about the same things over and over again.

We are planning to head out to STRAB 2009 in may this year - Going to be a blast.

But having tried to convince our many friends and colleagues I have started to notice that most of us are so deep in a rut that we have know idea how to get out of it and are even too scared to try.