Clearly hopelessness has at least as much to do with what we bring to life as it does with what life brings to us... The challenge of hopelessness is the challenge to re-enter the human race, to take our part in it knowing that it is as much our responsibility to shape life as it is for life to shape us...Hopelessness calls us beyond quitting what we cannot quit, to learn how to do what we have been born to do. Even if this means doing one thing while waiting to do another.
We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, neither old nor young, sick or well, but immortal. I am a captive. I am bound. Love of pure unblemished Nature seems to overmaster and blur out of sight all other objects and consideration... As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers, and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.