Reading Sixty Meters to Anywhere, about the adventures of climbing and a recovering alcoholic, was a lesson learning experience. Being able to comprehend the perspective of the drunk was a new point of view for me. In my family, there are multiple relatives who have a history of being in and out of jail due to drunk driving. Hearing Brendan’s story of how he viewed himself and the challenges he confronted makes me more lenient towards them and their challenges. I now can understand the struggle of being sober for an alcoholic, and how their day to day life changes while being sober. My parents will also be glad to hear that after reading this captivating story, I don’t think I have the desire for becoming a drunk. The eye opening anecdote depicts how much one’s life can go from being a daily disaster to being a constant adventure of traveling and finding one’s self, and not just with alcohol. While reading Brendan’s story and the thrills he found while climbing, it makes me want to travel out west and take the same journeys he did. During Christmas break my family and I traveled to Colorado. Seeing the mountains in the west in real life was breathtaking. Although sometimes it literally was breathtaking with the low density of oxygen, I would gladly travel there again with high hopes to hike and climb.
Throughout reading, I noticed a quote that stuck out to me. On page 91, Brendan references an old saying. He wasn’t sure if it was said by Henry David Thoreau or Oliver Wendell Holmes, but the idea behind it caught my attention: “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” To me, this meant that some people keep continuity within themselves, going to the grave being the same person they were born as. The quote has a tone that leads me to infer that this life would be boring. Without adventuring and experimenting with who you are, you may not find your true self. After thinking this whole lesson given in one quote, I can see how Brendan remembers it and lives by it. He goes out many times a year to adventure, he tries new things, meets new people in new places. Reading Sixty Meters to Anywhere leads my soul to the desire of adventure and self discovery.
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