There has been another death on Mt Everest

and Middle Cat and I were pondering why people want to do such things.

In this case the motivation apparently had two strands. There was "the raise money for charity" strand and there was the "I want to show the world I can do this after I had an accident" strand. 

It's an expensive way to raise money for charity. I always wonder at those who attempt major physical feats but who need a support team in order to do it. Even if the support team are volunteers too there are expenses. Often they are not. Very little of the money raised goes to the actual work the charity does. 

It might raise awareness for the charity, at least for a short time, but how much good does it really do? I don't know. I suspect it is much less than we are led to believe in all those television interviews and newspaper articles. 

The other motivation is an oddity. Sir Edmund Hillary is said to have been asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest and responded with the words, "Because it's there."  That may well be true. Some humans seem to be motivated by "this is difficult" or "this may be impossible". 

There are a number of things I have done that many people told me could not be done. I managed to learn to knit. It took a couple of years and more dropped and accidentally jerked off the needles stitches than I care to think about. My paternal grandmother kept putting them back on and never once said to me, "Do you want to give up?" when other people told me, "Why don't you try something else?" I wanted to learn to knit. I can knit. I've won prizes for knitting. I've published patterns. I've taught other people. I did it. It was only yesterday I really thought about it again - because someone from this state died climbing Mt Everest. 

I wanted to go to university. I had to do it in a very roundabout way and, once there, I did it in a very back-to-front sort of way.  It was something I desperately wanted to do. I wanted to prove to myself and everyone else I could do it. 

I felt the same way about International Literacy Year. It had to happen. If it had not happened when it did I would still be working on it. It was just something I knew I needed to do.

I am not always motivated to do something. There are times when I can't be bothered with something or I am not interested. I have been asked, "What motivated you to do x or y or z?" I really don't know. There is something inside me which says, "I need to do this to be able to live with myself or at least know I have done the very best I could." 

To do anything else would be a bit like going to Base Camp at Mt Everest, looking up and deciding it was all a bit too difficult. If I did that I would have failed and wasted the opportunity. There is something else I would like to do now...it might not be possible but I want to try.