someone was telling me about a notable book called second mountain by the new york times columnist David brooks and although they didn’t tell me too much on the content of the book, the positive suggestion left a mark head somewhere. and of course, i ran into the book again browsing the art of manliness. Definitely don’t have time to read it but I listen enough to the podcast to get the gist on how I am framing this liminal gap year. In short, the first mountain that most people climb is mostly about survival. not unlike maslow’s pyramid on hierarchy of needs, there comes a time in life when continued success is a diminishing return on investment and our spiritual calling becomes a blow horn. in tibetan buddhism, there is concept of the outer, inner and the secret movivations around many practices. the outer is something everyone knows about on why i am taking this trip and then there is also the inner, which although i have some idea around it, i am struggling with framing it through a visual personal narrative. To bring it back to, now that i am actually embarking on climbing the ‘second’ mountain, what does it look like in this modern world especially for a man. Many times, I am struggling with the influence of what my ego wants show off and my motivation to use my life/gift as benefit for others. Even now as i write this, my ego is subtly telling me, your life story is special so please tell everyone how special you are. yeah, sometimes it is quite exhausting dealing with it and i probably need about 100k prostrations to subdue it.
