This Game of Ghosts

I started in on Joe Simpson's "This Game of Ghosts" again, today. I began reading it several months ago, but left off because it started out slow. Joe Simpson is probably best known for his work "Touching the Void", a book which made a huge impact on me.

Like Touching the Void, "This Game of Ghosts" is autobiographical, but spans many years, going back into Simpson's childhood and detailing his early climbing experiences, which were rather wild. I haven't finished the book yet, so I don't know where he leaves off. The book troubles me; I get the sense that it was written while the author was depressed (something like Robert Pirsig's "Lila"), and it tends to bring me down (although not necessarily in a bad way).

Despite that, I think I've come to a better understanding of what motivates mountain climbers, or at least what motivates Joe Simpson. I've never understood why mountain climbers do it. It seems to me one of the least pleasureful activities one could imagine doing voluntarily. But after reading just half the book, I think I get it.

Joe Simpson was raised a Catholic and early on became an atheist, a history which resonates with me. Here's an excerpt that struck a cord.

p 150: "...I had decided in my mid-teens that I didn't want to do those things that society expected of me. I didn't want to compromise anything and rejected the idea of marriage and parenthood for fear that these would rob me of the selfish desire to do what I wanted with my life; a life lived once, with no reincarnation, no afterlife, heaven or hell, finished at death....

"It never occurred to me that these early certainties would themselves become eroded by time..."