Thought 07DEC2007

NEW HORIZONS
Generally recognized as history's greatest mountain climber, Italian adventurer Reinhold Messner is a daredevil who's made a career or close calls. He has ascended most of the world's highest mountain, including Mt. Everest and walked to the South Pole. At 50, he set himself a last, great challenge - to be the first to make the icy trek from Asia to Canada across the North Pole alone and unsupported. "I've never had the sensation after a great expedition that I had conquered, that I had been stronger than nature," he says. "We are always the weaker. Luckily we have the intelligence to survive. We have fear, too, which tells us when not to go ahead. Fear helps us survive."It's not money that lures Messner, although, due to his achievements, he's one of European advertising's superstars. "One goes," he says, "to live a piece of life, to try and see if it's possible. I'm like a child. I would always be unhappy if I didn't try.
"Quoted by William D Montalbano" in Los Angeles Times - extracted from January 1996 issue of Reader's Digest

Better one good thing that is than two good things that were - Irish Proverb