I thought about examining photos of stuff like protests and poverty, but man, that stuff was just too depressing. Instead, I want my final RCL post to have a subject a little more inspirational.

Three words come to mind when I look at this picture of two anonymous mountain climbers: solitude, achievement, and perspective.

Even though you can see two sets of arms if you look closely, I can’t help but see this scene as a very lonely setting. The only evidence of other humans is the footsteps they leave in the snow which will be erased sooner or later. There are no recognizable landmarks the climbers could use to orient themselves should they get lost; everything is either mountains or clouds. Also, I suspect they used a tripod to take this photo instead of a third set of hands. I doubt someone would want to hold their arms still in the freezing wind up there. In that sense, they have to rely on what they brought with them to accomplish even the most menial of tasks; can you think of a more isolated setting?

With that being said, these guys are above the clouds. They are trekking a few feet from a nearly vertical drop. The sheer athletic ability it must take to propel yourself up a mountain with a constantly thinning air supply is astounding. I could not find any details on where these people are or who they are, but to get into a position to take this picture they must be exceptionally experienced mountain climbers. And look, they still aren’t quite at the summit yet.

Finally, this picture forces you to reconsider the meaning of your own perspective. I don’t mean “perspective” in the mental sense; that theme has been done to death. I mean the literal perspective of your eyes and what you can see from certain locations. I think people generally imagine the view from a mountaintop to be vast and incredibly revealing of the world around you. Well, even though I’m sure these guys can see for miles, all they can see are clouds. I mean, it’s pretty and all, but they’re just clouds. It looks pretty to those of us searching for profound pictures on Google images but these guys have probably been looking at huge expanses of pure white for a long time, so they’re probably bored of it by now. They climbed so high they can’t see any of the stuff they wanted to see from above when they set out. How’s that for a metaphor? It’s like losing sight of your goals. Was your goal to get to the top, or was it to look down on everything?

Or was your goal just to take an awesome profile picture? Because they definitely accomplished that.