Courage Without Fear

on being a little sh*t and gasping for breath

I am not a hiker. I’ll go on a day hike if it makes you happy, but I’ll gush over what to do when we get back home. Yet, in March, there I was, 4,000m in the air, gasping for breath.

Fourteen months ago, I started a sabbatical after a difficult layoff — as it would be for any person who had only held the grandest desires to contribute to capitalism. My job, for as long as I’ve had one, has been my identity. My sabbatical separated me from that reality, challenging what I accepted as truth.

Since then, I’ve visited 4 continents, 17 countries, 100+ cities. I’ve tried to speak truth about the entire lifecycle of this experience: layoff, sabbatical, wondering what’s next. The greatest compliments I receive are something like:

Your honesty is comforting.

I love seeing you talk about the challenges.

I’m glad you don’t make it look easy.

I’ve always hated how social media twists perceptions and emotions. In no version of reality was I going to post drinks on the beach with mantras of, “living my best life!” So these comments, acknowledgements of the complexity of my experience, warmed me.

But sometimes I got another comment, the dreaded:

You’re so brave.

I welcomed 2024 while nestled in the Himalayas.

I found many reasons to love with Nepal, but it’s typically known for one thing — high altitude trekking. Again, I remind you: I am not a hiker. Or maybe I should say, I’m not a full-time hiker. I’ll take a half-day shift, armed with a water bottle and a sandwich bag. Anything more is not in my job description. And if I go on a hike, I felt entitled enough to have enough oxygen. Controversial opinion, but gasping for breath at 4,000m while my nose frosted and my quads buckled under seemed unappealing to me.

But by March, I found myself gazing upward from Pokhara, Nepal’s gateway to the Annapurna Region, named one of the most beautiful places in the world. What exactly was I supposed to do??

Weeks earlier, I had vented to friend about how I hated being called ‘brave.’ My sabbatical didn’t start bravely; it started with a desire to run. Warriors run towards battles, not away from them. How was I brave?

My friend challenged me, arguing that you can’t have courage without fear. That I was not just running away from my world, but running towards the unknown.

“You’re a scared little shit,” he told me. “But you push through.”

I received his words, but I didn’t believe them.

I’ve tricked him, too, I lamented.

A valiant attempt from Minko.

I.

Three months later, I find myself gasping for breath, only 1,500m in the air. It’s Day 1 of a six-day hike to Mardi Himal Base Camp, an easy 4,500m (or 14,764ft) above sea level. My mediocre cardiovascular health isn’t what threatened to kill me — at least not yet — but an ill-timed cold that crept up the night before. I wage war with each stone step on this trail, stopping to hold my head in my hands, or to sweet talk my nostrils into letting in more breath. It’s early March, but I hardly look at the rhododendrons coaxing open spring. Fear envelops me. How will I continue when I already felt miserable? Why didn’t I stay home? How exactly did I expect to climb 3,000m more?

We camp in Dhampus, a Gurung agricultural village. My friends gasp at the Annapurna range immersing us and smile at exotic bird calls. I go to sleep.

II.

On Day 2, we climb 800m — about the same ascent as Washington’s Mount Si (which I’d always passed up for Little Si, a much more manageable task). My friends ask if my head still felt miserable, and I gnarl back at them, almost offended at the question. I begin negotiating with myself: How far do I have to make it before I can respectfully turn back?

We exit the agricultural highlands, weaving our way through Annapurna’s dense forest. Normally one to breathe into the forest, I wail over smelling nothing — not the moist soil, not the thick moss, not the occasional orchid. My breathing labored and head aching, I dance carefully around new, uneven terrain.

This path returns me to parts of the Camino. There, I also trudged along, socks soaked, ready to give up at any moment. Back then, I had made an agreement with myself: I always would commit to 10 more steps. I could give up whenever I wanted to — as long as I took 10 more steps. My mind gaslighted my legs into believing its exit ramp was 10 steps away.

So, on Day 2 in the Himalayas, I climb from Dhampus to Rest Camp; miserable, angry, tired, and 10 steps at a time.

III.

Day 3 dawns at 2,600m. They say that altitude sickness attacks you here, but with my DNA directly imported from the East African highlands, I figure altitude sickness just isn’t about me. I’m wrong. On Day 3, my genetic predisposition does not save me.

Today’s 1,000m ascent is supposed to take 4 to 5 hours; it takes me almost double. I leave the forest, climbing into alpine terrain where life is rarer. Less vegetation opens up expansive views of Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, and Fishtail — and with no trees to offer protection, very rude winds crash coldly into me. I take breaks behind rock faces, defrosting my cheeks and gasping for breath in the thinning air.

I scold myself for the audacity to even commit to this hike, and the audacity to continue when my body threw me a viral Hail Mary. My coughing intensifies.

I climb the last 100m ascent in the dark. Walking into High Camp, trekkers had already gathered around the fire, and friends cheer my arrival.

I wonder —again— how I ended up on this damn mountain.

IV.

On the last day of ascent, I wake up at 3:00am, headlamp and I racing to reach Mardi Himal’s Upper Viewpoint before the sun did.

It’s now been four days since my nostrils turned against me. They finally open a bit, and my head pauses its throbbing. Unfortunately, I’m 3,500m in the air and my body’s oxygen addiction causes its own problems.

While my lungs beg for more breath, my legs skid down frosted paths. Boots crunch over snow as I debate quickening my pace, if only to provide more heat to my body than my 4 layers of clothing have given me. My anxiety treats every icy step, shrouded in darkness, as a life-or-death decision. Will my crampons keep me from somersaulting off the mountain’s edge? Another reason I’m not a hiker, I think.

Consumed with my ever-brimming temper tantrum, I barely look up at the stunning Milky Way above me. How the hell did you let us sign up for this, I say to myself. This is not fun. We don’t belong here.

At some point, I think back to all the TikToks I’ve watched about gentle parenting, and I soothe myself with a compromise. It’s okay if you don’t make it by sunrise, at least you’ll make it.

Three hours later, sunlight began to drizzle. Just enough to see shapes, to see an endless swath of mountains envelop me. This is not my natural habitat, I thought to myself, finally feeling a little proud about what I’d accomplished.

Bathing in the infinite view, my steps slow. I spot a couple that I played cards with a few nights prior. With them, I grab hold of a second (or fifth?) wind and push towards to top.

Ten steps at a time, I arrive in time for sunrise’s finale. I’m greeted by a class of trekkers, all excited to have arrived with the sun. Air still freezing, I embrace the warmth of a graduation — friends cheering, laughing, commiserating about what we had done.

We all gasp at the view, camera rolls overflowing.

Note: The amount of snow and ice meant that novices couldn’t continue to base camp, but let’s just call that someone looking out for me.

I spend the next two days making my way down Mardi Himal.

Once back in Pokhara, my quads rise up in protest. I lay sprawled in bed, scrolling TikTok, resurrecting only to pick up a day’s supply of momos from across the street. This idleness left my brain with a little too much time to think. If I had literally just climbed a mountain, do I need to revisit this whole bravery thing?

As much as I thought I was above toxic masculinity (stop it, it’s hyperbole), I still gaze wide-eyed at an homage of bravery I’ll never meet: Achilles — chest puffed, charging fearlessly, seething with righteous rage. A Greek epic, not an American second guessing. An original GOAT, Achilles’ tragic flaw was failing to protect his single point of vulnerability — the area behind his heel. The lesson: guard your Achilles heel. Am I right?

I am no Achilles, nor will I ever be. I did not charge fearlessly to the Himalayas. I shuffled anxiously, regretting my arrival on the mountain more often than I did not. No Greek epics will be written about my sabbatical, either. I did not charge towards these past fourteen months; I meandered, hiding behind rock faces, stopping to catch my breath. Doubt swept down on me like an avalanche, sudden and overwhelming. But if my choices were easy, would they still be courageous?

So I pick apart my momos, deciding on this: my bravery is not Achilles. It is anxious, it is compassionate, it is calculated. My bravery doesn’t say to me: don’t gasp for breath. It tells me to gasp, and gasp, and then to continue climbing.

So, I guess I am brave. I guess we all are.

What I’m Reading

Ya Minko

’s first essay — on how the death of his best friend drove him to see better and do differently — has captivated me.
Read: Weekly Outpour #1: Finally writing a first. Opening thoughts.

I love

Meklit Abebe

’s 10-word stories, and sitting with a story’s impact for longer than it takes to read it.
Read: Why Love is Fleeting | A 10 Word Story

Yaw

tackles the Africa is corrupt narrative with economic and historical analyses — a well-explained POV that hits close to my heart.
Read: Thoughts About Corruption in Developing Countries

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A few friends and I created

Locked In

, a writing community for BIPOC & global majority Substackers. Come write with us at lockedin.substack.com.