Earlier this summer, I embarked on what could probably be considered the most epic and physically intense adventure of my career thus far

In an attempt to photograph all 5 of Pakistan’s 8,000m giants, my friend Evan and I trekked over 200km through the Karakorum and Himalayas. For almost 30 straight days, we camped, hiked , and climbed across 5 different glaciers, making our way to K2 Basecamp and crossing the Gondogoro La; a high-altitude mountain pass with a steep, exposed descent

My homecoming felt like an Olympian returning from winning gold. My friends, peers, and strangers who’d heard all came running, telling me how incredible I am, speculating of my inhuman strength, and imposing a bravery onto me that didn’t exist

I didn’t like it

I’m not, like, freaking, Tenzing Norgay or anything even close to that. You know? What I did was essentially just a bunch of hikes - they just happened to be really remote and at a higher altitude than I was used to. I’m just me. I’m just a person. I’ve got a cat. I’m not very tall, nor particularly short. I exercise a couple times a week. I get too lazy to a lot more than that. I hate cooking. I don’t mind cleaning so much. Normal

Though, if there’s anything I’ve learned from my time outdoors - that’s more than enough

I used to really idolize a specific breed of celebrity - explorers like Amundsen or the Polynesians, climbers like Adam Ondra or Lynn Hill, and conservationists like Jane Goodall or Steve Irwin. People who, through their endless tales of trials, hardship, or passion for their various pursuits in nature, caught the public eye; mine included

Like many Asians of a certain generation, dreams were often met with disgust and disappointment. You’ve got no talent or chance, and anything other than business or engineering would result in failure, poverty, then death. The probability of finding success outside those careers were supposedly so infinitesimally small that there was no point. It must have meant that there was some inherent disadvantage, that I didn’t have the ear for music, intelligence for research, or creativity for art. After all, I’m just a normal person

Or so we were made to believe

At some point, I stopped dreaming. I could never lead like Shackleton, climb like Janja, or inspire like David Attenborough. Except - none of that’s true. Because most of the time, I’d quit before I even tried. So how the hell would I know? Even then, why the heck would I ever need to attain or surpass their level of success?

Questions I didn’t bother asking myself until well into my 20’s

My outdoor pursuits never started with the intentions of mimicking my childhood heroes, but they were surely there in the back of my mind. As I ticked off trail after trail, route after route, the stakes start to rise. Trails get longer, expeditions more intense, destinations more remote. Eventually I arrive at this past summer, standing at 5,627m (18,460ft) at the top of the Gondogoro La, gasping for air with ice axe in hand, watching the sun rise behind four of the tallest mountains in the world

Normal used to mean hunting mammoths and waiting out storms in caves. Normal now means sitting in an office and earning a salary

It’s easy to forget what ‘normal’ truly means. Because the normal human is one of the most impressive creatures on Earth, with just a handful of others able to match our ability for endurance. We used to walk, easily over 50km a day, every single day of our lives. Barefoot, while hunting for prey, running from predators, searching for hospitable land. We used to sleep outside, with nothing but the skin of animals we raised and in winters more severe than our industrially-warmed planet

And yet, somewhere along the way, we’ve come to think of these things as extraordinary. We look at people doing incredible things and assume they must be extraordinary themselves. We laud them as heroes, praise them as idols, and convince ourselves that their abilities are somehow out of reach, possessing something we don’t. The pedestal reaches heights we may never see, but we forget the base still touches the ground

It’s a lesson I wished I’d learned much earlier. I thought these heroes were capable of extraordinary things because they were extraordinary people. That they’d had this spark that I was just missing. Something that I just had to be born with. I never really stopped to consider that maybe they were just normal people who decided to try, and then kept trying long enough to do something extraordinary - until my own praises, small as they were, started getting sung.

I’ve never ventured into the outdoors for any real goal. I don’t believe in “conquering peaks” or anything like that. There’s no set number of parks to visit, countries to explore, or trails to hike. I went outside because for a long, long time, I didn’t want to be on this planet. But the more I explored and experienced, the more of myself I found in the world. I’m not brave. I’m not strong. I’m not a good climber. I’m not a great photographer.

But that’s fine, because being myself was never the limitation I thought it was. I’m Ryan, and I’m just a normal dude. And that’s enough.

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