Knowing is a Rope We Tend

From “I, Me, Mine” to “We, Us, Ours”

I was wondering… what might the mountains teach us about how to endure - together - when the path ahead is uncertain?

Above the treeline, the air thins. Every step becomes deliberate. The landscape changes - what seemed close from below stretches further, the scale deceptive. You begin to notice the patterns that keep life here alive: glaciers holding centuries of water for the valleys below, alpine plants sheltering each other from wind, climbers moving in rope teams where the pace is set by the slowest, not the strongest.

The Scottish writer and poet Nan Shepherd spent decades walking the Cairngorms - in Gaelic, Am Monadh Ruadh, “The Red Mountains.” She didn’t go to conquer them, but to come into relationship with them, knowing them better through all her senses. In her book The Living Mountain, she described learning a mountain through the soles of her feet, the sound of wind across a ridge, the scent of heather after rain. Knowing, for her, was not a possession - it was a relationship, grown through patience and return.

Shepherd understood that a mountain could not be “known” in a single climb. It had to be met again and again, in different light, different weather, different moods. Knowing, she realised, changes as we change. As our knowing changes, it reshapes us, reconfiguring how we see the world and ourselves, in a continual, cyclical movement. This is true of mountains - and of people.

At a time when most climbers saw peaks as conquests, not companions, Shepherd walked in another direction. “To aim for the highest point is not the only way to climb a mountain,” she wrote. For her, a summit was never the point - it was a single moment in a much longer conversation between human and mountain. She would return season after season, noticing small changes, letting the place become part of her, and her part of it.

Her way of moving offers another map for our own climbs - across the many terrains of life. It’s the shift from I, Me, Mine to We, Us, Ours: travelling in a way that deepens our relationship with the people and places we move through, leaving the ground stronger, the path clearer, and better equipping all of us - now and in the future - for what lies ahead.

Yet the habits of our age have trained us for a different kind of ascent - the solitary pursuit of I, Me, Mine. We’ve been taught to see life as a solo climb, eyes fixed on our own summit, measuring our worth by what we accomplish alone, how fiercely we can guard our independence, and the story we craft to prove we’ve arrived. But this way of moving comes at a cost. It narrows our horizon. It blinds us to the people beside us. And when the rope is cut - when connection frays - the strength built in isolation is rarely the strength that will hold when the path ahead changes.

You can see it beyond the mountains - in the leader burning out under the weight of every complex decision or problem, in the friend who supports everyone but never leans back, in the team so focused on the summit they don’t see the rope fraying.

We are moving higher on the mountain - into places where the air is thinner, the margins narrower, and every step takes more from us. Up here, even the strongest climbers lean on each other’s knowing.. You take turns breaking trail. You share what you know and what you have, because there is no surplus at altitude.

Experienced mountaineers know they may spend a day fixing ropes or building ladders for a crossing they will never make themselves - work done for the unseen teams who will come after. But in unconventional times, when the terrain keeps changing, even the best tools may no longer work. What endures are the timeless competencies and human traits - trust, adaptability, patience, and the ability to learn together - that make innovation and transformation possible when condition shifts. Just as those before us left routes, maps, and tools for us, we too inherit the responsibility to leave the rope strong for those who follow.

Knowledge is not only for our own climb, but for the integrity of the rope line across generations. Perhaps the real shift is this - to measure our lives less by the summits we personally reach, and more by the ones made possible because we were here. From I, Me, Mine to We, Us, Ours.

So, how do we move differently when the path is uncertain?

• Ask yourself: Where have you been pushing ahead alone?Are you carrying more than you can truly hold? Taking on loads that belong to others? Moving at a pace that exhausts you - the kind that leads to burnout - and leaves no space for connection along the way? Who can you trust and how might you lean into the strength of their rope line, so the weight and the way forward are shared?
• Commit to expanding and diversifying your sources of knowledge. Learn one skill that could help you and your community and use all your senses in the process: mind, heart, and soul. Don’t just learn in isolation; learn from someone else, from different perspectives, and pass it on. Ask yourself: Whose knowing could I learn from? What new ways of seeing might strengthen us all? Skills, when shared, become anchors when the path changes.
• Bring your knowledge into form in a way that can help others on the climb - a resource, a creative idea, a small act of kindness or guidance. Like fixing a rope for the next team, you may never see its impact, but it could make all the difference.

In unconventional times, resilience won’t come from racing to the summit alone. It will come from the wisdom and trust carried in the rope lines we tend - between the slowest and the strongest, between those leading and those following, across seasons and generations. On high slopes, the solo climber is exposed. But the rope team - connected, alert, alive - keeps moving.

So I wonder: What might we discover and come to know if we stopped chasing the peak, and began paying attention to the climb - and all that it entails?

With care for “All”, Dr Laila Marouf and KMD team