Climbing.

I climbed Broga Hill this morning, the second time I've ever done so. I went with a number of my old Rembau batchmates the first time; this time, however, I went alone.

I’m used to doing things alone. I like going for solo walks and solo drives. I like it when I’m home alone. I like eating alone at restaurants. When I was in France, there were many times when I found myself traveling alone, and I enjoyed that too.

I’m not saying I’m antisocial. I do, of course, enjoy good company. I’ve heard it said that it’s better to have good company than to have none at all. But it’s also true that being alone is better than being with bad company. Sometimes I just like to be by myself instead of being with other people just for the sake of being with someone. I actually happen to enjoy my own company, thank you very much.

There was a time when the word ‘introvert’ would make me cringe, because I just kept seeing it pop up everywhere. It was almost as if being introverted was cool all of a sudden, and everyone wanted to get in on it. The word still has difficulty forming in my mouth, and I wish there were other words I could use, but the fact remains that it’s also a concise, yet accurate, description of who I am.

As I climbed Broga this morning, I noticed that I was possibly the only one there doing it by myself (except possibly this one foreigner I later passed on my way back down). I saw couples, families, and groups of friends, climbing, chatting, laughing, taking pictures, and generally enjoying themselves. The only problem for me was that there were far too many of them – I barely took time to stop and enjoy the excellent view on any of the four peaks as the presence of the crowds made me uncomfortable.

When I told one of my housemates I was planning to climb Broga by myself, he didn’t think it was a good idea, for reasons of safety (he couldn't have come; he had class this morning). It was a valid concern, of course, but I figured that if anything were to happen to me while I was up there (and nothing did happen, thankfully enough), it was safe to assume that there would be plenty of people there to see it, and at least a few of them would be kind enough to help me out.

When I reached the final peak, 1312 feet above sea level, I walked right past the overcrowded clearing on top of it and found a secluded rock to sit on and rest. The view wasn’t as great as it would have been from the actual peak, but it was a lot more peaceful. And it was peace that I came to Broga for, much more than the view or the climbing.

There’s just something I find therapeutic about staring into the distance after a climb, and if the whole climbing thing wasn’t so physically demanding and time-consuming I would probably do it more often. There was a hiking trail on the hill behind my first house in Nilai, and I used to climb it, sit on a rock near the edge of a cliff and just gaze into the horizon to clear my thoughts. It wasn’t as high or as challenging a climb as Broga, but it did the trick.

It would be nice if I could scale higher peaks, like the many mountains we have here in this country, in the future, though doing so would probably mean having to go with other people for safety reasons. That would mean losing out on the part I like the most about climbing, namely reaching the top, looking out onto the horizon and not talking to anyone. It would be quite something to look down from the peak of Mount Kinabalu and not have that moment of serenity pierced by the voice of another human being.

But I guess people were made to live together for a reason. Adam (a. s.) did feel lonely all by himself in Paradise, after all. Having my peace interrupted by another person every now and then is probably better than it never being interrupted at all.