What Life Means and What Life is For

"The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer
is this, ‘What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?’ and my answer
must at once be, ‘It is no use.’ There is not the slightest prospect
of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior
of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn
our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But
otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single
bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not
find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise
food. It’s no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is
something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and
goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself
upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. What we get
from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end
of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money
to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is
for."

--George Mallory, 1922