What even is a mountain, anyway?

The world I grew up in crashed down around me, and there was just so much space everywhere. I could see forever, and it was intoxicating, and more than a little scary. Petrarch probably would have gotten what I mean, standing up there on Ventoux, wondering if this sort of thing was even allowed. Where is God if you climb higher than you ever have and he's not there? How can you go on living the same way?  The thought that "nobody made these clouds" was a liberating one. Flying towards the brightly shining sun of scientific materialism on my dialectic wings, it took me years to notice that I was leaving my feathers behind one by one. At some point the light got so bright that I had to open my eyes and look around.

Everything looks really fucking weird from up here.

First of all, I was flying and my wings were gone. How was I still here? Where was the firmament? Where was the top of the goddamn mountain? I left my backpack down in the village, and even took my shoes off when I reached the top, but I never noticed my feet leave the ground.

My hand held a piece of paper with a picture on it, but I couldn't seem to make out what it depicted. "Pick a metaphor," wisdom whispered in my ear before disappearing between the pages of the book. I read and read, back to front, between the lines, and upside down. Do I even read this language? It sounds familiar but I have no idea what it means. So I sought her as silver, and tried my damndest to hold my tongue.

Even this fool was considered wise.

Well, I read The Symposium recently, and I don't think Plato means what I thought he meant.

I read Ecclesiastes recently, and I don't think The Teacher means what I thought he meant.

I woke up and my heart was looking back at me. All she asked was that I open up a little bit more. Light only needs a sliver, a chink, a crack.

Fortunately, this edifice has been crumbling for aeons, and Treebeard is about to give the order to release the river.

Stick around, because the intrepid explorer has found himself in Act II. The deck of the ship keeps disappearing below the surface of the TH Sea and there's a bearded guy hanging 10 on a quadruple overhead wave, and the bowl and lighter in my hands seem to have been replaced with a flickering ball of lightning.