There is a very distinct path everyone is on in life. At the end of this path you die. You are born at the foot of a mountain and told that you will climb it, just like your parents with their mountains. And unless you have constant short term memory loss, or long term, you are told to bring torches to mark where you've been. When you turn 18, or sometimes earlier, you at put at the foot of the mountain and told to climb. And so you do. You try college, a job, or just sort of float around the mountain path, but you climb it knowingly or not. Problem is, the mountain is really, really foggy. Hence the torches to help you know where you've already been. And you climb and climb and climb and it keeps getting foggier and foggier. You might even cross paths with another person, maybe even frequently enough to call it a relationship, but either way those paths are distinct and while they may run parallel that is all the intimacy they can ever hope to share, but its enough, so you keep climbing. Then, if those paths are in contact for a time, or at the right time, you stop and make camp to prepare your kid for their own journey up the mountain. The fog really isn't as heavy during this time; its a lot easier to see tomorrow when you already know its "take care of child." But, eventually they have to leave, and so do you. So the fog returns and you start back up, two decades older and none the wiser about what lies ahead. Its only when you reach the very end that you find out what you've been climbing towards. Death. Sometimes its a shorter mountain, but it all leads to the same place. Sometimes its peaceful, sometimes it isn't. But that's the path I'm on. The goal I have is to die having done something to be remembered by, but the path leads the same place and I can't help but climb it every second of every day.
That is very well-said. Your analogy reminds me of a conversation I had with Tanzanian slum-dwellers as part of my thesis on why, given the extensive knowledge on HIV/AIDS and other STDs, they continue having high rates of unprotected sex. One man explained to me (and this is a translation): Essentially, he was describing their hopelessness. They have no future; their future is their dreary day-to-day subsistence existence. They don't plan ahead, or consider the consequences of their actions, because they are too far down to see anything else. Being able to plan ahead, and envision a path ahead of you, is a luxury reserved for those who have moved up in life and who are high enough on that mountain to be able to actually look around at their possibilities and options.When you're at the bottom of a mountain, you can't see anything around you, just your immediate surroundings. They look the same every single day. We are at rock-bottom; we have no future. We have nothing to look forward to. The higher you climb, the more you can see your opportunities and you can envision a future for yourself.
Good morning JTH - thanks for your beautiful essay and analogy. I'm inclined (mountain pun) to agree with you -- Your essay reminded me of this picture I think, for all the fog that we face, along the way we do acquire tools to help us navigate more easily. Some of the tools are consistently effective from mountain to mountain - some less so. 
The goal I have is to die having done something to be remembered by
The goal makes the foggy journey more meaningful, or at least more interesting.