I have spent time in many of the world's popular wilderness locations and I would say Nepal should be proud. It is an example of man repairing the damage he has done.
As United Nations patron of the wilderness, one of my roles is to report back from the Earth's remaining wildernesses and to act as a voice for the wild.
The wilderness rescued me. I have been shaped by my experiences in the great outdoors. Feeling comfortable in the wild gave me the confidence to be who I am, not who others want me to be.
Wilderness is harder and harder to find these days on this beautiful planet, and we're abusing our planet to the point of almost no return.
I am not a conventionally religious man, but in the wilderness I have come closest to finding myself and knowing the universe and accepting God - by which I mean accepting all that I don't know.
It is like living in a wilderness of mirrors. No fact goes unchallenged.
I think the western is about people in harsh places trying to tame an unfriendly wilderness. Because life is defined by struggle, it's kind of the perfect microcosmic experience to explore that. 'Here we are, struggling.' It's about people persevering and persevering and persevering.
We need to protect our wilderness areas and national parks. Everywhere you travel, you see blight, denuded mountains, logging. If people know what's going on, they'll become activists to safeguard those places.
To seek the timeless way we must first know the quality without a name. There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named.
I learned to canoe at summer camp and thought I'd pursue Olympic whitewater canoeing. In my senior year of high school, I instead decided to attend M.I.T. I like to say I've had only two jobs in my life: whitewater canoeing instructor and wilderness guide in college, and C.E.O. of iRobot.
