In reply to Removed User:
I would not be so presumptuous to claim that I know the answers to any of the following:
Where is John Redhead really coming from?
What were his climbs about?
Why the references to existential concepts ('authentic desire' and so on)?
However, I would humbly suggest that the following probably gives a good a starting point as anything when seeking the answers (other than reading his book that is!).
From GWF Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind.
'And it is solely by risking life that freedom is obtained; only thus it is tried and proved that the essential nature of self-consciousness is not bare existence, is not the merely immediate form in which it at first makes its appearance...The individual, who has not staked his life, may no doubt, be recognised as a person; but he has not attained the truth of this recognition as an independent self-consciousness.'
Regards,
Howard.