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An equally important trait is the size of the rat.

The phrase was coined by working-class British climbers to account for why some of them became so much more successful than others.

The public believes that climbers who scale remote mountains, like published photographers, must have greater innate talent and skill than their less successful companions, but this is not the case.

The rat refers to the voracious creature gnawing at a person’s stomach from the inside that drives him or her to repeatedly leave the comforts and security of civilized life to challenge him or herself in the natural world.

Without a big rat, a person stays at home with the family and is content to be a shopkeeper.

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