What have you given up for climbing?
Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 11:18 pm
I was thinking about this the other day.
A lot of us here have built our lives around the dream of climbing.
Juggling the other dreams we have too, of love and family and "success," whatever that means. But you can't help but recognize in yourself, at least I can't, that climbing gets a bigger seat at the table than it deserves, considering how many hours of life really get devoted to doing it. Why is that? Is it a placeholder for something else? For religion? You have to wonder...what would be there if climbing wasn't? It might be something better.
Or worse.
Somewhere along the way you make choices that deform your life. Send you down roads you wouldn't be on. You look at your peers, and see how different things ended up with them. I see a lot of guys who gave up more for the office than I did. Maybe they skipped a vacation week. They might be a vice-president of marketing now, and you are...well, you wouldn't want that anyway, would you?
For me, climbing has been kind of a counter-cultural thing. It made it easy to recognize the treadmill of consumerism. I like to think I value experiences more than goods. I think that makes me a better me, anyway.
But because I've made this choice, years ago now, I can see the outline of other roads that might have been taken. That are now closed. I have to ask the forgiveness of the phantoms on those roads, that I didn't let them come about. But I was in the grips of an idea, and still am: climbing matters. The mountains matter. Their place at the table of my life, and now my family's life, is deserved.
I don't think I should really talk about integrity, or courage, or good or evil. I never fought for our country or the downtrodden and such stories belong to those who have. But over the years I've learned a few things from sacrifice. I kept mountains at the table, and let go of other dreams. This didn't give me any more certainty that what I was doing was right. In the end it had the opposite effect. The choices people make are the raw materials of *life*. I'm humbled before that...to see an individual or a family just motoring through those choices. I'm humbled before each person's spark of life that impels them one way or another. In the western world, we don't usually have the honor of conducting our lives in the universally admirable quest for survival...we only have small choices that nudge us between poles of desire and principle, with inertia providing the downhill path.
I'm rambling, but what I would like to get across is that giving that outsized place at the table of your life to some passion...is a way of building integrity in your life. About recognizing choices and feeling at peace with them. About having empathy for the choices other people made.
There are many risks with trying to live your values.
What if you were wrong? What if you get hurt? By creating your own idea of what success means in life you risk the judgment of those with more conventional definitions. These people are numerous. They are often very nice, and live in warm houses, and some are loved ones. What is lonelier than the disapproval of your peers on the conduct of your life?
And what about your own disapproval? We know Fred Beckey doesn't keep himself up at night wondering if he made the right choices...but we aren't Fred Beckey, god bless him. Are you a "hedonist?" Do you put the pleasure of exotic situations and adventure above actual virtues? That one stings a little bit.
Who can you talk to about this? Well this is one "campfire." It's more likely that one or two people here know what I'm trying to say than somewhere else. For the rest of you who want the pompous blowhard to sit down and shut up, I'm almost done.
And that brings me to what actually made me write this tonight:
Recently, it seemed to me that Summitpost was "dying." Before I actually "walked away" I already walked away in my heart. Maybe a lot of us did. For me, it took a deeper attack of raw cynicism, and almost murderous glee on the true vision of what SummitPost is about to recognize my mistake. I'm sure it's a trite old saying, but it occurs to me fresh: appreciate your enemies. With their hate, they might just show you what you really value.
To the assertion that the internet is a "free for all," and you can't trust anyone or anything, I offer my words in defiance.
I say that SummitPost IS a community of climbers. Because I NEED a community of climbers, and I'm going to have it if I have to fight for it. The Elves here have stepped up for that vision and come under more attack than usual to keep this a place where we can share our thoughts and maybe learn a few things.
I want to say thanks for that.
We got bored and we didn't care what happened. Well, what happened serves us right. But that's one way to learn.
Thanks, happy to be here,
--Michael
A lot of us here have built our lives around the dream of climbing.
Juggling the other dreams we have too, of love and family and "success," whatever that means. But you can't help but recognize in yourself, at least I can't, that climbing gets a bigger seat at the table than it deserves, considering how many hours of life really get devoted to doing it. Why is that? Is it a placeholder for something else? For religion? You have to wonder...what would be there if climbing wasn't? It might be something better.
Or worse.
Somewhere along the way you make choices that deform your life. Send you down roads you wouldn't be on. You look at your peers, and see how different things ended up with them. I see a lot of guys who gave up more for the office than I did. Maybe they skipped a vacation week. They might be a vice-president of marketing now, and you are...well, you wouldn't want that anyway, would you?
For me, climbing has been kind of a counter-cultural thing. It made it easy to recognize the treadmill of consumerism. I like to think I value experiences more than goods. I think that makes me a better me, anyway.
But because I've made this choice, years ago now, I can see the outline of other roads that might have been taken. That are now closed. I have to ask the forgiveness of the phantoms on those roads, that I didn't let them come about. But I was in the grips of an idea, and still am: climbing matters. The mountains matter. Their place at the table of my life, and now my family's life, is deserved.
I don't think I should really talk about integrity, or courage, or good or evil. I never fought for our country or the downtrodden and such stories belong to those who have. But over the years I've learned a few things from sacrifice. I kept mountains at the table, and let go of other dreams. This didn't give me any more certainty that what I was doing was right. In the end it had the opposite effect. The choices people make are the raw materials of *life*. I'm humbled before that...to see an individual or a family just motoring through those choices. I'm humbled before each person's spark of life that impels them one way or another. In the western world, we don't usually have the honor of conducting our lives in the universally admirable quest for survival...we only have small choices that nudge us between poles of desire and principle, with inertia providing the downhill path.
I'm rambling, but what I would like to get across is that giving that outsized place at the table of your life to some passion...is a way of building integrity in your life. About recognizing choices and feeling at peace with them. About having empathy for the choices other people made.
There are many risks with trying to live your values.
What if you were wrong? What if you get hurt? By creating your own idea of what success means in life you risk the judgment of those with more conventional definitions. These people are numerous. They are often very nice, and live in warm houses, and some are loved ones. What is lonelier than the disapproval of your peers on the conduct of your life?
And what about your own disapproval? We know Fred Beckey doesn't keep himself up at night wondering if he made the right choices...but we aren't Fred Beckey, god bless him. Are you a "hedonist?" Do you put the pleasure of exotic situations and adventure above actual virtues? That one stings a little bit.
Who can you talk to about this? Well this is one "campfire." It's more likely that one or two people here know what I'm trying to say than somewhere else. For the rest of you who want the pompous blowhard to sit down and shut up, I'm almost done.
And that brings me to what actually made me write this tonight:
Recently, it seemed to me that Summitpost was "dying." Before I actually "walked away" I already walked away in my heart. Maybe a lot of us did. For me, it took a deeper attack of raw cynicism, and almost murderous glee on the true vision of what SummitPost is about to recognize my mistake. I'm sure it's a trite old saying, but it occurs to me fresh: appreciate your enemies. With their hate, they might just show you what you really value.
To the assertion that the internet is a "free for all," and you can't trust anyone or anything, I offer my words in defiance.
I say that SummitPost IS a community of climbers. Because I NEED a community of climbers, and I'm going to have it if I have to fight for it. The Elves here have stepped up for that vision and come under more attack than usual to keep this a place where we can share our thoughts and maybe learn a few things.
I want to say thanks for that.
We got bored and we didn't care what happened. Well, what happened serves us right. But that's one way to learn.
Thanks, happy to be here,
--Michael