The Mind

In the shoddy, unconventional way I've learned to research, (see: reading random shit on the internet and a couple books here and there) I've found that the climbing 'gods' successes become less and less about the routes or mountains, and more about devotion to the mind as they age. Could it be that we all just get crazy as we age? Have you ever not claimed your elders or parents to be crazy? Aren't they?

Jon Gill is one example. He was doing one arm front levers before he could even get likes for that kind of shit on Instagram. Krakauer quoted Gill in his book Eiger Dreams:

"I don't know how much of this I should talk about, because I don't want people to think I've wigged out, but I believe that all the years of mental and physical preparation that I went through in developing both my climbing and mathematical skills- concentrating for long periods of time on a single crystal of rock or getting very deeply into a difficult mathematical problem- made it very easy for me to have certain kinds of mystical experiences."

According to Krakauer, Gill was always focused on these mystical experiences, but only brought them to the public later in life. Should we climbers who aspire to be great go in search of such experiences or do they present themselves when we just fucking let go of fear and try hard?

As I sit in my car in front of my apartment while it airs out from a flea-bomb, (thanks, dog) I think about how enlightenment, or mysticism will never reach me from here. Then again a Buddhist monk could probably sit in this very seat and generate alpha waves faster than fleas reproduce. I climb so that I can meditate, albeit involuntarily. Occasionally, I think I've been close to whatever Gill felt or what numerous other climbers and mountaineers have described, but never close enough.