Fear, John Locke, and the Reasons to Tie In

"Is he really attempting to answer the ultimate question in a petty blog post?" Yes and no. What I will say before we get into it, is that the answer is my answer and you might not share it with me. That's fine. It might even change; even as my hands fail to keep up with my brain on the keyboard, my answer to this question is morphing into something it wasn't a moment ago. Here's a Jon Krakauer quote from Eiger Dreams to open the gates.

"In the interest of truth in packaging, I should state straightaway that nowhere does this book come right out and address the central question- Why would a normal person want to do this stuff?- head on; I circle the issue continually, poke at it from behind with a long stick now and then, but at no point do I jump right in the cage and wrestle with the beast directly, mano a mano."

Please don't imagine me standing in an octagonal cage, clad in spandex shorts, calling out Jon Krakauer for being a punk and not answering this question.  After climbing several of the highest and most challenging mountains this earth has to offer, he probably thought it would be more worthwhile to share his experiences in an eloquent manner so that "normal people" might catch a glimpse of why we do what we do. As for me, I'm not as nuanced when it comes to expressing myself and (I hope) I've barely scratched the surface of what I will climb in the future. In other words, I will try my best to not type: climbing is fun a thousand times. (Let's be real though, if there is an underlying message here, it's that.)

Brittany Boyle leading 9999 at Smith Rock, OR

I wish I could say it's not about the adrenaline, brah, but I'd be lying. Shit yeah, climbing is all about being scared. That's probably the main reason I enjoy it, which sounds kind of, er, bad, but I assure you it's actually pretty cool. Gnarly might be appropriate nomenclature. Each movement to the topout, the chains, the summit, is a victory over that overarching fear. Each movement upward goes against every neuron screaming at me to GO DOWN, which is why climbing is the best teacher for learning inner strength. It is a meditation that lasts the second my feet leave the ground to the moment they touch the dirt again. The lessons learned along the ascent seem to be in the spirit of John Locke's tabula rasa theory. The main idea from his "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" was that babies aren't born with innate ideas, rather, they formulate ideas and understanding based on their experiences.

I thought he was full of shit until I started climbing and experienced the tabula rasa for myself. Human beings are very oddly shaped. We're not built for much other than walking upright and occasionally stabbing something with a pointy stick to eat. We do have these huge (incredibly vulnerable) brains though, with which we can learn all sorts of useful/less things. If you're Neil deGrasse Tyson, it's astrophysics. Now, Neil deGrasse Tyson did exit the womb with one of the world's most amazing minds, but had he not visited the Hayden Planetarium at nine years old, his name might have nothing to do with the cosmos.  In other words, his ability to see the stars the way he does only grew because of his previous experience.

Climbing is just that. It's knowing I will be able to pull up on a sloping eighth inch of jagged rock because I came across something similar on a previous route. But that first time, man, that's what it's all about. It's that first time grabbing a bad hold and sticking to the wall, the first time sitting back on the rope and trusting the anchor for life, the first time popping a foot and hurdling towards the ground at nine point eight meters per second squared. And then it's going back up, knowing what to expect, and encountering more 'first time' circumstances along the way.

Lastly, climbing is meaningless, yet at the same time the most important thing on earth. Does it matter that I or anyone likes to climb cliffs and mountains? Nope. Do you care that a climber went this way up the face instead of that? Probably not. At the same time, go to Mountain Project and read John Long's and Thomas Byrnes' comments about the route 'Archangel.' A first ascent is (and should be) an everlasting piece of art. Even when repeating a route, I feel that I leave something inexplicable up there; it's not a tangible thing, and not quite an emotion, but I assure you it's real and lasts forever.