The Weakest Link

How important is it to keep goals and try our best to achieve them? I pride myself on my ability to be in the present, it's part of what drives my ability to create photos and write. I absorb. When you are goal-oriented, you absorb less of the environment around you, which is what inspires creation. The reason I travel is because it inspires me to create. Being around new things makes my brain fire off all kinds of shit that otherwise just lies dormant. But surely setting goals and trying our very best to achieve them, regardless of whether we succeed or fail, is key to life as well. It is how we succeed. It is how we feel pride in ourselves. It is how we move forward and become the people we've always wanted to be.

I kidded myself into thinking that somehow I could just wing it, that upon arriving here in Europe I would just know, or fall into some sort of meaningful existence and be super successful and learn all there is to learn about myself through climbing and making pictures and writing and oh wait...that totally didn't fucking happen.

It was more difficult than I could have possibly imagined to be climbing solely with people stronger than me. It's hard for me to admit, actually, just how difficult it was, because it makes me feel kind of pathetic. I mean, professional climbers make me feel pathetic, but admitting how much it got to me makes me feel really pathetic.

To “own” being the weakest climber in the bunch is hard work. 

Just upon labeling myself the “weakest link”, I open myself to criticism. Many people shudder at such labels, seeing them as constricting and negative. It comes from the vein of thought that follows closely the concept of positive manifestation: we can shape our own reality (true, to a certain extent), and by defining ourselves negatively, we limit ourselves. If we approach things with a positive attitude (i.e., rather than “I am the weakest climber here” say, “I have the most to learn” or “I have the most room to grow”) then we are more likely to progress and have a positive experience. This is an attitude I struggle with, and have always struggled with, because that also feels limiting to me. To frame everything in a positive manner seems just as limiting to me as framing everything in a negative manner. Reality is not positive or negative, it merely is, and so it requires a myriad of framing, dependent on the circumstance. I don’t think there is anything wrong with framing something negatively; in fact, I think it requires strength and courage to be able to do so. The trick is not to let the way you frame something define your experience, or limit your ability to work through something.

So anyway, I spent the majority of this trip climbing with or around people who can warm up on something I would have liked to spend time projecting, and that was really hard. I knew coming into this trip that I would be climbing with people way out of my league. It’s nothing new to me. I competed from a young age, and because of that I am friends with some of the best out there. When I stopped climbing, many of my peers went on to become professional climbers. My oldest friend in climbing and travel companion on this trip, Alex Johnson, is a two-time World Cup champion and full-time rock climber. She is paid to do this shit. I’m used to being out-classed. So why did this feel so hard?

I'm not entirely sure, but I think I have some part of the answer. 

I started to write a while back about attitudes in climbing, and how much ego plays a part in our success. I am not saying anything groundbreaking by saying that professional athletes are often confident to the point of arrogance, and it is often that quality that in part feeds their success. It's as if they don't accept failure. They know, whether it's always true or not, that they are capable, and that knowing drives them to become better, and better, and better.

Climbing makes you feel like a badass. It releases all kinds of endorphines and crazy chemicals that make you feel (either like you're going to get killed or gravely injured) or like you could conquer the world. Completing a project, or even finishing an easier but epic all day multipitch route in the Valley makes me feel like "I am the shit". Which is a great feeling. One that I would like to have in a bottle. Especially when often my feeling is "I am shit"...the added article is welcome. 

It doesn't make any sense. Climbing a hard boulder or to the top of a large piece of granite does not make you anything more than what you are. It doesn't contribute to society in any larger way. The rock doesn't care. The weather doesn't care. Humanity doesn't care, really. I mean, people within the world of climbing and even outside of it may be inspired, but that's only a very select few that have the gift of inspiring people. I don't inspire many when I climb a 5.9 crack in the valley with my dad, or complete some v7 that thousands of people have climbed before. But I guess that's the point. We do it for ourselves, and I think that can be a beautiful thing. 

Which brings me to why it was such a struggle to climb here, among the pros. It's pretty hard to feel like a badass when you watch three people waltz up something like it was some sort of gift from God placed there specifically for their hands to grab, and then step up to it yourself and forget what feet are supposed to do and make weird grunts and desperate hand stabs before ending up back on the ground. And everyone's so nice about it too, which somehow doesn't make it easier. They cheer you on as you struggle to stick that crimp, and tell you to try really trusting your right heel, and you feel supported but really...the spell has been broken. You are definitely not a Badass. Maybe somewhere else. But here? No. Here you kind of suck.

This is when you lose perspective. It's ludicrous to compare yourself to people who do this for a living. They are mutants. The best of the best. They live to climb. They climb to live. I trained, actually trained for probably a combined total of two months in my life. Sure, I've climbed for a long time, and was even strong and felt that I had potential to be pretty good at one point. But I've never been much good at focused training, and the one time I attempted it, I got a severe tear in my left ring finger and didn't have the diligence or patience to work through it. I love climbing, but I don't think I could ever have the drive and focus to only climb. I like too many other things. Like Bagel Bites at 2 AM. And dive bars.

What I do know now though, is that it takes a lot of grit and strength to sustain motivation and inspiration when you are climbing with people much better than you. More than I could have ever imagined. I think back to the times when I've been the stronger climber in a group, and have a new sense of respect for the "weak links" that tried their hardest regardless of the company. It takes a lot. With no possible ability to kid yourself of "Badassery", it takes something much bigger, much stronger, coming entirely from your own sense of worth and esteem than from your outside environment. 

I'm not sure if I'll ever be so good at it, but I'd like to think that I could get better. It will mean gaining more of a sense of self and pride from within rather than from my outside environment. Which sounds incredibly intimidating, so much so that I am inclined to say it's not possible. But I think it is.

So this time around, I failed to try. By try I don't mean I failed to try at all. I tried. And even succeeded to climb a couple of things that I felt good about. But I didn't try hard. I didn't try like I would like to try. I felt intimidated. Embarrassed. Frustrated. Lame. I let the apathy creep in and surround me like a shield from the desire to try harder and push myself. I have been in some of the most beautiful and highly acclaimed bouldering areas in the world, and I couldn't get myself to try. I couldn't take initiative to project something. I couldn't take initiative to find lines that inspired me and were within my ability. It took a level of proactivity and confidence that I failed to muster. I'm not even just talking about climbing. I came wanting to photograph and write, share my experiences here in even a new way than just my blog. Try and get my words and pictures out there in a way that could god forbid make me money. Instead, I hid in my cloud of fear and apathy.

To all fellow self-proclaimed Weak Links or Lost Souls, don't let yourself stop trying and failing and trying and failing. The quiet (but alive, I swear) optimist in me does believe that failure makes us stronger, and leads us to success. Even if the success is somewhere different than we originally aimed for. From where I stand right now, I would rather be saying "I failed to reach my goals" than "I failed to try". 

Here's to trying.