The Joyous Duality of Thought, and the Realization of an Absent Loneliness

As an angst-ridden high school senior, I despaired. Woe is me, I thought, to never have an original creation. After all, isn't it likely that whatever I thought, had been thought before? And of course, there was a vicious cycle of self-perpetuation in this. Seeing all of the other pissed-off and all-knowing teenagers around me did little more than reinforce what I had already realized: I wasn't special.

Ah, how the cynic's mind is clouded.

There is a certain joyous duality to thought, I realize that now. Although my thoughts may not be original, they are self-discovered, unmotivated, for the most part, by any singular outside source. And I may take solace in the fact that there are others like me. There is a thin line (if there's a line at all) between being unique, and being lonely. The virtue of uniqueness that so many aspire to can quickly turn despotic, toxic in its tendency to render one completely and relentlessly isolated. After a while, with no one "worthy" of comparison, you may end up lost, or worse, unidentifiable. That's where depression rears its ugly head.

Depression itself is a fascinating beast. It's not so much sadness, like many people think, as much as it a high-pressure numbness. There's this disconnect from the world. That leads some people to say that depression lends itself to a complete apathy, an unconscious lobotomy of sorts. I suppose that is the case part of the time, especially for those pissed-off and all-knowing teenagers. But sometimes, it's an ambivalence, where the fear of rebuilding surpasses the relative knowledge of isolation. It's not a reflection of weakness, to be afraid of rebuilding. After all, a single person is the sum of so much complexity that to try and take it all in is akin to trying to process the whole of the Hubble's Deep Space Field.

Rebuilding, then, becomes the name of the game, and I hate to denigrate such a monumental process to summation by a single word, but it provides a springboard from which to begin. For me, that rebuilding began with climbing. For others, it could be a myriad of things. A change in thinking schemata, a new hobby, a new friend. Anything that you can assign meaning to in turn assigns some meaning to you. And so, the slow process of rebuilding begins with a painful, tearful reintegration to the world around you. Eventually, the realization may dawn. That although your individual thoughts and actions aren't unique, the order and way in which you present them are. You share commonalities with the other 7 billion minds on this planet, but in each and every one of them, a unique story, an epic, is unfolding. This realization is the retraction of loneliness, and in it exists a kind of joyous duality in thought and being.

Bishop - March2013

Tehachapi at moonrise

My family and I went to Bishop for four days over Spring Break, 2013. (YOLO) I'll try to keep this from sounding too "trip report-y," but suffice to say, much good climbing was to be had. We drove south through Tehachapi, and rolled into Bishop under a beautiful skyscape around eleven at night. We were up six hours later to observe the raw beauty of the Buttermilks. Buttermilk Country itself is steeped in lore and history. Hundreds of years ago, the Paiutes and Shoshones called this land sacred, and upon seeing it, both by moonlight and the new sun of the morning, it's easy to see why. There's a certain fragile nobility to it, a nobility that allows no admission of weakness, but upon closer inspection, a frighteningly delicate balance is found. The beauty of this country was vast enough that even four days later, when we pulled out of Bishop, I hadn't even come close to comprehending the scope of it. Words simply won't do it justice.

Obligatory Mt. Tom and Buttermilk Road shot

Day 1: Our first order of business was to hit some of the easier classics of the area. After warming up on the Green Wall boulder, we headed over to the Hunk. It was my first climb that could even be thrown in the running for "highball" status, and for me, it was a doozy. I had a pretty acute mental struggle fifteen feet off the deck when I realized two things: 1) I had no idea what the **** I was doing, and 2) I only had one small, soft pad. Topping it out was the sweetest tasting thing I'd had in a long while.

I won't go into details about the 20 minute fail-fest in which I couldn't find my way down.

After a lunch consisting of exactly one (1) orange and a few swigs of tepid water, we were off to try High Plains Drifter and The Birthing Experience. I'll tell you right now, the Birthing Experience's reputation for being unflashable is well-deserved. After completing it, I had markedly more respect for my newborn self. High Plains Drifter was, hands down, the most aesthetically appealing problem I'd ever tried. (keyword: tried) After failing to commit to the fabled Drifter move, I put the problem on a shelf. Hopefully the send will come this July, when a few friends and I are heading out there to chase shadows for a week or so.

Eyeing the Drifter move. More than a little sleep has been lost on this personal failure.

After heading back to The Trees Motel (cozy rooms, couldn't really say much for the room service though) to catch a few hours of much-needed sleep, day two ended up being fascinating in a different way. We drove out of town, past the Happies (where, ironically, a couple of hammered broulderers tried to pick a fight with a beleaguered hiker) to a petroglyph site. What was fascinating was seeing the creative parallels between the Paiute-Shoshone tribes and the process of sending a boulder problem. What was heartbreaking was seeing the desecration left by tourists and other people. It's always disturbed me to see the primal urge of people to leave their mark on their surroundings. For some people, an Earthly homeostasis doesn't exist. I don't pity those people, but it saddens me to think that they aren't experiencing, at present, a sort of intra/extra-cooperation between body, mind, and environment. To me, it's important to realize that the machinations of the mind are dependent upon the environment, and if we corrupt that environment, we also corrupt those machinations. Some call it hippie-cyclical-holistic bullshit. I call it another way to try and live compassionately: another way to grow, and to exist.

The rest of the trip was filled with good times and better weather. I managed to fire off the Iron Man traverse on my third go, and connected the opening four moves of Checkerboard. During the drive back, a pretty vicious storm built over the Sierra Crest, and made for a phenomenal sight that probably would have made Muir tremble in anticipation of nature's awesome capabilities. It'll truly be a pleasure to get back to that special place again.

Starting out light

Hey there everyone. Welcome! I started this blog as a way to share...things. Videos, thoughts, concerns, laughs. It's all about sharing, isn't it? Anyhow, I figured I'd break the ice by shamelessly plugging a couple of videos that showcase some of the more beautiful boulder problems around California's central coast. Just a quick disclaimer: I'm a huge supporter of the idea of a boulder problem being exactly that: a problem. And as a problem, it involves no small amount of creativity, time, and critical thinking. It's a process. That means that I won't always post videos of friends or myself "crushing that heinous v11 sit-start-to-a-shitty-thumdercling-micro-crimper." Sometimes it'll just be an update on a project. (Also, please forgive the poor video editing skills, they'll get better with time, I promise)

My goals for this blog are pretty meager at the moment. It'll hopefully be a safe haven for friendly banter and expression, as well as the occasional rumination on the heavier parts of life, and how climbing feeds into those parts. It's one of the more strange things I've noticed about bouldering: my life has become cyclical, and vastly interconnected. Climbing, at its most basic, fundamental level, affects every other part of my life. The beauty inherent in a particularly striking line can induce in me a feeling of such euphoria that I'd be hard pressed to say it's not some sort of spiritual experience. Likewise, the effects of a bad day on campus feed into my climbing, and I find myself punching the rock, rather than feeling it. But always, there's that feeling of interconnectedness. Climbing has become a base for me, a lookout point from which I can judge almost every other experience I encounter. It's said lightly by many people, but climbing really has become life, and life has become climbing.

"Beauty is Truth,--Truth Beauty,--that is all
      Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know"

-John Keats

Here's a short clip of one of the most physically appealing lines I've ever climbed.  Thank Buddha it's almost literally in my backyard.