Comments on Mountains and Water: Letting Go of Summer

good post peter. I thought this to be valuable r...

2011-09-21T21:55:36.065-06:00

good post peter.

I thought this to be valuable roughage for thought when meandering around the question of climbing's worth:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/the-meaningfulness-of-lives/?scp=1&sq=meaningful%20life&st=cse

Thanks David. There is a connection, I agree, with...

2011-09-15T09:11:23.539-06:00

Thanks David. There is a connection, I agree, with the impossibility of infinite expansion of growth in climbing ability and economic growth. Good analogy. Recognizing the point at which one should let go of that approach is difficult. For most boulderers it happens very early, I have found.

Francis, I have been super busy with hardly any time to get together a proper response to your book. There is a great deal of interesting even provocative material in it. Are you ever in Colorado these days? We should meet and talk about it some time.

This is a fantastic bit of writing Peter, and I en...

2011-09-15T08:33:29.284-06:00

This is a fantastic bit of writing Peter, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Great use of Aristotle and the Greek usage of stasis...for me, it is indeed a sport of goals and finish lines, yet I seem to achieve them more frequently when I treat bouldering movement as an end in itself, not as a means towards some success that I envision....anyhow, just some thoughts.

For my entire life deep signs of crisis have been ...

2011-09-12T19:29:43.278-06:00

For my entire life deep signs of crisis have been sounding, and from that I've learned you just have to keep living your life as best as you can. Today's signs of crisis actually seem tame to me, compared to my childhood fears of armageddon due to an upcoming nuclear war with the USSR.
The problems faced by our society and older climbers seem quite similar at the moment. The expectation of never ending economic growth for our society, and never ending progression up the grades for climbers of a certain age are both unrealistic. At some point the goal for both needs to be a shift to doing better with the level we're at. Better style perhaps.

Climbing does provide us all with temporary escape from personal and worldwide crisis, but it isn't merely that. It also provides physical fitness, mental focus, and perspective on things that can help us address the problems once we return from the mountains. We all know climbers who haven't found balance in their lives, climb to much, and withdraw from society too much. But if we look at our society from a distance, the problem is too little climbing or other enriching pursuits, not too much.
It's clear that many paths people have followed, and continue to follow, will only lead to dead ends. Science, the Arts, Climbing and a few other pursuits still show promise.

If you reach a cliff's edge, don't walk off of it. And if you don't feel like turning around, you can walk along it for a while. Hopefully someone gets what I'm saying.