I think many of us who pursue anything with depth eventually crash into it... Again and again. There’s this strange, blinding confidence that can comes with new a capability, when you start to “get it,” whatever it is. You think you’ve arrived. You think you see. You think you're "it". And then you sit down with someone who’s been there, not just visited the terrain but lived in it, been broken by it, reshaped by it. And they don't even need to tell you anything. Their silence, their presence, the weight they carry without effort… The eyes... All of this says more than anything you could voice at your current depth.
It’s humbling. It pulls your fucking ego out of your mouth and puts it in your pocket. You realize your sharp new tools are still in their plastic wrappers, your understanding still needs calluses. You’re speaking with excitement; they’re listening with experience. You’re reaching; they’ve already let go of things you haven’t even found yet.
All this is a gift... If you let it be.
Thank you for this one Mark. Brought back painful but needed lessons.
"... your sharp new tools are still in their plastic wrappers, your understanding still needs calluses." This is a powerful idea. Yes, the truth is in the calluses. Rather, they indicate an enduring practice, commitment, which delivers its own lessons.
We must, however, take care; calluses can be a barrier to sensitivity, can become a moat around our own certainty. To keep growing and learning we might shave those calluses, of course, or we can simply acknowledge them and their benefit while simultaneously refining our other senses, and remaining open to new input, new information and experiences.
What's that New Model Army song title, "Never Arriving"? Yeah, there's something in that idea too.
“… I found the truth of Self in those hours, with prejudice and pretense beaten out of me…”
I and others have had substantially similar experiences, not thru mountaineering, but through meditation.
Perhaps the commonality lies in the activities both serving as means by which to transcend the limitations of ordinary consciousness. And both requiring incredible, seemingly impossible effort that is entirely foreign to most who don’t seek with sufficient passion.
Interesting how life enables one to seek both outwardly and inwardly while eventually arriving at the same realizations.
I understood at some point that what I was doing amounted to "active meditation", and that my temperament, or habits, prevented "inactive meditation", that I needed physical effort to obliterate what stood the between me and Self, and those barriers were within, and self-imposed, perhaps unconsciously so. In the formative years, and the later ones during which I expressed what I had 'formed', I had to go hard enough for long enough so (or until) the effort, and the concentration required to sustain it, wiped clean a whole slate of bad patterning, and memories, and erase the effects of wasted time and action.
Sifting through the process (retrospectively) that led me here showed that I had trained this into myself, and if that is true then similar training could lead to a similar outcome. Or that outcome might manifest naturally, with age, or maturity and/or a decline in physical ability. This observation reminded me of a conclusion reached some many years ago; the means are irrelevant. It is the active seeking, the voluntary choice of "seemingly impossible effort", the journey towards an undefined destination, that matters, and that changes us. I wouldn't declare that we are all seeking the same thing but more often than not, by different routes, we do indeed arrive at the same realizations. 🙏🏻
Thanks for revisiting this one along with the added perspective on the interior aspects along with the heads up that there are other tools available especially to those who are "chasing the bus" and looking for something that helps with daily existence and better interactions with the people who matter most in our lives or anyone else we interact with along the way. The breakdown on the interior side brings to mind reading Extreme Alpinism for the 1st time with the inspirational forward by Michael Kennedy to paraphrase where he makes reference to one of his most powerful climbing memories in which he describes going outside his own consciousness and that even though he has sought that out, it's a rare gift that always comes unheralded, never when he thought it should or would. The following parts 1 and 2 built strongly upon this. Amazing and hard to fathom being this far into the deep end of the pool. Way smaller scale for this reader but reading about new perspectives and tools to successfully navigate the inevitable changes we all face as we grow older as opposed to trying to purely grasp at straws in an effort to hang on to the past is pure liberating awareness. Thanks for always illuminating the path so we can avoid being deluded and take a shot at living our best lives. Maku Mozo but still gonna chase the bus looking for that special effect and experience. All the best with the new format !
Is truth of self a metaphor for figuring out the limit of your capability or clarity about how far you are willing to go for a goal? Or both? The reason I am ask is I read your books when I first got into climbing. I am proud of what I have accomplished and the personal growth I experienced when I committed to figuring it out or calling for a rescue but now, I find myself avoiding those situations at all costs. I don't want to do easier climbs but no longer want to reach for the next level. Is this impasse my truth of self?
Welcome to the dilemma! Or as some wise folk called it, "the human condition". Sometimes the tools we use dull, and stop working as they once did. Or the path we chose becomes a circle. Sometimes though, I think we use metaphor to describe a situation so we can avoid saying, "I'm stuck, stalled out, and maybe I've reached the limit of my capability." Maybe the tool, the activity, worked perfectly, and the growth you experienced while using/doing it was the point. I wouldn't say, "quit climbing," but instead, celebrate it, accept it as the means of that growth, and that perhaps a different path will end-run the sticking point in what should and can be continuous growth. I've quit several paths or activities when they no longer taught or served me. Sometimes there has been regret but generally not, or what felt like regret was actually me just missing a habit, or being scared of doing something new. If the truth of self is that, "this doesn't work like it used to," and you still want to do that work, then 'this' must change. Sometimes though, the flow and reduced pressure/risk of those easier climbs can free us from habit of constant self-testing, and uncover new paths within the same environment.
I think many of us who pursue anything with depth eventually crash into it... Again and again. There’s this strange, blinding confidence that can comes with new a capability, when you start to “get it,” whatever it is. You think you’ve arrived. You think you see. You think you're "it". And then you sit down with someone who’s been there, not just visited the terrain but lived in it, been broken by it, reshaped by it. And they don't even need to tell you anything. Their silence, their presence, the weight they carry without effort… The eyes... All of this says more than anything you could voice at your current depth.
It’s humbling. It pulls your fucking ego out of your mouth and puts it in your pocket. You realize your sharp new tools are still in their plastic wrappers, your understanding still needs calluses. You’re speaking with excitement; they’re listening with experience. You’re reaching; they’ve already let go of things you haven’t even found yet.
All this is a gift... If you let it be.
Thank you for this one Mark. Brought back painful but needed lessons.
"... your sharp new tools are still in their plastic wrappers, your understanding still needs calluses." This is a powerful idea. Yes, the truth is in the calluses. Rather, they indicate an enduring practice, commitment, which delivers its own lessons.
We must, however, take care; calluses can be a barrier to sensitivity, can become a moat around our own certainty. To keep growing and learning we might shave those calluses, of course, or we can simply acknowledge them and their benefit while simultaneously refining our other senses, and remaining open to new input, new information and experiences.
What's that New Model Army song title, "Never Arriving"? Yeah, there's something in that idea too.
“… I found the truth of Self in those hours, with prejudice and pretense beaten out of me…”
I and others have had substantially similar experiences, not thru mountaineering, but through meditation.
Perhaps the commonality lies in the activities both serving as means by which to transcend the limitations of ordinary consciousness. And both requiring incredible, seemingly impossible effort that is entirely foreign to most who don’t seek with sufficient passion.
Interesting how life enables one to seek both outwardly and inwardly while eventually arriving at the same realizations.
I understood at some point that what I was doing amounted to "active meditation", and that my temperament, or habits, prevented "inactive meditation", that I needed physical effort to obliterate what stood the between me and Self, and those barriers were within, and self-imposed, perhaps unconsciously so. In the formative years, and the later ones during which I expressed what I had 'formed', I had to go hard enough for long enough so (or until) the effort, and the concentration required to sustain it, wiped clean a whole slate of bad patterning, and memories, and erase the effects of wasted time and action.
Sifting through the process (retrospectively) that led me here showed that I had trained this into myself, and if that is true then similar training could lead to a similar outcome. Or that outcome might manifest naturally, with age, or maturity and/or a decline in physical ability. This observation reminded me of a conclusion reached some many years ago; the means are irrelevant. It is the active seeking, the voluntary choice of "seemingly impossible effort", the journey towards an undefined destination, that matters, and that changes us. I wouldn't declare that we are all seeking the same thing but more often than not, by different routes, we do indeed arrive at the same realizations. 🙏🏻
Thanks for revisiting this one along with the added perspective on the interior aspects along with the heads up that there are other tools available especially to those who are "chasing the bus" and looking for something that helps with daily existence and better interactions with the people who matter most in our lives or anyone else we interact with along the way. The breakdown on the interior side brings to mind reading Extreme Alpinism for the 1st time with the inspirational forward by Michael Kennedy to paraphrase where he makes reference to one of his most powerful climbing memories in which he describes going outside his own consciousness and that even though he has sought that out, it's a rare gift that always comes unheralded, never when he thought it should or would. The following parts 1 and 2 built strongly upon this. Amazing and hard to fathom being this far into the deep end of the pool. Way smaller scale for this reader but reading about new perspectives and tools to successfully navigate the inevitable changes we all face as we grow older as opposed to trying to purely grasp at straws in an effort to hang on to the past is pure liberating awareness. Thanks for always illuminating the path so we can avoid being deluded and take a shot at living our best lives. Maku Mozo but still gonna chase the bus looking for that special effect and experience. All the best with the new format !
What a line- " copper penny taste in my mouth" ..... I feel that !
Is truth of self a metaphor for figuring out the limit of your capability or clarity about how far you are willing to go for a goal? Or both? The reason I am ask is I read your books when I first got into climbing. I am proud of what I have accomplished and the personal growth I experienced when I committed to figuring it out or calling for a rescue but now, I find myself avoiding those situations at all costs. I don't want to do easier climbs but no longer want to reach for the next level. Is this impasse my truth of self?
Welcome to the dilemma! Or as some wise folk called it, "the human condition". Sometimes the tools we use dull, and stop working as they once did. Or the path we chose becomes a circle. Sometimes though, I think we use metaphor to describe a situation so we can avoid saying, "I'm stuck, stalled out, and maybe I've reached the limit of my capability." Maybe the tool, the activity, worked perfectly, and the growth you experienced while using/doing it was the point. I wouldn't say, "quit climbing," but instead, celebrate it, accept it as the means of that growth, and that perhaps a different path will end-run the sticking point in what should and can be continuous growth. I've quit several paths or activities when they no longer taught or served me. Sometimes there has been regret but generally not, or what felt like regret was actually me just missing a habit, or being scared of doing something new. If the truth of self is that, "this doesn't work like it used to," and you still want to do that work, then 'this' must change. Sometimes though, the flow and reduced pressure/risk of those easier climbs can free us from habit of constant self-testing, and uncover new paths within the same environment.
Needed this as a reminder my friend.
"... walking each other home"