Looking Back to See Ahead

An old essay about not climbing

Someone asked me how I reconcile where I have been and what I have done with where I want to go, or what I want to become. First I had to define reconcile as "to make consistent or congruous" instead of using a definition that might be associated with some sort of regret, or submission. I treat with reconciliation between past and present almost every day. Having had very powerful experiences in the mountains, having overcome extremely challenging situations, and survived things that others did not I find parts of my current life mundane. I also find myself ill-equipped to handle other aspects of it. Both conditions result from what I have lived, from the past.

What is happening to any of us right now depends on where we have been. Our actions and thoughts sit on the foundation. There is no going back but constant referral to the past is a compass: if I row a boat I choose a landmark behind me to guide my course ahead. There are reference points we either lived through or bounced off of and those points, connected, shape the path we walk. Viewed together those dots point in the general direction our future must necessarily take because, absent some total, radical upheaval we do not change: what we have done is what we will do. More optimistically, what we have done suggests what we can and might do.

When I post old climbing pictures it isn't meant as reminiscence of the glory days. Instead, I see what I am capable of, what the mind can adapt to, what may become normal when one lives a certain way. Perhaps more relevant to the moment, I see what can be accomplished when one lives without distraction, totally focused and dedicated. It is easy to be pulled in many different directions these days, and worse, to volunteer a leash for those distractions to grab. If I want this thing to be successful - what ever the thing is - I must blind myself to the diversions that compete for attention, and bleed away energy.

In the time we have left some of us can't change our spots. We can get used to them, and figure out how to live with them, and maybe conceal them when necessary. The climbing I did, and they way I did it made me who I am. It fucked me up at the same time it helped me out. I wouldn't be where I am without having done it. Équipe Solitaire (and its predecessors) wouldn't be what it is without that experience. I would not be loved and hated, often in the same breath if I had not lived the life I did.

So when my friend asked about how I reconcile that past with what I hope for the future my answer is that my future is inevitable. I can nudge the wheel to fine-tune the direction but beyond that, who and what I am is already written.

If I was utterly discontented with the script I could revolt, commit to the fight, change what is disagreeable, and eventually evolve. I found myself facing such a choice in the past. I know what that revolution cost. On one hand I don't think I have that in me again. On the other hand, I think each person has one life-altering revolution within.

In case of emergency: break glass, rise against.