I detest sanctimony. And fuck me, the climbing world is so full of this shit…

And then, there is the word “freedom”.

Don’t get me started on “freedom” …

Don’t get me started on how the climbing world acts as if they own the word “freedom” and its true meanings.

Not surprisingly these attitudes tend to go together. Sanctimony, righteousness and ownership of “freedom” go hand to hand in the climbing world.

Well, you know, let’s talk some shit about “freedom”.

Can there be freedom where there is burning desire?

Do you even know what am I talking about? Burning desire for achievement, burning desire for escaping reality, burning desire for communion with whatever sort of physical or metaphysical entity you get high on. Fucking desire! In other words, an intense-almost impossible to deny- driver of one person’s actions.

Can there be freedom in “want”?

Moreover, can there be freedom where rigid rules exist? Can there be freedom in a game that is practiced within a super rigid set of “cans” and “cannots” Can there be freedom when righteousness about style and purity reaches religious levels with self-appointed protectors of the purity, high priests, commandments and all?

Can there be freedom when goals exist?

Look closely… The more the practice of climbing approaches elite levels, the more it departs from being a casual carefree game, the more its practice and code of conduct – no matter the discipline- approaches a protestant work ethic, a lutherian perception of life, a pursuit where self-punishment, suffering, and hard work with the promise of a higher -level transcendence in the far horizon.

Alpinism is the highest form of that illusion. “The art of suffering”.

And then you have “recognition”. What a rotten dangerous word this one can be…

Recognition of achievement is paramount. This is why “style matters”. Style is paramount because if arbitrary numbers (altitudes, difficulty grades, risk grades) are the measuring scale used to compare our dicks, style is the validation stamp from the “bureau of weights and measures”

Achievement is bound to tie us to desire. We write to be read. We speak to be heard. We climb to spray. We tie our self-worth to our achievements. We tie our own very existence, our notion and perception of self to our achievements.

There are too many fucking rules to put them in the same sentence with freedom.

And then there is the jerk knee reaction to the above. Freedom gets mixed up with disobedience.

This is our romantic heritage. From Thoreau’s duty of Civil Disobedience to the “valley uprisings” and the “statements of youth”, disobedience has always been glorified in climbing, has been part of the sport’s psyche.

Oh, the irony…

The rules of the game are so hard, so unbent that those who come astray face holy inquisitions.

This-is-a-fucking-tribe. And the tribe elders will not have their power questioned.

Ultimately there can be no freedom in social structures. There can be no freedom in communities. Sets of rules and hierarchies evolve naturally in social structures. These hierarchies can often be meritocratic (based on arbitrary virtues for example climbing skill) or they can hereditary or anything in between.

There can be no freedom among other people.

Freedom could maybe exist in desperate and irredeemable internal and external solitude.

Freedom could maybe exist when all hope of communion is lost.

Freedom could maybe exist away from triumph and transcendence.

Maybe.

* * * *

And don’t even get me started about free will…

G.

Photo by Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash