“Sometimes you find yourself in positions where falling would mean death. So you don’t fall.” – Alex Honnold
Creativity, inspiration, and clarity are non-linear.
They comes from places you don’t expect, when you don’t expect them.
And when they arrive, they don’t scream; they whisper — so if you don’t listen close, you’ll miss them.
Like I almost did last night.
It started a few days ago, when Alex Honnold climbed a 1600 ft Taipei skyscraper, live on Netflix, without a rope.
That’s a crazy-ass thing for nearly anyone to do, but Alex has been free soloing the toughest climbs on earth for decades.
So Taipei was more of a showcase than a real challenge.
(his greatest achievement — the greatest physical achievement in human history — was free soloing Yosemite’s El Capitan, an iconic, 3000 ft, near-flat rock face, with no partner or rope)
Anyway, I watched for about two minutes before I felt too queasy to continue.
My palms actually started sweating, and I kept wiping them off in case they accidentally made Alex slip, and my fists were clenched as though my grip was the only thing keeping Alex from falling hundreds of feet and pancaking a crowd of Koreans.
But that queasy two minutes got stuck in my brain, and I couldn’t shake it loose.
Random fact, I was actually a competitive rock climber when I was a kid.
I remember spending my entire allowance every week on new holds for the climbing wall I had, no joke, in my bedroom.
(I had one of those weird ceilings that went diagonal before it went flat, and I used to boulder from my bed on one side to my desk on the other side. True story.)
So something about Alex Honnold free soloing Taipei tickled an old, forgotten corner of my brain.
I tried to ignore it, at first.
(”what’s the point in going down a rock climbing rabbit hole, that’s stupid, I’ve got work to do”)
Until last night, when I sat down for dinner and flipped on my show, and then, three minutes in, turned it off, flipped on YouTube, and dove down the rabbit hole head first.
I ended up watching nearly two hours of free solo climbing, palms sweating the whole way.
Then I went upstairs and listened to clips of Alex on Rogan while I brushed my teeth.
Then I bought Alex’s biography on Amazon and read it while falling asleep.
And now I’m sitting here writing about Alex to you.
I have no idea what the “benefit” of this new mini-obsession is — or if there even is a benefit, other than the pleasure of the obsession itself.
But I do know that my mind lit up when I started watching free solo climbing, and I’ve been riding a wave of fresh inspiration ever since.
That’s what I mean when I say creativity, inspiration and clarity is non-linear:
It comes from places you’d never expect, squeezes through hidden doors in your mind you didn’t know were there.
If we try to logic it — to decide where it should come from and what form it should take when it appears — those doors slam shut.
All we can do is pay close attention to what switches us on:
Pull the unexpected threads of curiosity as far as they will go, and allow ourselves to be surprised at where we end up.
If that sounds mystical, that’s because it is.
It’s mysterious and magical and totally the sh*t life is all about:
Let yourself enjoy the ride.
- T
P.S. A few bangers from Alex:
“I’ve done a lot of thinking about fear. For me the crucial question is not how to climb without fear — that’s impossible — but how to deal with it when it creeps into your nerve endings.”
“There is no adrenaline rush. If I get an adrenaline rush, it means that something has gone horribly wrong.”
“Doubt is the biggest danger in soloing. As soon as you hesitate, you’re screwed.”
“No matter how hot the chick is, say if I was standing at the base of El Cap, and she urged me to free solo some route, my answer would be “No way”.”
Also, this is epic.
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