The Manifesto

Let this not be an epilogue full of hopes and wishes unfulfilled.

Lately, I'm feeling strongly that I'm not living up to my potential. It's a gnawing feeling that undercuts any accomplishment I might achieve and takes away fulfillment from otherwise enjoyable activities.

Platitudes echo impotently in my mind: “It's time to achieve your potential”, “just do it”, and etc.

The thoughts I have reach beyond simple short-term goals.

It's easy to psych yourself up for a short time, but to become excited about a new way of living doesn't it take more than a mood change?

I think that I should be judged on what I have done, and what I have striven [acted] to achieve. I want to be judged, and I want to be judged favorably. I want to judge myself favorable. I want to look at my past and be proud of how I spent my time. I want to see that I have done well by my own standards. I don't want to lower my standards in order to feel like I have reached my potential. It's no solace to know that the only way you passed a test of character was through a dilution of the standard.

I refuse to believe that my highest potential, my absolute potential, limits me to pedestrian achievements.

And if potential is not used, is it not wasted?

And of course, here comes the rub: I don't do anything. I don't try anything. That is, anything that would be of importance, anything that would elevate the status of my self-concept. I try things, but I don't succeed at them. I don't truly try hard enough. I ask myself where my fortitude lies, and where I might find the grit to push through a barrier of low expectations, and I cannot find within myself the determination necessary to break out of this oh-so-ordinary rut.

I use injury as a scapegoat, to pass the buck, to excuse my failures. I use injury to mask the fact that I know I could try harder but I'm scared. I talk about my sprained ankle, my elbow tendonitis, and the flapper on my finger. Even the sore shoulder I received from belaying from a weird stance.

I no longer believe that athletic achievement (especially as related to climbing) relies solely on the athlete's conditioning, or their superhuman strength. Rather, I believe once a person possesses the necessary strength to master and maneuver their body to a certain degree, that difficult routes or problems are reduced more to the commitment of the athlete and the athlete's understanding of their own body's limitations and the physics of their movement. Therefore, after a certain strength base is achieved, I believe the limiting factor in an individual's climbing is their comprehension (intuitive or cerebral) of the physics of climbing movements, with fear acting as an auxiliary factor.

Fear cripples my mind. To quote Frank Herbert, “fear is the mind killer”. I allow it to short-circuit my intuition and prevent me from doing what feels right. It stops my natural movement and hobbles my gracefulness.

I think that I have allowed fear to rule so long in my mind that I don't know how to operate without its input.

I am a human being, and humans are naturally graceful, beautiful.

I feel I've lost what is natural to me, and replaced my nature with a nature of reservation and trepidation.

I want to reach out and grasp that which is innately me: that natural movement and ability that resides within my person as reflexes and intuitions that are too primitive to be learned or influenced by my more cerebral limitations. The limitations of which I speak are those limitations which I have learned (I think) as a way to protect myself, and which surely do keep me safe, but what is a life free of danger than a life free of excitement?

I know my body wasn't made as a vehicle to pass time. It is intended to navigate and survive (thrive!) in this astonishing world that is so full of danger and excitement. My body is purpose built to interact with its environment—whatever that environment is.

I can choose my environment, I can choose my interactions.

Let this be my prologue.