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.

Reflection and New Directions

My season at Indian Creek finished, I have pulled up my stakes, collapsed my tent, and packed away my gear. In fact, I have already passed through Zion National Park, and am now re-situated in Yosemite National Park, in Yosemite Valley.

The highest priority I have in looking back at my last two months out here ('here' being this expansive world I now live in, without boundaries or schedules) is actually just to make some lists.

Let me show you what I mean;

In two months I have:

Eaten 12 pounds of creamy peanut butter.

Traveled 1,370 miles (without owning a car).

Consumed over 2 liters of hot sauce.

Slept in the open under an expansive—sometimes astonishing—night sky 57 times.

“My season” is more than just a description of time. It's more than the description of a process. My season is a reference to a period of time in my life where I am truly living, truly able to respond to my self. A time of reflection and a time of preparation. Your season is a time of self-actualization. It's a time to respond to the influences of our lives and to make changes to improve or mitigate our circumstances, no matter what they may be.

On the road, I've experienced frustrations and every day has not been idyllic [bliss]. Regardless, I am not dwelling on the minutiae of every day. Instead, I'm trying to see the bigger picture.

These are times of self-improvement. Not the false, manufactured kind of improvement that swaps a new part for an old one. This is the kind of improvement that maintains the integrity and performance of the original design, but makes it better.

Of course, while my time may be finished at Indian Creek, my season is ongoing.

I've had plenty of time to reflect on how long I could prolong this lifestyle, and currently, time (or more accurately, money) is running short. Be that as it may, I've come to realize that one of the primary aspects of living the way I am, is to maintain a certain attitude. A certain mindset. A mindset is a habit, and I want to make a habit out of my current mindset. What I've accomplished in my two months so far is to familiarize my thought process with a flexibility and acceptance of circumstances that allows me to be more consistently happy and to overcome feelings of depression or sadness more quickly than before now.

But for all of this vagueness and hyperbole, what does this mean to you?

It should mean that I am happier. And if you enjoy my true (happy) personality, then you will see more of it, and you, therefore, will have greater enjoyment.

That's it.

As with most things personally related, my growth and experience will only have tangential effects on you.

I think I write about these subjects because I've heard so many “you're living the dream” comments. I don't want to correct anyone: I certainly am living my dream. But more importantly, I want to point out that the dream doesn't mean that life is easy and everything goes your way. “The Dream” is just a mindset coupled with the power to actualize favorable circumstances. It's agency in your life.

I took agency by force, without restraint (perhaps a little to my own detriment). That's how I do.

I quit my job while I was living paycheck to paycheck and I had no bailout plan, $23,000 deep in consumer debt.

I sold my car knowing I needed to go somewhere, but not knowing how I was going to get there.

I sold or threw away anything that seemed non-essential to a lifestyle I wanted to lead. And that's kind of the point: I shaped my circumstances so that the obvious direction for me to take was the way that I have now begun to travel. The circumstances were most conducive for me to hit the road because I made them that way.

I hope that inspires you.

Post Script List:

In two months I have:

Taken 1,704 photographs.

Laundered my clothes 0 times.

Spent $364 ($40 for a shoe resole, $30 gas contribution, $17 to settle a credit card dispute, $17 for a cell phone bill, $260 on food or miscellaneous items).

Read Starship Troopers, The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, Dune, Interpreter of Maladies, The Quiet American, and Jitterbug Perfume (in that order).

PSS

I realize I have not spoken of climbing in the least, and indeed I did intend to, but maybe that's not as important to me right now. 

I do hope that my climbing libido will strengthen, and I think it will as I come into balance, as I see my desire and passion as a function of my overall health and happiness and this is as true for climbing as anything else. Climbing is certainly something I am involved in, something that possesses imminent importance in my decision making process when I make plans—something I center my life around, but as the axis of my life, it's doing what I need it to do for me without me crushing rock every day. Instead, it's more important to me that I have the freedom to climb whenever I want to, rather than wanting to climb every day.