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General Climbing Discussion

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living in the moment 29-Nov-2004 At 9:34:09 AM butter_fingers

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To babble further...

Zen monks are a very strange lot... they can spend hours contemplating a simple question (for the sake of comparison, we shall call it a sequence of words). This question / sequence may have an obvious answer, or not, depending on how the master (or monk) phrases the original question. Regardless on how often the correct answer is arrived at, it is the understanding of the question and answeer as a whole that is important.

This moment of understanding, or sudden insight (many of you will recognise it as "AHA! it's right hand side-pull and left hand to pocket... not left pocket, right crimper, left to pocket" or something similar) known as Satori, which the Zen monkeys strive for.

I think when I am climbing, I am searching for insight. Into my life, into the climb and into other more esoteric things. The moment of insight might occur as I'm pulling through the crux of a 19 or it may occur a week later as I recall the moves of a 21 I'm working. I may not be a hard climber, and it's not the point. The point I'm trying to get across (I think) is that in climbing, many of us achieve insight into our worlds. Insight allows us to develop a greater appreciation of life and it's associated activities.

I know that for some, the goal (say a send or os) is the important task at hand. But what happens when the goal is reached? A feeling of success, and then emptiness perhaps? I enjoy climbing, not for the sends or for the os's but for the climbing itself. Something that has many goals in many forms, but in essence is the same. It is the path I travel that gives me my joy rather than the 'goals' I set along the way.

I hope that wasn't too tripped out for y'all...