Acceptance of death and climbing

Mike Oxlong wrote:Matt N, Would you mind sharing your plan for a controlled death with us? How will it happen, when, where, and how do you make certain that nothing interferes with your plan? It seems like your statements acknowledge my point. You have control over your actions and nothing more. If you go surf you can't control what a shark does. If you do a good job and the company closes you still lose your job. From your statements I get the following idea: the more you choose to interact with the universe, the less control you have over your life. Since we have no choice but to interact with the universe to some degree there is an inherent inability to control everything that happens to us. The idea of control is created in the mind, it is not real. The idea that we are separate individuals is also created in the mind and is also false. Don't let your mind fool you.

We can control certain things by our actions, but not all.
We do have some control. Lots of people control how they die [suicide].
Its not on/off like you're stating it.

Keen Butterworth wrote: I free solo frequently and I think about dying almost every time. It's like a constant analysis going on in my head of whether I can downclimb this move if need be, is that hold going to break, etc. Hell, I think you'd die pretty fast if you didn't think about it.

Well, I'm still here and I don't think about anything when free soloing other than maybe the feel of the hold I am currently on. Certainly not thinking about death up there.

I didn't start free soloing until 30yo, at which point I'd been climbing over 10 years, and didn't start doing it a lot until about 33yo. Not an impetuous youth thing. At that point I was climbing 5 days a week on real rock, and free soloing probably 3 days a week.

It was 100% confidence in my own ability that allowed me to do it, not acceptance of death.

I think even the idea that you control your own actions is an illusion, although a useful one. If you had to be consciously aware of every single process in your nervous system that determines your actions, you'd be paralyzed. Plus there's probably some selected-for motivational benefit to "feeling" like you have free will.

WANNABE - -
"Death is definitely not okay to me. I intellectually understand that I'm choosing to engage in an activity that increases my risk of death but I'm certainly not okay with it. Having a young child only made me even less okay with it.

The only reason I continue to climb is that I feel its benefits for my life and by extension my loved ones outweigh the risks. The clarity and singlemindedness I can have while climbing are hard for me find elsewhere. The discipline and thoughtfulness about my actions, my partners and my objectives have spilled over into other areas of my life slowly. Climbing, mistakes made while climbing and their consequences are very real, and they're real in a way that's hard to duplicate in much of my life. I really value these things.

I've thought about it and I'm not sure I could give up climbing but let's say I could. My suspicion is that my family would have to get accustomed to living with a person who was less happy, less dynamic and was learning and growing less. Maybe that's a trade they'd make after the fact if I'm killed at some point but its not a trade I'm ready to make at this point.

All that having been said I do feel a tremendous responsibility to my child to not act in a haphazard or cavalier way while climbing. I certainly think its impacted the grade that I will lead at. I always want to feel a comfort zone between what I know is my physical limit and what I'm leading when on gear. So while I think I've accepted that I may die while climbing my efforts to avoid dying while climbing have also impacted my climbing. Not much of a samurai mindset is it?

--Wannabe"

----AND....YES. Well said my friend.

I worked hospice...i would not take my own life..in lue of the recente event in Yosemite. I would accept death but of course I hope in get to be very old and healthy/ independent till my last day. I dont see my climbing being more dangerous than driving.

I had a cardiac 'event' on Nov. 27. The urgency shown by the ER staff told me I was at serious risk. As it turned out, I really was. What I remember most vividly waiting to be rolled into the Cath lab was that death didn't seem scary at all. BUT, what had me terrified was what would happen to my wife and daughter.
I'm not into this to reach some sort of existential state. I just want to spend time in the sun with my friends and stretch my muscles.

no
no
you can't cling to possessions and accept death.
cling to life is a turn of phrase for lucky people.

Death is not the void
as a person you still exist and as a soul people still remember you thus the idea of the void is moot.

The fact is people shouldn't remember the free soloist for how they died but how they lived and if you didn't know them then perhaps don't even think about it.

Stoned Master,

What are your thoughts about reincarnation? Perhaps we've already experienced death many times. Perhaps we've known the people in our lives before. How would this change the perception of the present moment?

What is this death you speak of???

Mike Oxlong you asked a serious question that many people will have many different points of views/beliefs about.

Death is relative. Jesus preached to the poor and stated you only live once, suck it up here on earth and your suffering will end once in heaven: eternal bliss. Buddha preached to rich people who loved life (fuck they had slaves, servants, money, respect, power, who wouldn't?) And he stated life is never ending, you will live and die many times in many forms until you reach enlightenment then you transcend this birth and death cycle.

Truthfully I don't know the truth. Who's right, who's wrong? Maybe its all bullshit and we truly just compost like my leftovers in my compost bin? Our energy never dies and it just transfers.

My personal experience answer: I have been through many deaths and many rebirths just in my current form (mind and body). Every day is new and every day some old part of me/idea that I've been clinging to dies and therefore a new me is born. I have experienced that time is of the mind and therefore when I am no longer identified with my mind life is continuous and without end or beginning, just one center to the universe and we all share this center. when I identify with the mind (see and experience the world via the mind primarily, thinking, etc) I see things in duality, time/life repeating itself like a spoke on a wagon wheel. I can break this repeating cycle by transcending/witnessing the mind and just being.

So is there a beginning and an end? Is there such thing as life and death, positive and negative? Or is EVERYTHING one. Everything is "two sides but same coin"? No beginning and no end, no death and no life.

This may seem disconnected from my previous subject but: Have you ever heard of a painless birth? Birth is usually seen or is positive but pain is usually seen as negative. Every birth carries with it some pain.

So thoughts Mike? Thoughts anyone? Dirty hippies...

The only times I ever think about death is when either I'm in danger, intentional or unintentional, or when someone I know is going to or has already died. It is usually a very very unpleasant experience/feeling - very sad.

People who solo don't really consider death when they solo, not in a way that one experiences the real face of death. When death stares you in the face it has a real mental and physical manifestation - experiencing this before a solo or roped climb would be sure to turn even the boldest climber away.

I used to solo routes a lot, particularly in the High Sierra where a minor injury could result in a long and slow death. I was always very aware of something lurking over my shoulder - this being the definite possibility of death - but only once did I actually see the specter when I fell soloing the north face of Mount Goode, as I fell I thought "this is it".

These days I prefer to bask in the long Indian summer of my climbing career - and try to minimize risk, check everyone's gear, try to stay as safe as I can and keep everyone else safe too.

unless you are into alpine climbing, soloing, super highballs, R/X trad, or you simply have zero common sense, rock climbing is as safe as a trail bike ride. of course there are hidden rocks and mythical vampire bats here and there, but what's with this over-glorifying??? geez. people and their self-inflated illusions nowadays.

I'm not a free soloist but have put up some routes and have been in some "must not fall" situations - -drilling over my head on lead 40' run-out, etc. - - in these spots (speaking personally), I become tend to be supremely focused and I suppose that the focus and care at these moments is a focus on LIVING, so no, I'm not considering death - - not yet at least.

Climbers really have an overinflated sense of themselves and their sport don't they. Try riding a motorcycle in a metropolitan area if you want to live on the edge. You get to play Russian roullette against thousands or cell phone wielding, burger eating, distracted drivers. At least with climbing you have control of the majority of your situation.

I think it is important to seperate the vast majority of climbing from the deep play.

Most people rarely partake in climbing that is going to kill us. Obviously there is the possibility of equipment failure, errant rockfall, or weather, but lets not confuse a weekend trip to the crag with anything special. Highball bouldering, which I am more likely to do than free soloing, probably won't kill you, but could injure you badly depending on the situation. That said, I am way more concerned for my safety while backcountry skiing, surfing, or riding my motorcycle than I am going 30 or 40 feet off the deck.

In the end, you should do what makes you feel alive in a manner where the risk is acceptable to you, and the consequences have been weighed.

rging wrote:Climbers really have an overinflated sense of themselves and their sport don't they. Try riding a motorcycle in a metropolitan area if you want to live on the edge. You get to play Russian roullette against thousands or cell phone wielding, burger eating, distracted drivers. At least with climbing you have control of the majority of your situation.

There are obviously things much more dangerous than climbing (pointing a loaded gun at your head and pulling the trigger, for instance). However, people do get seriously injured and die while climbing - rockfall (see recent death on Tahquitz), leader falls, cut ropes (see recent death on El Cap) etc. and so the question here is not a pissing contest about how we could live more on the edge, but rather how we rationalize exposing ourselves to these extra risks, if we rationalize it at all (the same question could be asked to people who ride a motorcycle in the city). Many climbers, for instance, started off hiking - that wonderful, safe joyride through the woods that John Long did "on borrowed time" (see recent Rock & Ice article) - and so climbing represents an activity we added to our lives that gives us increased exposure to death, and as we climb over the years the number of friends and family who have gotten seriously injured or died continually rises, so it's natural to ask ourselves "why am I doing this?" and "is it worth it?"

The OP's question hits one of the key issues on the head: how have we grappled with this philosophical problem of death, and in climbing is the risk really worth the reward (now, it's asked to a crowd of climbers, so at some point every one of us will say, emphatically, yes, but at what point do we say no and why there)?

Stoned,

What you are describing is probably the most practical sense of reincarnation. I agree that when we step outside of our thought patterns we are in a sense born again. For me it has been a cultivation of awareness about my patterns and an conscious effort to be non-identified with them.

Has anyone ever read Deep Survival? Studying various death and survival scenarios he explains moments of "what were they thinking?" as actions spurred by emotion not thought.

I could see this with soloing but is easier to see with people who have accidents. They can become irrationally fearful of certain situations and will likely change there behavior. Honnold never falls, every time it reinforces his emotional intelligences sense of ok with what he's doing. It can be more powerful than rational thought.

I wonder if there's people out there that can comment on taking a fall soloing and how they feel about it now.

Dave C wrote:I think it is important to seperate the vast majority of climbing from the deep play. Most people rarely partake in climbing that is going to kill us. Obviously there is the possibility of equipment failure, errant rockfall, or weather, but lets not confuse a weekend trip to the crag with anything special. Highball bouldering, which I am more likely to do than free soloing, probably won't kill you, but could injure you badly depending on the situation.

Have you read the injuries and accidents threads? "Routine" climbing is getting to be the most dangerous.

Mike Oxlong wrote: Honnold never falls, every time it reinforces his emotional intelligences sense of ok with what he's doing. It can be more powerful than rational thought. I wonder if there's people out there that can comment on taking a fall soloing and how they feel about it now.

http://www.rockandice.com/magazine-flip-book/rock-and-ice-203-july-2012?A=SearchResult&SearchID=1896765&ObjectID=3988224&ObjectType=35

page 16 rock and ice #203

Honnold recounts how he fell twice in one day while soloing in ORG. Both only around/above the first bolt, though.

Each of us will eventually walk through the door of death no matter our perception of it's relative distance. At conception we were all granted talents by God. And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers ... and some climb. Wasting talent is not wise. However, talent exercised with proper caution and due diligence rewards in abundant joy.