This Week’s Adventures

This week’s adventure was slightly different. Ok, well not different per se, but different. This weekend was different in how I felt. This adventure made me feel something that I haven’t in quite some time:

Fear.

Gut-wrenching, knee-jerking, breath-taking fear. Ok ok, I’m being a bit dramatic, but nonetheless, I was just a few notches short of terrified.

40 feet above the ground, perched on a rocky ledge, and tethered in by some chunks of metal that my buddy jammed into the sandstone, I was spooked. That was where I decided that “Ok, yeah, I’ll lead the 2nd pitch of this climb”… Circus-Circus on the T-Wall to be exact.

Originating in the UK, Trad Climbing is extra-spook because it means rock climbing without anchor points already set in the wall. You set the anchor points. You walk up to a 100-foot rock, and any safety measures that hold the rope you’re protected by will be pieces of metal that you clamp into the rock.

There’s a good chance I’ll write a whole article about my experiences with Trad Climbing for the first time [[Trad Climbing for the First Time, I Was Shitting Bricks|here]]. The gist of it is that my roommate Collin had climbed the same multi-pitch climb with our other roommate Seth about an hour beforehand. On that same ledge was where Collin decided to lead the same 2nd pitch on trad gear. A bit more even-keeled than me, Collin was nervous and was the first to step into that unknown territory. He inspired me so when Casey and I got to the same spot, after about 10 minutes of standing on the ledge nearly pooping my actual pants, I decided to lead the trad climb.

My life was in my own hands.

It requires a tremendous amount of trust in yourself to place the pieces correctly. Should any pieces slip from the rocks, the safety rope preventing you from falling won’t be tethered to anything. So if you misplace the pieces and you fall…well it could be to your death. This was a hard concept for me to understand until the first time I placed the metal pieces in the wall and trusted my life in said pieces.

A Cool Word I Found

Iridescent


Just say it. Doesn’t that sound sick?? Iridescent. Ear. Uh. Dess. Sent. Ear-uh-dess-sent. Mmmm. Iridescent. 🙂

25 Minutes to Blow Your Mind

You might exist as just a brain in a vat.

That’s the whole premise of this 25-minute conversation between Joe Rogan and Elon Musk. They discuss how our lives could totally be a simulation, could totally be just a memory, and how in 10 years we might not even need to speak to each other.

I watched it for the 2nd time (1st was a year ago) and I was just as mind was blown the 2nd time around.

Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqdo57uky4o

A Book I Just Finished

[[Excellent Sheep]] by [[William Deresiewicz]].

A gorgeous book. It talks about the school system and how kids are taught to seek the gold star and the ‘next big achievement’. It explains how this is also propagated in the current job market. It discusses how Ivy League schools incentivize hoop-jumping but disincentivize creatives who like to color outside the lines. They disincentivize people who are incredibly talented at one singular thing in exchange for the kid who kills themself to dabble in a little bit of everything. A great quote from the book:

“The humanities – history, philosophy, religious studies, above all, literature & the other arts – are the record of the ways that people have come to terms with being human” (p. 156 Excellent Sheep)

Thanks for tuning in! Happy Tuesday!

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What Is This?

The whole point of this ‘weekly newsletter’ is to share bits and pieces of my life that I think could be helpful or interesting to some other human on the planet. I’m hoping it’ll also be a way to keep in contact with more people in my life. I figure I can use this newsletter to reach out and hope that they’ll reach out to me if there’s anything that strikes a chord. At the very least I hope it serves to keep people somewhat included and looped in to my life as I’m not always the most proactive with that.

Apparently, people care (mostly just my mom) so hopefully, you’re able to gain something valuable from these newsletters. If not, I suppose that’s why I’ve got the unsubscribe button.