UKC

My recent incapacity has provided much food for thought, and combined with my attempt at putting it all in a book (I've decided to just call it 'Journeyman - An ordinary climbers adventures') much introspection.

Like many folk on here, I've nearly died on more than one occasion, had plenty of near misses, and probably only survived to tell the tales, thanks to the grace of the mountain gods.

Lying in a hospital bed waiting to have open heart surgery, I had that cathartic moment. What if this is it? What if this goes tits up?

Although a heart bypass is a standard operation performed thousands of times a day, you tend to view it slightly differently when you're on the receiving end. Especially when you've already used up more than a few of those nine lives.

So I lie there, reeling in the years.

Yet the thoughts were not what I expected. I didn't think have I done enough with my life? Have I had enough adventures? Have I achieved the things I wanted too?

Instead the thoughts were not really about me, but about the people around me.

Have I been a good enough husband? Have I been a good enough father? Have I been a good enough friend? Have I put in, as much as I've taken out? Was I there when people needed me? 

Of course if you verbalise these questions, you'll never get an honest answer. Especially not when you're about to get your rib cage split open with a crowbar.

But the biggest question was also the most difficult and painful to answer.

Have I been a selfish bastard? 

As a climber, this is a pretty loaded question, and one which I've always studiously avoided answering with any degree of honesty.

Is this because we don't like to think we might be? Or is it because we're in denial? Or maybe, it's because we don't want the extra weight of that guilt hanging off our harness.

Parents, wives, husbands, lovers and often kids, sit back and passively allow us to indulge in our passion for the rock and the mountains.

Yet just because they don't say anything, give us a smile and their blessing, doesn't mean there isn't more going on behind the eyes.

As we fill our lives with those intoxicating and fabulous adventures and experiences, they have to play the waiting game for either our safe return, or that phone call.

Do we ever stop to consider that our enjoyment and happiness pursuing this climbing passion, is at the expense of theirs?

That our joyous romp up that knife edge arete, is the sword of damocles for them.

I love my wife and kids with a passion and devotion beyond words. Yet I also know that when the sun hits that gleaming ridge rising up into the sky, my sac will be packed.

So am I a selfish bastard?

Whilst those close to me will probably never give me an honest answer, I will.

And the answer is YES! 

Hard to say what selfish is and so many ways to be so. Spending time in the pub, golf club, tinkering in the work shop or even working all hours and saying 'I do it for them'. Alternatively you could be around but taking your dis-satisfaction with life out on those you 'love' (perhaps only subconsciously).

It's far more complicated than that. Who we are steers both what we choose to do and who chooses to associate with us. Granted, children don't get to choose their parents, nor parents their children, but when it comes to spouses, girl/boyfriends and friends in general the nature of our behaviour and our activity choices (the outward expression of our character) may be an integral part of the mutual attraction. It could be argued that changing (or suppressing) who you are, in order to minimise risk, would be harder on the health of relationships than continuing (or only partially modifying) the behaviours that contributed to your having developed the relationships in the first place.

Some give and take on both sides seems to be the best approach.

Such a hard question to answer (if not impossible). However, if we always think about other people to make sure they are having the best life they can, that means nobody has the best life they can (unless the act of caring about other people is the only thing that defines them). A good balance between selfishness and caring is as much as we can ask from people in my opinion.

Is this an extract from one of the later chapters?

Keep it going.

There's a counter-argument, which is that having a chosen element of risk in your life makes (or should make, hint hint) you value your security more; additionally, you chose to climb, and had you not then that need for an element of uncertainty, of risk, of danger may have expressed itself differently and perhaps in a more emotionally destructive way.

And what better time to open your heart than in the circumstances in which you now find yourself.  Good luck with the op, and I hope when you consider your life choices that you conclude that you're a happy and lucky man and are at peace with it all.

T.

"reeling in the years" "Goucho" 

two of my favourite Steely Dan tunes...

Nice one

I doubt you wife and children would have wanted you hanging around the house being miserable when they knew you'd rather be out there.  

They were probably glad of some respite

In my case...

selfish - definitely 

bastard - often

but hopefully (if not equally) offset by...

generous - sometimes

well meaning  - often

A realistic appraisal i think. Any man/woman with goals outside a neat simple family life will at some stage ask themselves the same question if he/she has an over-riding desire to reach out beyond the 9 to 5 day job. Sustained climbing "career" and a good marriage are literally uneasy bedfellows.

Selfishness, it's a tough one and a sliding scale surely. IMO most people are selfish to some extent - most of us spend plenty of time / resources "looking after number 1". To me going on holiday to the Himalayas for 6 months leaving someone to look after your 6 kids and their education and health and the house and everything else looks selfish - IMO of course. One day out at Stanage does not look selfish. Also it would look selfish to me if Mrs Profitofdoom did not have all the opportunities / time / cash that I do, for what she wants to do with her time herself

I like your post a lot, Goucho, and I hope you keep writing

The only thing we can really leave behind us is our Legacy. So the question we might ask when faced with a situation such as yours is "have I left a good Legacy or a bad one?"

I don't think it is a question of selfishness - I would be a terrible father and husband if I was expected to stay home all of the time - I think its a question of balance. Did I find the right balance between the pursuit of my own interests and that of others and was I a good person along the way?

Good post, Minneconjou Sioux, better and more succinct than mine [just before yours]. But you said "Did I find the right balance between the pursuit of my own interests and that of others..." and also "I don't think it is a question of selfishness" - I disagree, I think what you said there is very much a question of selfishness. Thanks for listening

I guess that any action we make where our own interests take priority over others could be regarded as selfish. But then that would apply to every human being to some degree. But when we apply the term "selfish" to someone as an adjective it tends to be in a negative way and I'm not sure that applies to people who identify themselves with certain activities. 

It could even be argued that any reduction in that activity as a result of a regard for others' needs is an unselfish act. This is where balance comes in. So someone who always pursued their own interests over that of others might be regarded as selfish but someone who tempered their activities while still making selfish decisions in order to fulfill certain needs might not?

A profound post, thank-you for that. Ultimately when we're dead there's nothing left of us but the memories of others. The things we've collected and made, and left behind, might offer some illumination but it's quite dim beside the sort of company we've been to family, friends and offspring.

I was selfish when I had no-one depend on me - why not? As soon as I had a partner things changed but could be worried out by agreement. When I had children there was no discussion - they came first. So for quite a long time I came last; I didn't mind at all for the first few years. Now I feel a little hollowed out - sessions at the bouldering wall are nice but they aren't the real thing. Can I ever get back to that real place again without being selfish? Dunno, but I hope so, even if it's on some diff in the mountains.

Otherwise I'm going to have that bloody rat gnawing at me for the rest of my days.

Absolutely, no doubt balance is the thing, along with awareness of ourselves & others & their needs

Agreed.

Reminds me of a story related by a famous actress. Gets home from hospital with first baby.

Husband, donning coat:  I'm off to t'pub

Wife: wait, I'll get my coat.

H: Erm.... What about the baby?

W: Well, if you can leave her, so can I. 

Substitute "crag" for "pub" and we had similar conversations. Result, I barely climbed for about 15 or more years and we came back to climbing in our 40s. Wasted my prime, no doubt. We adopted a family (though still highly competitive) sport, orienteering. Our achievements there greatly exceeded those in our climbing, including national titles and international representation, if that matters. I wouldn't change a thing. BTW, our two daughters gained massive self confidence and self reliance in the process and grew up to be staunch feminists who don't take no sh1t. Even the less keen and less talented in that sphere agrees with this assessment.

Sorry if this all sounds like occupying the moral high ground, but it probably just means that I'm much less obsessed with climbing than yourself. But there's still a bit of me which wonders what I might have done in those " lost", or rather "lost to climbing" decades......

One has different selves.Each has to take its turn .

Well said, John. 

We are all selfish, whether we climb or not. Every single one of us do selfish things on a regular basis. That can range from climbing, to smoking, driving a car too fast, keepin someone we love away from the things or people they love because of our own fears. Personally of all the selfish things you could do, I would say climbing is lower on the list for me. Say for example I was a smoker, the benefit you get from the momentary high  is fleeting at best. The consequences could be equally as dire as falling to your death. The benefits of climbing are great. It allows you to clear your head, to think straight and to treat you family better as a result. You are fitter and healthier. You get to go to great places with your family. If they share your passion they have a life time of adventrue to look forward to. I gives you and consequently your family greater confidence - the list is as long as you want to make it.

Don’t be so harsh on yourself! It’s just a fact of life that football, a pint or a kids track and field race ( no not the latter) takes an hour and a bit out of your life whereas to pursue the adventure of a climb takes all day. They ask why don’t you just do one climb. I now use the expense and cost effectiveness argument. It can also be weeks or a lifetime. You didn’t make yourself and you enjoy it and consider it worthwhile so unless you haven’t rubbed peoples noses in it and even if not people will always try to make you feel guilty about being yourself. Plus the economy and living working in Britain. It’s an occupational hazard to be sorry and all meant to grind you down so you went out and did what Brits have done all over and had an epic with your climbing buddies. No harm done in my book.  Best wishes.

It is the four week anniversary of my open heart and bypass surgery tomorrow. I hope you getting better.

i have never in my life, before the operation, spent such intense time in memories and reflection.  What I did discover what how important my wife, daughter and grandchildren were. And my friends. The operation told me that it is time to spend less time seeking adrenaline. I think I am a more considerate person now.