Character full life, by Stevie simpering Haston.

When you climb a mountain, and stand on the top, and look around, it is normally recognised that you see more. But in todays weirdly politically correct world, with its  schizophrenic side, you are somehow supposed to be a calm Buddhist  kinda guy, who does red bull stuff  by accident, and still live in Holland, while happily married to a job in insurance. Ofcourse  in reality there isn't much to see from most summits except lovely space, and peace. A mind behind the eyes for interpretation might help with filling in the blanks. The whole romantic poet/ climbing thing was a clever marketing ploy by out of work rich kids a couple of centuries ago!

My macho tendency to ignore injuries isn't paying off today.

My silly ill-considered falls of late, have left me with bruises, and stuff I don't understand. My right bicep  doesn't work well, and the bone underneath hurts. My life up to this point seems a bit the same, things seem to hurt, and arnt functioning very well. I accidentally read an article about myself today in which I don't recognise myself. There seems a complete disconnect between my life up to a few years ago, and now. When gazing in the mirror, a middle aged guy stares back, he still climbs well, but he misses patches of bristles on his face, and doesn't much care.  I can barely remember when I did the North Face of the Eiger,  it's like something I read about once long ago. Likewise my character doesn't seem like anything colourful, I just wake up, and go climbing. Not having a character is part of being a Climboid.

  

 Alex on a belay she doesn't really want to be on!

Is life a journey towards boredom. Is it something to burn like a candle, to illuminate something, hopefully in your self.

 Amused that anybody would be interested in a man who still likes to be alone on a cliff, and doesn't mind beans on toast by himself of an evening.

 good shoes help you dance, they say that dancing is practising in the vertical for what you hope to do in the horizontal.

Dancing, and climbing are the same, except climbing is not on an everyday boring surface like a floor. I suppose some climbing is ordinary, but even to me, most climbing feels extraordinary. It might surprise people, but climbing still excites me, why wouldn't it. Is it wrong of me to think that people live boring lives, as well as lives of quite desperation? Mostly, not all the time, but mostly this must be true. On my island of 30,000 people there were three people climbing today, a few diving, a few I guess doing some thing else interesting. But what were the rest doing. It's not an arrogant question, I assure you. I see a lot of guys here working in the fields at peace, they look sorted. But of the rest I don't understand.  

 A small price to pay, lucky it was a small price.

When I was at school more than half a century ago, they prepared me for a life of amazing boredom by indoctrinating me, caning me, and casting spells. What do they do in school today? What was the difference, lets ask between my early life, and Mrs Mays? Or Mr "war criminal" Blair, what was there in his antiseptic life that made him cause the deaths of millions? Anyway these musings are just because I didn't recognise myself in the interview. Recognising war criminals is easy, isn't it?

 An ancient belay bollard on the north coast. Or is it a Yoni stone?

Yoga should be taught in school, climbing should be taught in school, growing plants should be taught in school. What else should be taught in school? Perhaps history, real history might help. The pursuit of happiness… should be on the school curriculum. In school sports I was taught to win, its a concept I never really understood. I preferred looking at the river when I ran cross country, or when rowing on the Thames river.

 Chris contemplating mortality, and  balance.

In the future what is going to happen? How will we escape from society, when there won't be anything else except living in a cube with a bed, and some designated work. Your excersise wheel will be there, there might be a corner of the plastic climbing wall called the North face of the Eiger, if your lucky. I remember for a film once, I was in charge of throwing rocks down to simulate rockfall! Highly paid make believe. That's the difference for most people, the only difference is money, it's good when there's more money, bad when theres less! 

Snapdragons, so sweet to see.

There are flowers every where today, everywhere, and were we were, no one was looking, clearly when they were at school, they obeyed the notice "stay off the grass", "stick to the path", and all the other orders, and rules designed to enslave them, Jedi control tricks were at least interesting. This week I was told to act my age, and be careful, It seemed almost worth considering. But then I realised I'ave been careful all my life. Careful that is, to take a bit of pleasure from the outside world, and so I will try not to fall off again, I'll try to act my age, I'll go back to school, and change my life, Instead of "the Next Horizon", I'll read an Ikea catalogue. It would have been a lot easier if the great film Fight Club, was about climbing instead of fighting. But people have been educated to understand violence, and not love. Climbing is often about love, it's not even about conquering, it's about trying. They even sell climbing as an act of conquest now, or as  part of the drug/adrenaline  culture, we need those mad poets to come back from Xanadu desperately.