Risk taking is something that continually fascinates me. It used to occupy my mind mainly in the context of running it out on scary trad routes. These days, more and more, I think of my risk taking in this environment as being quite simple most of the time. I either want to do the climb enough and feel able and willing to commit to it, or I don’t. Risk taking decisions in climbing are often quite formulaic. You put the pieces of information you have through the algorithm, and then churn out the decision. The spaces between the information get filled with intuition borne from experience (of past mistakes). Where you know you are relying on intuition, you must accept its limitations and be ready to escape as best you can if the adventure goes bad. If there is no intuition, no spaces between the data, there isn’t much excitement. Sport becomes robotic and dull.
More interesting are the more complex risks of life. Where the proportion of fragments of useful signal in the noise of unknowns are much scarcer. If I eat this, am I getting slightly more dead, or slightly closer to 8C? Will my life be better if I stay in the European Union? Given that the world is still turning after George W, will the end befall us under Donald Trump?
Still more tricky are parental decisions. My daughter balances along a wall. My head tells me there is only one way to learn about height: landing from a height. Better learning from a 3 foot drop than 30 foot. But learning carries the risk of things not working out well. There is no way around this. Avoiding short term risk during learning creates bigger risks later on. It’s why the rates of kids fractures go up, not down, when they replace the concrete with rubber flooring in play parks. Risky play is a serious business, of learning.
It was a year and a half ago now, but readers of this blog will remember that my take-home message from the referendum campaign for independence here in Scotland was that I resolved to be as fearless as possible in as many areas of my life as I could. I was left with a strong desire to rail against bias for the status quo until you have a path of solid data laid before you (data which can never be got without taking the leap and running the experiment). It colours my approach to many things, in my view in a good way. But I’ll not be offended if you read this and think differently. My perspective is that our norms are way too skewed in the direction of reluctance to experiment and take risks, and by pushing back against this, we get closer to an optimum balance. In other words, the tide of societal norms and especially media economics is constantly dragging us towards fearfulness. While the tide moves in this direction, we have to swim in the other direction, even just to stand still. I’m writing this post as much as anything to remind myself to keep up that resolve. I try every day, sometimes succeeding, sometimes badly failing. Failing is allowed. Failing to try is inexcusable.
As I get older I understand more and more that I have an appetite for taking risks in certain situations, even if the odds are not great. I don’t take stupid risks. You’ll never catch me in a bookmakers, for example. I’m also not that attached to the thrill of taking risks. I still get a wee bit scared to phone people I don’t know and things like that. I get no kick out of random risks, purely taken for the thrill. But if I’m curious about an outcome, I’ll gladly take a calculated risk to find out what will happen. In fact, I’ll find it harder not to take the risk. I find the status-quo an uncomfortable, stressful place. But pure indulgence of curiosity is not the only strand of motivation for risk taking for me. The need for change is another.
I heard an interesting quote the other day that there are only two things that drive significant change in a persons life; abject misery or profound inspiration.
If this is indeed true, then it is interesting because either will do. If you don’t have the inspiration, misery in its various forms will do just fine in its place. Maybe it’s just me but I feel myself getting gradually less tolerant of a part of our culture that is tyrannised by the need for data. I’m all for evidence, and the use of useful data. But life is full of unknowns - incomplete or absent data. Quite often the only way to get data is to go ahead and try, and learn the hard way. This is the rub for me - aversion to exploring areas with little data only succeeds in getting less data. If you are a data fiend, then the places where data does not exist are those that will feed your habit for more data.
If someone says “lets not try this until we have evidence”. The next question should be “can we get the evidence without trying it?” Life is far to short to get stuck in this dilemma all the time.
Video still of climbing Practice of the Wild (Font 8C) in Magic Wood last week.
The footage of Tyler Landman doing the second ascent of Practice of the Wild was what first inspired me to visit Magic Wood in 2012. Obviously I’d already heard about it, as ‘Chris Sharma’s hardest boulder problem’. I’d heard about Chris’s method for the last move - a wild all points off dyno across the roof. Landman looked so dynamic and strong on it and the climbing looked so good. It it was an exemplary piece of hard climbing. I had to go there.
But not for Practice of the Wild - at Font 8c and one the hardest problems in the world according to Daniel Woods who also repeated it, it was too hard for me. Although I do boulder for quite a few months in the year, sometimes as much as 6, I’ve never got much beyond a handful of Font 8Bs. On my 2012 visit, feeling in good shape for me, I did manage two 8B+s (New Base Line and Mystic Stylez) which I was very surprised and delighted with.
Of course bouldering grades do tend to be a bit stiffer in the UK and neither of these felt as hard as some of my own problems in Glen Nevis such as Seven of Nine. But operating pretty much on your own, it’s easy to get lost with grades, and I frequently do. I’ll give myself the excuse of not doing one climbing discipline for long enough to get an idea, and stick to it.
In 2012 I did try Practice of the Wild for a session, and confirmed that it was indeed far too hard for me. I couldn’t do any of the crux moves. None. But that was sort of irrelevant. Because I was inspired by it, which is all that really matters. I’m fully accepting that when you try something hard, you might never succeed. If that wasn’t true, it wouldn’t be hard, would it? So who cares whether it’s too hard, so long as it drives your motivation.
I visited Magic Wood again in 2013 for a week (of warm and wet weather). The hardest thing I climbed was 8A. Ridiculous as it is to say, the best thing about the trip was just to stand and look at Practice of the Wild again, and think.
Climbing Dark Sakai (8B) last week. I'd tried it before in October but tweaked my finger on a nasty pocket at the start. This time I could do it first try after a quick reacquaintance.
In the past year or so, I’d gone through two ankle surgery rehabs, a big chunk of the year on crutches and was looking at another surgery. I was 36 and after so much time just trying to be able to walk and climb anything, the idea of reaching a new level of Font 8C seemed laughable. A joke. I looked at the problem and even in my dreamy inner thoughts I felt there was no chance, ever. Don’t kid yourself on MacLeod.
For quite a while I accepted this. Actually it was part of a wider shift in my thinking at the time. I was really trying to come to terms with my loss of form after the surgeries. I wasn’t really prepared to deal with it and was trying to find the best way forward. For a time it seemed like I should accept that upward progress in sport climbing or bouldering was just over for me. As I wrote in Make or Break, I do feel that almost every serious battle scar you pick up in life changes your constraints. It changes the rules of the game for you, sometimes tipping the scales against you. If you are unprepared to push back against this and still fail, it may be better to leave the game. Eventually I realised this was not me. I do still enjoy trying to improve at climbing so much, that playing against poor odds is still worth it for me.
Given some time to recover from the surgeries, I naturally felt this black and white way of thinking melt away a bit. The reasons why I couldn’t keep improving seemed less important when I could get on with a daily routine of actually training and going climbing, ticking routes again, even if they were not hard ones.
Some footage of me climbing my model of Practice on my board in March
So with some positive feelings returning I made a statement of intent by building a model of Practice of the Wild on my board. It was a pretty good one! At first, I couldn’t do any of the moves. After several sessions, I could do two of them individually, then another, then another. But that’s where the progress basically ended. By last September, at my strongest I could string two moves together (of seven). At this rate, I’d maybe climb the model when I was 45?! I’d have to hope it was harder than the real thing. Actually I knew it wasn’t.
And so I knew I needed another ingredient, not an edge, but a supercharger on my climbing standard. You don’t get many of them at 37 (without crossing boundaries of legality and sporting fairness). But you do if you are not thin. I’ve never been a thin climber, and always struggled to keep my body fat % below about 15% (putting me firmly in the outlier category at the high fat end of the Font 8B+ or harder cohort). For reasons I couldn’t fully understand (even now I still only have fluid hypotheses) it was getting harder and harder for me to even tread water in this battle. I still had a hunch that somewhere beneath my tyre was a potential Font 8C climber.
So although this aspect of my preparation clearly would be the linchpin, the trouble with it was that I’d already thrown every single piece of advice coming from sports nutrition at it already, and failed. I’d slowly, depressingly failed for two decades. So how might I suddenly succeed? I’m sorry to break the narrative and potentially spoil the read at this point, but the ‘how’ what came next I’m going to save for a dedicated blog post (well, actually massive essay). Please forgive me for this, but it’s such a controversial topic that I am very concerned that I might be taken out of context, or seen as being flippant or glossing over important details in such an important issue. Also, and not least because the approach I took was precisely the one that many nutritionists warn is a path to outright failure in sport performance. So if you are interested in the ‘how’, it’s coming. For now, here’s what happened:
Phase one of me intervention was reading around 20 books and many hundreds of scientific papers and hundreds more webpages, so I had a handle on what I was doing. In phase two, I easily lost 3.5kgs in less than one month and my climbing standard took an immediate jump. I didn’t really get to test this other than on my board since it was the start of the winter. In phase 2, I maintained my new lower weight and felt great in training with much better energy and much to my surprise a few other long term health issues cleared up as well. During this time I managed to climb my model of Practice of the Wild. So I made it harder so I couldn’t do one of the first moves again and built up to being able to just climb it once at my limit.
In phase three of my dietary changes I dropped another 2.5Kgs, still feeling great and just before my trip to Magic Wood in April I could run laps on the model! When I arrived in Magic Wood I headed straight for Practice. I was somewhat bleary eyed after the long drive across Germany, but I could immediately feel I was much stronger on the moves. But it was on the second session, after a night’s sleep that reality hit - I could link it straight away to the last move! A huge leap in progress, and more than that a realisation that this was not a joke project. I could do this.
Since the start holds were still quite wet I spent time practicing the finishing big dyno a few times. On the third time I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder while holding the swing. “Oh no! Surely I’m not going to get injured now. Not now!!!” It didn’t feel that bad, but not good either. In hindsight I think I just scraped a rotator cuff tendon a bit. But I was worried it might be a SLAP tear. Either way I was terrified of doing the move that way again.
So one night while it snowed about a foot, I broke trail into the wood, set up my lights and worked out another method. A huge cross through stab to a crimp, and then I could get the jug statically. It was maybe a tiny bit harder, but I could do the move several times in isolation.
I had one more session of redpoints to the last move every time. One time I held it and my lower hand pinged off. I knew it could happen next session. But I also knew this could get harder psychologically - playing defensively creates pressure. When all you have to do is not blow your chance, somehow this becomes much harder to avoid!
Sure enough, next session I felt inexplicably a few % weaker. Two mistake riddled brawls to the last move, falling weakly. One fall from lower down. Then a hole opened in my finger. It was unravelling! I’d surely need two days to let the hole heal up, then the rain was coming. Practice of the Wild can stay wet for weeks at a time. I spent half and hour repeatedly doing the last move, systematically trying every tweak in the movement I could think of. I came upon a small improvement. If I pulled up a little higher and went for the move without dropping down so much (more of a snatch than a lunge), it felt a tiny bit more solid. I went for a walk. Looking at my shredded fingers, I figured I wanted one more try that day from the start. If I was going to take two days off and potentially more after the rain, what did it matter if my fingers were totally trashed?
Whatever happened in that moment, the pressure of anticipation for that session dissipating, the walk warming me up a bit, my skin hitting that sweet spot of friction just before it gets too thin, whatever, everything clicked. As soon as I pulled on I felt good. The moves flowed by and I arrived and the last move not feeling anything. It wasn’t until I felt my fingers bite into the crimp that I woke up and realised it was on. I breathed to force me to take my time setting my feet, and then grabbed the massive jug.
Done.
Video still of going for the jug on the last move on the successful attempt. I'll post up a video of it when it's ready.
None of this matters to anyone except me. And only two things about it really matter to me. Firstly, Practice of the Wild is a brilliant piece of climbing, and by being hard enough to give me a good battle, I was able to enjoy it all the more. Secondly, I had to make real progress in my climbing to do it. Well okay one more thing matters, I had to use my brain to figure out how to make the progress. The battle was won while sitting on my ass at 2am with square eyes reading obscure papers on cellular metabolism. There is more to climbing than just pulling on holds.
Footnote: I’m always a bit sensitive writing about weight and climbing. Personally, I think writing about it and being open is much better and healthier than being secretive. But I know disordered eating and inappropriate food restriction happens in climbing and it’s a problem. In my view we’ve got to be open about when it’s appropriate to look at weight as a priority for training for climbing. As I said above, I have a post coming on the ‘how’ of my training intervention. It’s a highly controversial and polarised topic that needs handling with care. So even in that post I’ll be urging you to listen to the whole body of research out there, not just one voice. But from this post if you take anything away from it regarding weight in climbing, let it be these three simple points:
1. I spent months and probably 1000s of hours studying vast quantities of scientific research and discussion before doing anything.
2. I used a strategy for weight loss which does not involve being hungry, or anything other than eating high quality real food.
3. I am a 37 year old male who had a tyre around my waist. My individual story is relevant to me, not you. Fat loss tends to be effective in climbers with excessive amounts of fat. It can be seriously performance negative (at the very least) in those who do not carry excess fat, or people who are growing or have other health conditions. This leads back to point one - start from an informed position.
Having come out of the other side of my massive book project and starting to climb regularly again, I have been thinking a lot about the nature of my need to climb and what I take from the activity. I’m aware that for some readers these comments may sound ridiculous, but they are my feelings and so you can take them or leave them - they simply are what they are.
My deprivation from climbing over the past months and years during this project has been relative. I have still climbed more metres of rock and ice than many people have the chance to and I am grateful for that. I’m also aware that the book project has had still greater disruption for my family. This post is not a moan. I understand that everyone has choices to make in their life which have a big mix of positive and negative consequences and then live with them. Nonetheless, whether it seems self-indulgent or not, the relative lack of climbing over the period had a huge effect on me. A negative effect.
Wanting to make the most of each and every possible opportunity in life can be both an advantage and a big problem. Being drawn in several different directions at once is destructive for success at most things that require work and application. I could write posts about all these directions, but in this I’m just writing about the climbing aspect.
Several years ago a climbing journalist interviewed me soon after I climbed Rhapsody at Dumbarton Rock. I remember him commenting after the interview that he still wasn’t really clear why I liked climbing so much. I think he was not seeing the wood for the trees. I don’t climb to notch up first ascents, to complete hard projects, or to be better than anyone else. Spending my time doing these things is the means, not the end. The end is simply the climbing. The hard projects, training and the pushing yourself simply intensifies the experience. If I’ve pushed myself harder than someone else, it’s simply because I enjoy the climbing that much.
So this need to climb is not something that has to be linked to achievements or grades etc. They merely assist in getting the most out of the climbing. In trying to find an analogy for this basic need to climb, I felt it was similar to the need to have the correct body heat. Imagine you were deprived of the heating or clothing to stay warm. You can still function in your activities of daily life, even enjoy good things. But it is just harder to enjoy them while you shiver. If exposed to this over time, you might even adapt to this state to an extent. The discomfort may fade to a dull hue, no longer at the front of your mind. But it is far from eliminated. At the extremes of deprivation, the discomfort would be strong enough to cancel out satisfaction from meeting any other basic needs or comforts.
Over the past three weeks I have been building back up my basic strength and fitness in my climbing wall. I have found that even when feeling rusty in my movements and weak on the small holds, climbing makes me feel that I can deal with the all the other problems in life. But as I’ve got stronger and fitter, I’ve noticed the effect is stronger. This is more than it being nice to be able to climb things I couldn’t before. The actual climbing feels better. More agility, control and confidence, as well as strength.
The book project has been a reminder that since I’m lucky enough to have opportunities to climb, I should take them wherever possible, not just for the direct enjoyment, but for the effects in all parts of life. It's also reminded me to take the time to train and build up to a good performance.
At this time of year, I often get manic. Im not really sure why. I know it’s not related to the season, because I’ve had the effects at other times in the year also. In a gradual process that takes many weeks to build up, I notice a string of quite striking mental and physical changes.
My mind tends to race all day long. When it gets to 2am and I’m still working or training, I’m exhausted and can barely conjure a rational thought. But I don’t want to stop. Going to bed and sleeping is so obviously required, but the other part of my mind resists it to the last. I find that I have amazing daydreams while driving or walking and find that these yield some strong ideas about whatever I’m working on, and all sorts of other things.
Because I’ve noticed this happening to me before in most years over the past decade of my life, I don’t mind it. It’s a kind of polariser of everything. It can cause me some serious problems, chiefly insomnia and being quite unreasonable. But I also find that I have the kind of fire of motivation that can drive a lot of things forward. The challenge is to tame it to harness the great benefits and try not to let it turn me into a sleep deprived zealot.
The first time I really became aware that this was not normal was in 2006. I was living in Dumbarton. I’d just done the first ascent of Rhapsody and after having pulled my climbing up from the odd 8b sport redpoint to 8c+ in a little over a year, I hadn’t done any work and was completely broke. I was counting out 2 pence pieces from a jar in my flat to by tins of beans and realised that I needed to change my life if I wanted to move forward onto new horizons in my climbing. The fire at that time was directed (outside of my climbing of course) onto starting to write this blog and trying to learn how to communicate what I’d learned from my life as a climber and student of sports science to coach other climbers. My accepted cut off for going to bed got later and later and I used to forcefully press the off button on the computer when I saw the sun start to rise out of my window.
My best effort at harnessing it was while I was writing my book 9 out of 10in 2009. I found that I had so much mental energy that I was able to focus for up to 12 hours a day on writing with only trips to the kettle as breaks. When I don’t have the fire, I find it desperately hard to concentrate for long, uninterrupted periods. After I’d read, thought and written furiously for my shift, I’d attack my board at 10 or 11 at night, for a couple of hours. In less than two months, I got to the end of the book, and left for a sport trip in Spain.
The fire hadn’t gone, but I was physically exhausted. On the first day of the trip, I let my partners climb as a pair while I set up a rope to work on A’ Muerte (9a) by myself. After I’d set up the rope, I sat down at the base, put on my rock-shoes and paused for a moment, realising I felt pretty tired. I sat back against the rock to take a moment’s rest. Four hours later I woke up, and stumbled off to my sleeping bag. Despite being deprived of real rock for the previous two months, I started the trip with three days in bed before I felt recovered enough to begin climbing. But two weeks later I climbed the route for my first 9a, and felt in really great shape.
Right now, every night I feel like I’d need to hit myself over the head with a frying pan to stop my mind racing into the wee small hours. It’s really good being at home for a little while after spending most of this year out of the country on climbing trips. I wonder if it’s that opportunity to focus on climbing, training and work projects for a spell has brought on my current state of agitation. One minute I’m falling asleep over my dinner, the next I feel really good climbing on my board. One thing I have learned is that trying to work against what your mind and body want to do doesn’t really work. Not working, when I want to work, makes me depressed really quickly. Yet a mind that doesn’t have a diurnal ‘off switch’ is trying to square a circle. Like many problems in productivity, it may come down to an issue of habit replacement and self-discipline. I’m not really strict in following the simple rules of overcoming insomnia. I ought to be. An extreme problem requires an extreme intervention. I probably need some formal coaching in the field.
Complaints aside, I don’t really want this period to end. I know that I’m pretty lucky to have the feeling of burning motivation for the work I do, and I do enjoy it.
What country voluntarily votes to hand over its own independence? Mine did. Yesterday I felt completely empty and devastated by what happened in Scotland. It was a moment when you suddenly realise how easily the chance for something really special can be obscured by the fear of losing what we already have.
Lots of folk have tried to point out positives in what has happened, and I admire them for that. They’ve said it’s got the Scots engaged in politics and that it’s a wake up call for the UK political system. I’m normally first to look for a positive way to look at things, but in this case I think we have to face up to the size and uniqueness of the opportunity we’ve just wasted. Sure, we got engaged in politics. But despite all the discussion, people somehow didn’t see that this movement towards independence wasn’t about nationalism, wasn’t about isolation of ourselves. Despite all the discussion, people still focused on the character of individuals like Alex Salmond, they thought that big corporates warning us that prices would go up was them speaking for our best interests, not theirs.
And what about that wake up call for the UK’s political system? I don’t think I can bear to watch as month by month, they slowly hit the snooze button and roll over. Just as they have done for the climate change wake up call, the banking crisis wake up call, The ever increasing mountain of debt, the food industry that is making us fat and ill, the slow failure of antibiotics and all these other problems that don’t win votes to address.
For a few weeks, I almost dared to feel that just once in my lifetime, a country could be smart and courageous enough to see past all this, and that country would be my country. It was too good to be true. I tried all day to digest it and in the end, wandered outside into a warm night, sat down in the grass and cried. Not for my own selfish interests, but for what this means for us as people all across the world.
Of course I respect the decision even though I thought it was an awful one. I certainly don’t blame some people for feeling that we don’t need independence. This may turn out to be true, in a way. Sure, we can settle for what we have right now. We are one of the luckiest countries in the world already. However, this only deepens the irony that we should pass up the opportunity for life in the country to have become much more meaningful, exciting and rewarding.
I have to admit that there is not a lot I can take from this experience to improve my own life and contribution. I will remember it for my remaining years as among the most hopeless days of my life. What I will take, is the biggest reminder I think I’ll ever have that our human minds are far too full of fear. Rather than changing for the better, it seems like modern life is making this even worse. So my lesson from this is that life is too short and shit not to be utterly fearless in grabbing the good opportunities that do come your way.
My friend Craig posted this up tonight. I think it‘s brilliant that he had the courage to stand in front of a camera and put his thoughts across so honestly and directly. Well done to him and everyone else who has done similar, no matter how they feel about the decision Scotland makes tomorrow.
Not only do I agree with what Craig says, and the way he looks at the whole argument, but I really felt happy to watch it - that we have people around willing to stand up and put such a clear case for something as uncool as politics. Perhaps it's partly because I know Craig from School and so the conviction of his delivery underlines how smart but weird teenagers can turn into really smart adults. He looked even sillier than me with long hair, but was pretty damn handy at playing Metallica guitar solos. I last bumped into him on his way to a MENSA meeting in Glasgow.
Tomorrow is an opportunity to do something amazing, not just for us, but for the whole world actually. To make a really huge step to change ourselves. And to do it without going to war, which will be a great example for the world. I'll jump for joy if we have the courage to go ahead and do it.
Although this blog is primarily about my thoughts on climbing, I’m aware that the huge decision on Scottish independence is getting close, and I need to think about whether to keep my thoughts to myself, or share them with others. It doesn’t seem to make sense for interested parties to make their decision in a bubble of isolation. Why not discuss it openly? Moreover, why not make clear where the gaps in the arguments aired in the media lie, so that we may have more of the information we need to come to the best possible decision.
Unlike the way the decision is presented by politicians, I don’t feel that anyone can truly come to the right or wrong decision, where right or wrong implies prosperity of the country in the future. Either path carries considerable uncertainty. In my mind, the right decision is the one that people are happy to have made, given the information and feelings we have at the time. Even if it did turn out to make us a tiny bit worse off in the pocket, that won’t make it the wrong decision because either path could have led to that outcome.
Because of these uncertainties, I was undecided for a long time, but as I’ve thought it over repeatedly, I have now decided that a Yes vote is definitely the choice I wish to make. Part of the reason it took me a long time to reach a firm conclusion was the the disappointing level of coverage of the issue in the mass media. In the political field, each side is obliged to try to strengthen it’s case. Realistically, what else could we expect? I hoped to hear more from respected intellectuals who were prepared to offer their thoughts. Thankfully, these have appeared on the internet over the past few months.
If ever there was an issue that is not black and white, it is this. Here are some questions and ideas that have come to my mind to guide me through this decision, which I am so happy to have made. It’s the first time in my life where I’ve been truly excited to receive my ballot paper through the letterbox.
These ideas span several different concepts and issues, and all of them seem relevant to me. I hope they are at least interesting to some of you who may be going through the same difficult process.
Part 1: Power
They say that the one lesson from history is that no one learns anything from history. However, right now we have a future in front of us of being able to make decisions for ourselves. I cannot find a good reason to take a huge gamble in handing this power over to a distant government. The idea that power is never given, only taken comes to mind here. Although I do think there are some major problems with politicians, political system, and the way the media handle it in the UK, on the whole I do think that many politicians are trying to do good work under difficult constraints. However, I have a basic worry that the distance breeds complacency. I am unsure about others worries that Scotland may lose influence internationally. If we replace the ability to interfere in the middle east with a focus on the advancement of education of our own people, we will end up being able to exert global influence in much more effective ways (such as in solving many of the problems that cause wars in the first place).
I just mentioned that I felt Westminster politicians are generally speaking trying to do good work. The British political system is a somewhat archaic arrangement, which creates some undesirable consequences and sometimes appears to reward the wrong behaviour among politicians. There have been repeated opportunities to change it, but these haven’t been taken. I fear that this will simply continue if we vote to hand our power over to a government in London.
Peoples across the ages right up to the present day have given their lives in a struggle to take their power back from distant government. All those people didn’t fight for nothing. In general, it’s because distant government just doesn’t act in their best interests. It is interested in the resources of the territory, rather than taking care of the people living on it. It’s almost unbelievable that we are being given the opportunity to take the decision without a single bullet fired.
So why are the polls predicting that we will vote to reject home rule? Surely, it must be down to psychology?
Part 2: Psychology
Consider the scenario that we were voting for or against a union with a government in London if we had been an independent country for the past 300 years. Do you think we would vote for it? Surely, the very idea would be laughed at. Therefore, the psychology of the status quo must play a huge part in our decision making.
The current government is in severe danger from UKIP simply because of the very modest effects of European influence on our government. There is an irony that that they argue that the UK union should stay together. I also wonder how the English would vote in a referendum to move the seat of government to Belfast, Cardiff or Edinburgh.
Is the future status quo not an illusion? Obviously, it’s a leap of faith to vote for setting up a new government (not a country - we are already a country!). But surely it’s also obvious that it’s a huge leap of faith to enter a union with a country which has some frightening looming problems. I’m thinking here about us leaving Europe, spending vast quantities of money and lives on wars that don’t seem to have helped, killing off the NHS, failing to properly address the many issues that contribute to wellbeing of the population.
The status quo in our country is that the leading cause of death among male adults between 21-50 is suicide. I can’t see any reason to vote for a status quo where our children are more likely to wish to end their own lives in their prime than in years gone by. The status quo is not making us happy. I don’t feel that there is much to lose by letting go of risk aversion and voting to take another path.
Part 3: Wealth
Despite the fact that our current wealth (in a world perspective) has not made us happy, the data shows that the short term effects on our financial situation are most likely to swing voters decisions. There are two critical points about this.
Firstly, the predictions about whether we may be slightly better or slightly worse off are totally unreliable. On both sides, they are assumptions, based on assumptions. Economists are famous for being unable to agree on anything. And recent history certainly underlines the lack of ability to predict avoidable economic disasters. To vote based on predicted numbers truly is to take a gamble.
Secondly, what is wealth? The most exciting piece of discussion I’ve heard in the mass media relating to the independence debate was back in May and wasn’t even being discussed in the context of independence. It’s well known that above a basic level, more money doesn’t mean more happiness and wellbeing. I’m simplifying and recommend some good reading that explores the complex picture. The media constantly encourages us to worry about GDP, despite the ever greater understanding that it doesn’t relate to quality of life. Back in 1968 Bobby Kennedy said GDP “measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile”. Although it doesn’t make such an easy headline for mass media, the social progress index has over recent years shed much more light on what is important. It puts GDP in it’s place as one among many factors we should be concerned about. The findings, and the league table of countries makes interesting reading. Note that the UK is a lot lower on the list than some other countries that have much in common with Scotland.
I’m not saying money isn’t important. But since the numbers war averages out at a few hundred quid either side of the recent past and it’s clear that this sort of difference has only limited effects on wellbeing (that may well be countered in other ways), it doesn’t seem right to take the gamble along these lines. Moreover, an Independent Scotland, even in tough times is likely to be more left leaning than the current government and pay closer attention to those with least opportunity. For these reasons, surely the best lines across which to thrash out a decision are cultural.
Part 4: Culture
Niall Ferguson (a conservative) described in 2012’s BBC Reith* lectures why countries prosper first and foremost from their institutions rather than simply their industries. He was referring to legal and educational institutions. In both of these fields, Scotland has institutions which are looked up to around the world. He also pointed out that the accumulation of national debt is now undermining democracy since successive generations inherit the debt without having voted to accumulate it. Whether you choose to love or hate the SNP, they have been clear about their intention and proposed methods to reverse the current direction of the UK of accumulating vast quantities of debt. Although our current austerity programme is reducing our national deficit, the debt is still rising.
Very few Scots seriously question whether we ‘could’ be independent. I would urge the few that do to have more confidence! So to decide whether we should, surely we should think about what would give us a greater sense of being part of a community, greater sense of purpose and a feeling that our voice as individuals or may be heard.
This aspect has been my strongest lever towards voting yes. We are already a country, in all but government. Completing that missing piece by deciding to govern ourselves would allow us to shape our circumstances to better reflect our needs. Sure, we have absorbed so much of culture from the rest of the UK and the rest of the world. There is a McDonalds in every town. We eat full Scottish breakfasts, which are basically full English breakfasts plus Irn Bru. Etc. But it seems pretty clear to me that we are different from the rest of the UK. Suitably different to benefit from having a sovereign government. That was also the view of the UK's outgoing permanent representative to NATO, expressed while she was pointing out that NATO would have no reason to interrupt Scotland's membership.
Where England is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, Scotland is one of the least. Rather than worrying about the influx of foreign talent, we realise that we need it. Where England repeatedly votes for a Tory government with a far right chaser, we have always leaned a little more to the left.
I just don’t feel the government represents us. In fact, I don’t think we are even on their radar. The independence referendum neatly illustrates this. So many in England are barely even aware that the UK is a few points away from breaking up.
It ought to go without saying that I have no axe to grind against the UK. None whatsoever. I feel that the situation we are in is just human nature. We are a tiny part of the UK, population wise, with quite different needs and ideals. And so it has come about that we have been given the chance to represent ourselves, but remain connected in the wider European Union. At a very basic level, it makes sense. I still want to do business with, travel to and consume culture from the rest of the UK, just as I do from the the rest of Europe which I regularly spend time in and have friends in.
I do feel that taking the step to independence will do Scotland a massive amount of good. If there is one piece of Scottish culture that I feel still exists and is not our best asset, it’s lack of confidence. I think that it will make it more focused, more flexible, and especially more confident.
So I’m voting Yes.
*Footnote: John Reith, of Stonehaven, developed the concept of public service broadcasting for the education of the people and created the modern BBC as its first director general. I doubt he would have any confidence issues with the idea of establishing a Scottish broadcasting service. He admitted that he felt he had the skills to “manage any company”. He put his money where his mouth was.
I mentioned before I’d been doing some filming in front of camera. I was on the sea cliffs of Lewis and some footage of me throwing myself off Screaming Geo is now in a Land Rover ad which reached the TV screens of the UK last night. You can see it above.
I was aware I needed a bit of falling practice after the last proper trad fall I had ended in surgery. There is a short film about one of the other guys in the ad called Mike Goody (the blade runner) below, which is a really nice and honest film. Worth watching. It’s amazing how feeling a bit powerless can really creep in and affect you after an accident or injury. I must admit I’ve let that happen quite a lot at times over the past year and been in need of a bit of support (understatement) from friends to help me get through.
It’s not as black and white as just finding the will to be positive, as some sources of advice would suggest. You have to have something to be positive about. I.e. there has to be a plan, and knowing what that should be can be next to impossible when you are very injured. I reckon most folk can deal with adversity pretty well, and many can even take it in their stride. It’s the uncertainty that really hauls you over the coals. You aren’t sure if you are still going to be able to be the person you are and want to be any more. Even the old Churchill saying about 'when you're going through hell, keep going' is a bit simplistic. Sometimes you just don't know where to go to leave your present predicament. I've definitely learned over the past year or two that good help and advice are critical. Without it you are vulnerable. Good friends and very very good doctors who share, or at the very least, truly understand your goals, are precious. In the ad, everyone was saying 'I can'. It's true that 'I can' is the message it boils down to. But the wider story is 'with your help, I can'.
Eiger north face. One of the best bits of 2013 climbing for me.
I wrote the post below a while ago, but just posting it now. It's mainly for my own benefit to see what I did in 2013 and get an idea of what direction to head in 2014.
2012 which was a year of intense projecting for me (to climb Font 8b+ in Switzerland and redpoint my long term 9a project at Steall). So in 2013 I made a casual decision to swing the other way and go to some new places and do some disciplines (multipitch climbing and dry tooling) which I haven’t done much of for ages.
In January 2013 I was just learning to climb again after surgery on my right ankle. I kicked the year off with a nice week in Spain where I was able to start gaining some confidence and claw some fitness back on Malsonando (8c).
In February I started to be able to move around cautiously on crampons and in the mountains, and after a couple of short winter routes, I inadvertently got involved with the huge overhanging walls near the CIC cascades on Ben Nevis. I had gone up with Kev Shields to have a day of ice pitches starting with the cascade itself, but I ended up deciding to give the big seam across the roof a look and this became the best dry tooling route I’ve ever done. It was a fantastic piece of climbing. Unfortunately it proved a bit too controversial for the Scottish winter scene, so I ended up not even claiming it as a route. I say it was a bit too controversial, but any time it comes up in conversation with climbers, they have universally told me they couldn't see the problem a few folk had with it. It's just that they didn't say so on the public discussion at the time.
In March I put a bit of work into my linkup idea, but it didn’t come together this year. There were about 4 days when it looked like I might get lucky and all the climbs would be in condition. But it was always going to be a tall order, and so it’ll have to wait. It’s such an amazing project though, so I am super keen for my next opportunity to try it.
For the rest of the spring, I did some important work to set me and my family up for the long term. We moved house in the summer to Roybridge and now have a great base for all our MacLeod needs. Settling into a good house is something I feel is very important to be able to sustain a good lifestyle over the decades to come. It takes a huge amount of work and some sacrifices in the short term. But I’m certain it’s worth it. So during April and May I worked as hard as I could to prepare my house for sale. Houses in the highlands often take north of 2 years to sell, and that would have made life quite difficult for us. I was determined to give ourselves the best chance to complete the sale and move more quickly. The work paid off. We sold our old place in Letterfinlay to the first couple who viewed it.
During this period I was also doing a bit of running. Right after my surgery in Nov 2012, I entered the West Highland Way footrace (95 miles) as a little goal to help me with my recovery, and because It’s something I’ve always wanted to try. Unfortunately, the injuries to my foot and ankle were just too bad to allow it. I could only run intermittently during the spring and although I did manage some not bad runs, my plantar fascia which was nearly ruptured in the accident started to hurt more and more in the couple of weeks leading up to the race. I still lined up at the start line, knowing full well I wouldn’t be going far. I ran 20 miles to Balmaha. Although the rest of me was not even warmed up, my right foot was screaming in pain and I got in the car. It was a bitter moment for me. I doubt that I’ll ever be able to run again due to the damage in my ankle joint, although I continue to keep an open mind about this.
My trip to Pabbay with Donald King was a nice contrast to the running. We went with the objective of making the first free ascent of the Pabbay Arch project, tried by Cubby and later Steve McClure. I redpointed it very quickly and it is one of the most spectacular trad climbs I’ve ever seen. I’d love to go back to that roof sometime.
It was around this time that I had a call to say my father had been taken into hospital with pneumonia. What followed was a difficult three weeks where his condition looked initially not too bad, then deteriorated steadily until he died. Needless to say this had quite an effect on me and the process of dealing with it is not really over.
I hadn’t climbed for around 6 weeks when the date came around to meet Calum in the alps for a few weeks of trying hard alpine faces. I was unfit, but not really in a caring sort of mood, so I was happy to go straight for the hardest route on the list (Paciencia on the Eiger north face) and just see what happened. I was able to climb it by leaning on skills other than fitness. It was a fun experience, but in hindsight I still was not really in a good place.
After the Eiger we headed to the Dolomites to repeat Bellavista on Cima Ovest, but we were met by a week of thunderstorms. So I went home and hastily arranged a last chance return trip with Alan Cassidy two weeks later.
Unfortunately, during that two weeks, while climbing with Natalie, I made a little mistake while leading Hold Fast, Hold True (E9 6c) in Glen Nevis and decked out, badly spraining my left ankle and breaking off several bone spurs around the rim of the joint. They had been growing since I last broke that ankle, 16 years ago, when a hold snapped during a solo of a grit E8. I knew I would need surgery, but couldn’t get it until after the dolomites trip. The day before I was due to leave for the dolomites, the swelling went down enough to get a rock shoe on my foot, so we went out, again with a ‘don’t give a ….’ attitude on my part.
I had to walk on the scree as if I was walking on broken glass, but once climbing I felt like I could go up the rock, if a little like a robot. Nothing was working anyway, it was raining, snowing and then really snowing. So on the last day when we went up to strip our fixed rope from the crux roof, I really didn’t care. That, combined with the training effect of trying to climb it when it was soaking wet for the preceding week, was a perfect scenario. It was winter conditions, but finally dry, and I was in the mood for a good fight with the pitch. So I climbed it. On the place home I remember not quite believing I’d managed to get two great alpine ticks like those two routes despite such poor preparation before the trips.
Once home, I was just on surgery countdown, and afterwards, taking the long walk through the valley of rehab, every night, doing my strange exercises standing on one leg. It’s not a whole lot of fun, but there’s no choice. Rehab exercises make you better. Finally after 6 weeks, I’m able to do winter walk-ins and even managed to jump down from about head height onto my feet at TCA.
Just now I’m flying to Patagonia for a month of whatever the Patagonian weather throws at us. I’m a little apprehensive about my lack of recent climbing, to say the least. However, I am never the type to rate my chances. What I need to remember is how much good climbing I got done in 2013 despite 2 surgeries, 2 months of DIY and dealing with the loss of my father. I also found time to write another 40,000 words or so of my injuries book which gets ever closer to being ready. I’m halfway through a redraft now and the ingredients are one by one falling into place. Working on this book has taken a huge amount of my energy and I think it will be a massive weight of my shoulders when it is complete, not to mention freeing up a lot more hours in the week for everything from climbing to spending time with my family.
In 2014 my goals are to be a bit more organised about trying the projects I want to try. Instead of just taking things as they come I want to focus on one thing until it’s done. I always work better in this mode and I need to get back to it. I also have realised I want to make some major changes in the way I train. Some of these are practical things which will mean I can get more training done and keep better control over it’s content. But I also want to change my approach to performing a bit too. I think it will make a big difference. You never know what life brings, but I would like it if the next year had less big upsets than last year. After a lot of travelling in 2013 I’m really excited about spending more time based at home in my new house and raiding projects from there. I'm also looking forward to be neither awaiting or recovering from surgery, after the year of being held back by injuries.
After Patagonia I’ve got some great Scottish projects lined up in all the climbing disciplines for the spring and early summer and then I’d like to go to the alps to try a mind blowing new route I’ve seen. I’m also going to build the most badass training board ever in my new garage!
Since I’ve been out of the blogging loop for a bit, this is a bit late and you might already have seen it. Anyway, below is a film that Polished Project made about me. It’s not so much about a specific climb or anything, although there is some footage of me climbing some classic hard problems at Magic Wood. It’s really about ideas of mine and quite important things I’ve learned over almost 20 years of climbing.
I suppose the central idea underlying everything Im saying in the film is that I learned the things I did through not being naturally suited to climbing as youngster, but very naturally suited to spotting the patterns behind others apparent talents and trying to copy them.
Thanks to Mountain Equipment who supported the film. I’ve been working with ME for ten years - about half the time I’ve been a climber. So they have been quite a big part of my life as a climber.
Although I’ve spent my whole adult life involved in sport, I still have big reservations about large parts of it. I’ve read a lot of work on the history and philosophy of sport, and to be perfectly honest, a good chunk of it makes for depressing reading. I wish more of it could be more like the way it’s supposed to be.
The fact that climbing on mountains and cliffs is hard to pin down, hard to reduce to numbers and results and competition was quite an important aspect of what drew me into it. It’s hard to say ‘I had a better adventure than you’. Even as a climbing coach, I’ve sometimes been uneasy seeing young climbers come up against some of these negatives. Sometimes I wonder if I should say ‘skip the comp this time’. Go and explore somewhere new with some friends and come back for the next comp. As well as providing the essential ability to see outside the bubble of the scene, the perspective might well make a better competitor in the long run.
Kev pointed to this picture on Facebook, of a Basque athlete helping a Kenyan who’d stopped running a few metres short of the finish line in a cross country event, thinking he’d already passed it. The Basque runner could have run right past and won the race. But he stopped to direct the Kenyan over the line, staying behind and keeping the place he would have got if the Kenyan hadn’t made a simple human error. The surprising thing for me was that the attention this story got was as a ‘rare’ piece of sportsmanship. Why shouldn’t it be the norm?
After getting my ankle surgery in November, I decided to enter a running race for the first time, and see how it went. I thought it would be good as a goal to help get me back on my feet and moving fast in the mountains again. I entered the West Highland Way Race for next June. Although I have done quite a lot of hill running at different times over the past year or two, like anyone getting involved in a new scene I was a bit nervous about how welcoming it would be to someone who is known as ‘a climber’. Yesterday a friend told me about this thread started about my entry, which was a bit of a downer. When I experienced this sort of thing as a teenager doing sport at school, I hated it, avoided it and eventually found it’s antidote in going climbing. This time round I don’t need to react like that. But if I am able to recover from my injury enough to do it, it will be weird to stand on the start line knowing I’m standing with others who feel I don’t deserve to be there. My slowly healing ankle joint is the only thing that would stop me earning a place. As I said on the thread, if anyone feels I really don’t deserve the chance as much as them, drop me a line and I’ll offer to withdraw and donate my place.
The past few weeks have been a bit tiresome at times. Two separate but related things have been going on with me. The first is obviously my struggle to recover from my recent climbing accident. The second is the thing I’ve been filling a lot of my time with for the past month while I cannot climb properly - working on my injuries book.
I’ve spent weeks and weeks of just reading, wading through scientific papers, medical texts, blogs and case studies. Sports medicine crosses so many specific fields of knowledge. It’s a huge picture. One of the most striking things about the science and art of treating sports injuries is the lack of hard unequivocal evidence in so many corners of sports medicine practice. You could spend your whole life reading the conflicting viewpoints and interpretations of the weak and limited scientific evidence available. The deeper you read into the detail of each field, the less seems reliable.
Of course, a bit of time to step back, digest and put into perspective what you have read makes things clearer. But while reading through the thick of the information, it’s hard not to get disheartened by the lack of hard rules and structure on which to build an approach to staying free of injury and solving existing ones.
One theme that does keep coming up is that humans do seem to be able in a lot of situations to find ways to overcome problems where the available evidence is not much help. When it’s not obvious what to do to either improve performance or recover from an injury, the single most valuable thing we can hold onto is that we have the capacity to literally try everything, to not give up and to work through problems and last the distance until either a resolution or a workaround is reached.
Lack of good scientific evidence to base our decisions is frustrating, but it’s crucial not to let this erode the one thing you can rely on to make progress - strong motivation.
We finished our new route in the Peak District a day early, so I had time after all to make it to the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival. That was the 9th EMFF and I was glad I didn’t miss it as it always provides a fresh dose of inspiration and an atmosphere. As a speaker or climber featured in a good few films, I’ve been to a lot of mountain festivals but I’d have to say Edinburgh is my favourite. A lot of that is down to Stevie Christie managing to strike the right note with the vibe, films, speakers etc. Well done again Stevie.
On the Saturday evening session we listened to Karina Hollekim speak about the ups and downs of her career as a BASE jumper. If you haven’t heard of her, Karina is most famous for the film 20 seconds of joy in which we see her great enjoyment of jumping and then crushing disablement when her parachute didn’t open properly and her legs were broken so badly she was told she would never walk again. One gruelling recovery later, she can walk, and ski. Her talk was very much focused on the self-belief required to do what she did before (jump off cliffs) and the whole other level of self-belief required to get through her recovery. The message that self belief is the key ingredient to break personal barriers is one that we see a lot from speakers with a motivational story. Sometimes I’ve seen it presented that self belief is all that is necessary. But it’s fair to say that most would place it more as a crucial ingredient, but just one of quite a few more. That is certainly my feeling.
One statement in Karina’s talk stood out a mile for me. She was describing the moment sitting crouched in the dark at the foot of a signal tower waiting for the all clear to climb to do her very first BASE jump. Full of fear, she felt she couldn’t make herself do it. But when the call finally came through on the radio, she “got up, like a machine and started climbing up the ladder”.
Machine mode neatly describes the state of mind needed to make the final decision to do almost anything bold and committing. Thinking as a human fades away, replaced by processing as a machine. I’m here, I’m ready, I want to do this, and I’m doing it now. The time for questions is passed, already processed. All that is left is to turn the decision into action.
Simple huh? But this is the hardest thing for people do actually do. There is a block right at the point machine mode is needed. The fearful, doubting human thoughts refuse to be switched off, and nothing happens. Rationalisation follows, and the moment is gone.
I managed to ask Karina about this after her talk. Could anyone master this machine mode? I’ve often asked myself this. For some it seems to come naturally. For others it’s out of reach even if they are actually really trying. Karina’s answer was surprisingly direct. She thought you could either do it or you couldn’t. Reassuring I suppose, as if you can’t do it, at least you know it’s because it’s a genuinely hard thing to do.
I must say, I’m not sure whether I totally agree. I certainly agree that most people will never actually manage to master this mental skill. But that it’s beyond possibility I don’t know. I guess I’m naturally resistant to the idea of untrainable performance variables. My personal view is that there is more to it.
I think a lot of it has to do with how much you actually want to do the thing. Even the most die hard egos crumble doing the most dangerous form of climbing - free soloing. People can do a handful of bold things for ego, attention or status. But it never lasts. To do bold things day in, day out, you need to genuinely love doing the raw activity. If that raw motivation for the activity isn’t there underneath, that might be the real reason for failure. And if you were doing something else that you really did want to do, machine mode would appear. Also, I sometimes feel that even when good motivation is there, it gets clouded by other motives that ultimately get in the way.
Before concluding that you could never, do something like Karina has, I’d say at least try first of all to reconnect with the raw, basic things that make you want to do that thing, and see what happens.
