Triad of love, hate, and fear.

I spent some time recently thinking about love and passion and even death. Two professional climbers recently died in an avalanche while descending north side of the Mendenhall Towers. I didn’t know Ryan Johnson well but well enough to know we shared a deep love for the mountains, particularly the Mendenhall Towers. This story isn’t about Ryan but his death colors my thoughts. Ryan’s death seems to color the thoughts of many conversations in Juneau. It’s a smaller city than most of us realize.

The Main Tower, Mendenhall Towers

Taken last August.

There is a school of thought that claims what humans do, we always do for love. This thinking contends that love and hate are opposite sides of the same coin. This notion of duality of love and hate allows this philosophy to further their argument. All nasty human behavior can be described as love run amok, otherwise known as hate. I don’t agree wholeheartedly but like many ideas, it’s only partially wrong. Time will tell what parts of my own reasoning are flawed but hopefully some of my thinking is useful.

I don’t disagree that love and hate are partners but I think human behavior is not ruled by a duality of love and hate but a triad of love, hate, and fear. Perhaps courage is the other side to fear’s coin. I haven’t thought it through 100%. We do not have to love or hate something for it to fill us with fear. That said, if we love or hate something that makes us afraid, perhaps that passion will stir enough courage to overcome fear.  One can hope. Fear is an boa constrictor swallowing the modern world while we sing Boy Scout songs.

Mount Stroller White, taken from base camp, 

Mendenhall Towers, August 2017

Perhaps climbers like Ryan Johnson and Marc Andre Laclerc pushed the limits too far.  With 20/20 hindsight, it’s easy to say that these two climbers shouldn’t have been on that wall in the winter with a storm coming in...

Now. Looking forward from before they went up, it was clear they were taking a risk but otherwise the outcome was not clear.

We are all forced to look at each new adventure without 20/20 hindsight. This is true whether we are talking about climbing a tower, skiing a slope, or falling in love, or getting our materialistic souls out of debt. Some people die from fear  that drives them to work their asses off to avoid dying poor and others die because they were poor. All good things require enough love to overcome the fear and quite frankly there is a lot of fear out there. 

I am pretty sure this  photo isn't real.

I think the globalization of materialism and media have made most humans scared shitless to move beyond any comfort zone. Most people are full of love. Maybe, probably.  Perhaps each of us harbors hate as well but we certainly harbor fear in spades. Most humans are scared to paralysis to do anything great.  I count myself among. We hear of disaster daily because globalization makes it possible to know of every bear attack, every climbing disaster, every terrorist attack, every school yard shooting, and every fill in the blank evil that ever happens on this blue ball in space.  The disasters are indeed real but the world is distorted like a fun house mirror full of horrors or like we are wearing a virtual reality helmet and the game is to dodge avalanches, charging bears, and sharks all at once.  You will NEVER see a headline that reads, “Billions drove home after work without incident!” We are literally ruled by fear and fearmongers. Literally.  The president of the United States is a reality show host that fears sharks even though he never goes in the water.  I shit you not!

How pathetic is that?

I know people that won’t go in the forest for fear of bear attack even though they know it’s a one in a million risk. They live in Alaska and should know better.  A hundred years ago people didn’t fear most of these things because news didn’t travel that fast. While there is an upside to world news, there is a downside. Social media and television remind us (falsely) that everybody is richer, better looking, and/or more talented than we are. Depression ensues.

I think Ryan Johnson could and probably should have known to wait until summer but it’s not for me to say. Ryan knew his own limits or at least he thought he did. He also knew his passions. I can't say how it was for Ryan but top end climbers can be  influenced by social media. Years ago, people learned about first ascents through climbing journals. It took a month for the climbing world to learn about a significant first ascent and now it takes seconds.  The journals are still around but often people first learn about the next gnarly climb or ski jump by Youtube or some other social media. Climbing accidents happen in real time, the climber's last words piped out by satellite phone.  Like poker, the bets and the risks get bigger with the speed with which each player must up the ante. Top end climbers are sometimes driven to surpass the last achievement at rates quicker than healthy  because their sponsor’s expectations are driven by the speed of social media. Most of the time the sponsors don’t even know the root of their own behavior and neither do the climbers. Is this love, hate, or fear?

Despite the perception, most famous climbers die of old age. As it turns out, Neil Young presented a false dichotomy. You don’t have to choose to burn out or fade away though too many people make just that choice. Some rock climbers become mega millionaire outdoor gear moguls or clothing designers, some sip Scotch with friends and talk about old times, and some like Fred Beckey lived to be ten thousand years old, living like a dirtbag in a car. Fred died last year. He did not fall off a cliff and his death was not televised.  He climbed rocks until he was 93 and died at 94, not ten thousand. Beckey had a lesson for us all. 

Base Camp Mendenhall Towers, August 2017. 
A climbing team including Ryan Johnson that came by our camp to share a beer. 

This was not Ryan's last climb.

I suspect that in the next decade or so many of my generation will die and not by falling off cliffs or being swept away by avalanches but by one of many iterations of Couch Potato’s Disease
(Radix lecti scriptor morbus). 

It’s crazy to fear sharks if you aren’t swimming and I mean seriously crazy, not amusingly crazy.  It’s not crazy at all to fear reality show hosts. They manipulate fun house mirrors and whip up fear. Fear kills and it’s often a slow and painful death. Some of my high school associates and friends are so dead they voted in the last presidential election for a fear mongering reality show host and a con man. They seriously fear  Mexican immigrants and Hillary Clinton's emails.  In high school I liked these folks and I lament their loss already. Most, though not all, of them will be gone for real by the time they reach 70 years old because they eat horrible, rarely exercise, and drink a steady diet of anxiety and rage.  I hope that my death is forty years from now and not on TV. Until then, I plan to continue climbing, try to stay safe, and stay the hell away from reality TV. I may play some guitar. 
Once you're gone, 
you can never come back,
when you're out of the blue and into the black.