This is the difference.
Over the winter I got really good at cramming dildos onto overly full shelves, determining which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures had battle shells, and falling off of the last move of Seven Spanish Angels. It’s strange to think that after I stopped working in the Amazon warehouse that my tasks became MORE repetitive. Obviously I am exaggerating… of course I crammed more than 75 dildos onto a shelf, I’m a professional.
What happens to your mind after you have fallen off of the same thing 75 times though? What is the timeline of this failure? Is it longer than I will live?! Is it longer than I will be in Bishop for, anyway?
Reality doesn’t give a shit about your questions or your self-doubt or your relationship with this godforsaken rock climb. There is no timeline to your failure. Not yet, anyway. As much metal as you strap to yourself and as many lightning storms as you drunkenly lumber out into screaming at god about vengeance and Seven Spanish Angels, you haven’t fallen off it again, yet. The human brain finds patterns (and faces!) in things, and it’s hard to continue to believe that you can do something (or that nobody’s face is right there?) after failing so many times. What you have to remember is that much stronger climbers have fallen off of much harder climbs for a much longer period of time. Basically, you are not pathetic, and you can keep trying without being embarrassed that you think you can do this. Of course you could before, but now I’ve given you this convenient way to rationalize it.
Most recently, Angie Payne sent Freaks of the Industry, a 4-year project she had declared her nemesis 2 years ago! After reading that, I realized that for the first 3 years of her projecting that climb, I could have been saying, “Well Angie Payne can’t do it, so neither can I.” Which, of course, is a terrible attitude, but go with me here. What’s so amazing about reality, is that regardless of the fact that v13 is more than twice the numerical value of (and infinitely harder than) my normal redpoint grade, at least I can’t say, “Well Angie Payne can’t do it, so neither can I,” anymore. She changed reality by sending that climb, and inspired countless people to instead say things like, “I want to be as strong as Angie Payne someday.”
Everyone knows that the more times you fail at something, the sweeter the victory is, but realizing that the world is actually different because of it is the ninja-flipping-pancake-ruining beauty of reality. Women are sending v14 left and right, which douchebags all over the world said was impossible.* The climbing world is different now, and dorks like me have that many more reasons to believe we can send Seven Spanish Angels. And hey, I did do that. I decided that was the next level, I was going to that level, and so I found some kind of different shaped part of a stupid boulder to hold onto to help drag myself on top of it. You can do it too.
Do what now?
Enjoy this video, and project the ever-loving frikk out of some stuff.
*Source: my butt. It’s possible that no one ever said this because nobody could be that much of a douchebag.