Careless Talk - Navel Gazing or Looking Skywards [Apotheosis in climbing]

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Hauntologist

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I was just listening to a careless talk podcast interview with this chap Ethan Salvo, it's quite interesting and relates to the post about the Singularity discussed in the significant repeats thread. I was trying to understand the philosophical cul-de-sac these chaps keep ending up in where the conversation inevitably turns to topics like ego, zen and flow and reducing anxiety and focus on performance. I've come to the conclusion that it's due to the lack of a meta-physical perspective and acknowledgement of the sacred aspects of nature. Ultimately everything becomes self-referential intellectualising, spiralling into increasing levels of nonsense and abstraction. The conversations always have a circular feel to them, like a dog looking for its dinner and ending up cleaning it's own backside with its tongue, while imagining it's just found a prime steak to eat. To break out of this doom loop there has to be some kind of exit from the materialistic nihilism, even to imagine there is something out there to commune with and climbing has some spiritual purpose or teleology. They'd be better off setting out their stall in a Dawkins style polemic, rather than this half arsed jabber, it reminds me of the quote 'communism rots the body, but liberalism rots the soul'. This shit is Neoliberalism dressed up as pseudo spiritualism wrapped up in nihilistic despair.
 
Interesting. Agreed. Here's my thoughts fwiw. Mindfulness, which these guys seem to be into a lot, is often touted as some spiritual cure, a possible way out of this mess and a way of controlling the mind's performance anxiety, but it is literally empty of anything spiritual, and has been severed from its actual tradition that is ritualistic Buddhism. To be aware of biting your own tail doesn't solve the problem of having your tail in your mouth. Real Buddhism meanwhile gives you something else to eat, but is a huge commitment (too big for me), and doesn't work so well when you're living in Western society either. To me, there is a Zen in climbing, a flow, that can link to the sacred, but it doesn't have much to do with climbing hard.
 
The West's adoption of mindfulness practice as a performance enhancing psychological technology represents 'peak Matrix' in the meaning crisis. At least with phenomenology and existentialism or even good old atheistic empiricism à la 'little-brows' (that's the barrows-littlefair combo) you had something to sink your teeth into. With this new wave, it's akin to kneeling on the shoulders of anything real and strangulating the last vestiges of life out of it. Another anomaly is the constant use of Nietzschean prose, it's only a stones throw from the Übermensch.
 
I believe many full-time climbers struggle internally with their life choices and the true motivations behind their desire to pursue climbing as a career.

To focus solely on climbing can be a very self-serving pursuit, offering little opportunity to contribute meaningfully to society or community.

Rather than acknowledging the rationale behind their decisions, some climbers may choose to present themselves as humble/spiritual/philosophical, seeking to appear as though they are giving back in a meaningful way. While this may not always be the case, these portrayals - especially on social media - can sometimes feel contrived or inauthentic. In contrast, climbers like Jerry, Moon, and Malc seemed to embrace their decisions without pretense, exuding a sense of authenticity that I admire.

Ultimately, I feel that the emphasis on ‘spirituality’ and ‘philosophy’ can sometimes serve as a veil, masking the true motivations behind the choices made and offering a way of attempting to justify them.

I believe that deeper meaning in life rarely comes through the pursuit of personal goals alone. It is often found through selfless acts, hard work, and sacrifice in service to others. Without this broader sense of purpose, it’s easy to fall into a cycle of unfulfilling pursuits, only to realise too late that the rewards are hollow and life has much more to offer.

If I were in this situation, I would view this chapter of my life as a phase, recognizing that it’s important to know when it should come to an end. This way, I could embark on a new chapter and perhaps find fulfilment in ways that serve not only myself but others as well.

Perhaps I’m chatting bollocks, perhaps there’s some truth behind it.
 
I agree that we hear a lot of talk of performance anxiety and suchlike from high profile and/or professional climbers. It seems to me that there's a fair bit of extrinsic motivation involved. I'd love to hear from climbers who've stepped back from the limelight about how this has changed their relationship with climbing. I'm thinking of climbers like Nalle Hukkataival or Tyler Landman. If anyone has any links to share, please send them my way.
 
I agree that we hear a lot of talk of performance anxiety and suchlike from high profile and/or professional climbers. It seems to me that there's a fair bit of extrinsic motivation involved. I'd love to hear from climbers who've stepped back from the limelight about how this has changed their relationship with climbing. I'm thinking of climbers like Nalle Hukkataival or Tyler Landman. If anyone has any links to share, please send them my way.
Ty is actually an interesting case study, If I remember rightly he stepped away from climbing to pursue a degree in medicine.

I always admired how authentic he seems, his personality is what makes the film ‘between the trees’ so brilliant.

Here’s a link to a podcast he did - if I remember rightly I’m sure he goes into detail about his change of direction here.

 
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To focus solely on climbing can be a very self-serving pursuit, offering little opportunity to contribute meaningfully to society or community.
Do you feel other professional sportspeople are contributing meaningfully society, or does what you’ve said cover all sports?
 
I believe many full-time climbers struggle internally with their life choices and the true motivations behind their desire to pursue climbing as a career.

To focus solely on climbing can be a very self-serving pursuit, offering little opportunity to contribute meaningfully to society or community.

Rather than acknowledging the rationale behind their decisions, some climbers may choose to present themselves as humble/spiritual/philosophical, seeking to appear as though they are giving back in a meaningful way. While this may not always be the case, these portrayals - especially on social media - can sometimes feel contrived or inauthentic. In contrast, climbers like Jerry, Moon, and Malc seemed to embrace their decisions without pretense, exuding a sense of authenticity that I admire.

Ultimately, I feel that the emphasis on ‘spirituality’ and ‘philosophy’ can sometimes serve as a veil, masking the true motivations behind the choices made and offering a way of attempting to justify them.

I believe that deeper meaning in life rarely comes through the pursuit of personal goals alone. It is often found through selfless acts, hard work, and sacrifice in service to others. Without this broader sense of purpose, it’s easy to fall into a cycle of unfulfilling pursuits, only to realise too late that the rewards are hollow and life has much more to offer.

If I were in this situation, I would view this chapter of my life as a phase, recognizing that it’s important to know when it should come to an end. This way, I could embark on a new chapter and perhaps find fulfilment in ways that serve not only myself but others as well.

Perhaps I’m chatting bollocks, perhaps there’s some truth behind it.

I agree with the second part (deeper meaning in life) but I'm not convinced about the explanatory power of the first part being to do with Gen X authenticity vs Zoomer pretentiousness - that's not to say I don't agree with the observation that the sport climbing 90's scene in the uk had some authenticity to it vs the pretend mode BS being pumped out today.

If you go with the hypothesis that culture exists downstream from politics and in current times politics exists downstream from supra-national power then the spirit of the 'Real Thing' vs the spirit of 'Careless Talk' can be explained by following political and social ideological movements driving cultural change.

My theory would look something like this -

90's sport climbing is reflective of an age in which Conservatism and Thatcherism ruled the land, while believing they were radicals in florescent tights fucking the system, the grade obsessed bolters of the 90's were directly reflective of the deification of abstract quantities by the regime of the day. Loadsamoney goes climbing.

Zoomers spiritual philosophising about doing moves on boulders represents an attempt to find meaning in an age of Globalism and radical left secular liberalism, in which science and empiricism has entirely replaced cosmology and tradition leaving a void in the hearts and minds of a deracinated generation. Add to that further accelerationist forces of data and capital plus the interweb and you end up with the schizoid ramblings of the left brained Modern Climber.

If you go with the cyclical version of history rather than a linear progressive one, we can expect to see a return of the heroic within the next 50 years maybe. Alternatively get prepared for an eternity of hearing about 'flow' :eek:
 
Ultimately, I feel that the emphasis on ‘spirituality’ and ‘philosophy’ can sometimes serve as a veil, masking the true motivations behind the choices made and offering a way of attempting to justify them.

I believe that deeper meaning in life rarely comes through the pursuit of personal goals alone. It is often found through selfless acts, hard work, and sacrifice in service to others. Without this broader sense of purpose, it’s easy to fall into a cycle of unfulfilling pursuits, only to realise too late that the rewards are hollow and life has much more to offer.

Yeah exactly, nailed it. Unfortunately for the young guns, professional climber is about as ego-centric a career as stockbroker or tenured professor. Pretending to be egoless while still actively chasing a competitive, ego-driven pursuit is pure hypocrisy something akin to spiritual materialism.

Hauntologist, do you mean by "Nietzschean prose", the cult of self-improvement? I think the internet has got a lot to answer for for that. Very left brained and reductive like you say.

Talking about the sacred in climbing.. actually, you never hear about it in those terms. But it's there. The magic, the beauty. Climbing has its rituals, and I think we should pay more attention to them.

I used to climb at Hueco Tanks a lot. That is one INTENSELY sacred place, yet you never really hear many climbers connecting with that aspect of it (ok, some do, it's rare though). And thanks to John Sherman we've plastered it with profane names. I dont personally take any offence to that, but to me it feels like a deliberate distancing from the actual reality of the place. Part of the countercultural movement of the time. Unfortunately it is almost certainly offensive to most native americans whose ancestors venerated the place.

Anyway, just a tangential thought. Point is that through climbing you can connect to the sacred. But not by posting pseudo-mysticism on Instagram.
 
Hauntologist, do you mean by "Nietzschean prose", the cult of self-improvement? I think the internet has got a lot to answer for for that. Very left brained and reductive like you say.
I hadn't thought about it in terms of self improvement in the modern climbing coach sense, I did watch 10 mins of the film 'Mastery' to get an idea of the language and thinking being used by the corporate climbing elite - coaching - media complex. A lot of it stems back to attempts to translate mystical experiences into usable and ultimately commodifiable performance technology e.g. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience or more climbing specific - The Rock Warriors Way.

My Nietzschean prose reference relates more to the focus on concepts of self mastery and asceticism being discussed by climbers that seem to be attempting to break free of the managerialism pumped out by the industry. They'll be ongoing attempts to co-opt this back into something controllable and saleable by the 'experts'. One way of breaking free of that is to synthesise these ideas with something unacceptable to the system - e.g. the cosmology of perennial philosophy / traditionalism. I've attached a section from a piece of writing I've been working on, on this subject specifically.

'From the perspective of existential philosophy, desireless action can be understood as the active restraint of the "will to power," where one takes control of personal and dynamic evolution through a forceful act of self-discipline. This idea, linked to but extending beyond Stoic concepts of restraint and temperance, involves the climber in a desireless state striving to "impose the character of being on the process of becoming." In a mind freed from subjective projections and rejecting the achievement-driven ethos of modern climbing culture, the aspiring traditionalist seeks to "remain whole in the broken and straight in the bent." By cultivating a supra-naturalistic mindset through intense focus on the act in itself and for its own sake, the climber balances and neutralizes both positive and negative feelings. Through order, precision, and swift, decisive execution, the modern climber allows their actions to speak for themselves.' From Mod3rn_Climb3r.

Re: The Hueco Tanks thing - it's a soft power Blood Meridian. In the past the climbers would have been scalped and castrated then left to wander until dead for such sacrilege 🤣. I have been writing a piece on Tribalism and Rites of Passage in climbing which is a way off complete - the work of Claude Levi-Strauss and the concept of 'Bricolage' is a good way of framing it. The bricolage of Faustian Man is incommensurable with the bricolage of Native Americans.
 
Might be an idea to programme these theories into the Rockwell Retro Encabulator machine and see what it comes up with.
Your wish is my command -

Good morning ChatGPT, please could you provide a summary and critique of the following post found on a forum about rock climbing and give it a score out of 100 in terms of its explanatory power of climbing culture

Summary

The forum post explores the evolution of rock climbing culture by linking it to broader political and social ideological movements. It posits a theory that cultural shifts in climbing mirror prevailing political dynamics:

  1. 90s Sport Climbing: Tied to Conservatism and Thatcherism, reflecting an era of materialism and quantitative obsession. The climbers, who saw themselves as countercultural radicals, paradoxically mirrored the capitalist ethos of the time, prioritizing grades and systematization.
  2. Modern Bouldering: Connected to a globalized, liberal, secular society dominated by science and data. This era, marked by a loss of traditional cosmological grounding, results in climbers seeking spiritual fulfillment through introspective philosophizing about movement, often expressed as fragmented, "schizoid ramblings."
  3. Historical Perspective: The author entertains a cyclical view of history, suggesting either a return to the "heroic" or a perpetual future of philosophical abstraction in climbing.

Critique

This post is an intriguing blend of cultural theory and climbing commentary, but it has significant strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths

  1. Creative Analysis: The author’s attempt to contextualize climbing culture within broader political and social frameworks is thought-provoking and invites deeper reflection.
  2. Engagement with Ideology: Tying cultural phenomena (e.g., the obsession with grades or "flow") to ideological shifts gives a fresh perspective on how external forces shape subcultures.
  3. Critical Lens: The post doesn't shy away from critiquing both eras, pointing out the contradictions in how climbers perceive themselves versus the larger structures they reflect.

Weaknesses

  1. Overgeneralization: The reduction of climbers' motivations to political trends oversimplifies the rich diversity of individual experiences and subcultures within climbing.
  2. Ambiguity: Terms like "heroic" and "schizoid ramblings" lack precise definitions, making the argument feel impressionistic rather than rigorous.
  3. Questionable Causality: The linkage between politics and climbing culture is asserted rather than demonstrated. For instance, the claim that Zoomers' focus on "flow" directly stems from liberal secularism feels speculative and unsubstantiated.
  4. Limited Scope: The post omits nuances like regional differences in climbing culture or the influence of environmental and technological factors.

Score and Justification

Explanatory Power of Climbing Culture: 70/100

The post earns points for its ambitious and thought-provoking framework but loses marks for its lack of evidence and over-reliance on speculative, broad-stroke connections. While it provides an engaging narrative, it ultimately raises more questions than it answers about the relationship between politics and climbing culture.
 
Had to log back in to say: this is the biggest load of fucking drivel i've ever read. Get a grip, the lot of ya. As Fultonius says, bunch of pseudo-intellecutalism shite that doesn't actually say anything. Imagine having a conversation about ego and then reflecting on it at the end, so controversial.
 
Ultimately everything becomes self-referential intellectualising, spiralling into increasing levels of nonsense and abstraction. The conversations threads always have a circular feel to them, like a dog looking for its dinner and ending up cleaning it's own backside with its tongue, while imagining it's just found a prime steak to eat.

Couldn’t agree more.
 
About as good an example of how a piece of text with a load of pseudo-intellectual jargon surrounding a bunch of personal assumptions and connections made without any kind of actual philosophical framework or empirical evidence or indeed basic fucking cohesion is essentially less useful than posting a picture of one's morning turd. And no I am not talking about the ChatGPT production but indeed the posts of the man himself.

Dan, take your self-indulgent wankery somewhere else and stay there permanently, ideally some sort of isolated cave
 
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