While some people climb, they could live without it. If I had to live without it, my next philosophical question would be: "Am I alive?"
Climbing renewed the joy of living that had faded since I was a child and every day was a new adventure. As I languished into adulthood, mundane stressors such as commutes and bills filled my habitual orbit of thought.
Now that I am excited about the chance to grow as a climber, to dream up escapades, to develop new friendships, I say I wasn't alive. I existed.
Now, this old world is new.
Everything I behold, I examine with awakened eyes.
Driving through the picturesque foothills that lead to Yosemite, I perceive rocks adorning the hills as more than landscape furniture.
"What grade would that one be?" I wonder. "Hm. I bet I could get up that."
Recently I was telling a woman who lives near one of the quaint foothill towns about my passion. "I'm obsessed," I said.
She laughed. "I climb once in a while. Not very often. I live near a great site though."
"How could you stay away?" I wondered. "How could you live near rocks and not be all over them constantly?"
Then I realized, she's not a climber. She's a person who climbs.
True climbers have one mood: climb on!
If they're not doing it, they're thinking about it, reading about it, plotting trips. Their minds have no rest days.
Lately, my checking account has lacked rest days; I'm starting to build my rack.
My company is laying off workers. Though I am trying to keep my fear of losing my job in check, I would like to have a cash cushion. But when biners go on sale, or when I must have a grooved belay device ... bye-bye money! I watch my cushion shrink as my rack grows.
So hell yeah, I am a real climber.
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