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I was watching the Documentary, “Free Solo”, in which Professional Rock Climber Alex Honnold attempts to climb El Capitan.
Free solo means climbing without ropes or safety equipment.
Just you, the rock face, and a very long way down.
How long?
Well, it was this long for Alex:
Watching Alex climb higher and higher. Knowing that a single slip up means certain death was intense.
And it’s easy to see why the documentary won an Oscar.
To even make this climb “dangerously feasible” rather than “impossible and suicidal”.
Alex had to go over the climb again and again in his head and do practice sessions with ropes.
That and relying on his decades of experience as a climber.
Watching him climb I was struck by two powerful emotions:
Amazement at the superhuman ability of Alex.
And Acceptance that I could never do that.
And I have no desire to.
I don’t want to do the training, make the sacrifices, or risk my life to get to the top of a cliff.
Neither would you most likely.
But what I took away from watching Alex do what many consider impossible.
Is the realisation that with dedication anyone can push the boundaries of what society deems possible.
I don’t want to free solo a mountain.
But there are things just as incredible I believe I can achieve with my life.
For me, this has mostly revolved around creating things of value in the world.
Alex made me reconsider what a human actually is.
The Human Machine
Look at any other animal and you can probably tell what it's good at.
There are hints built into its physiology.
Take my cat Momo for example:
Large ears to pick up sound.
Large eyes to see better, especially at night.
A big nose for smelling things.
Cats are walking sensors.
But you can’t look at humans and instantly tell what we’re good at.
There's nothing exaggerated about our physiology.
In fact, the only thing instantly apparent is that we walk upright and are mostly hairless.
No big clues as to what those are good for (hint: seeing into the distance and temperature regulation).
Compare these World champion athletes: Micheal Phelps, Usain Bolt, and Alex Honnold in terms of physiology.
They look pretty similar.
Nothing too drastic from visual cues alone—yet each is a master in a particular domain.
So much so that if you only had data on what each of them can accomplish you’d think there were different species.
Watching Alex climb what would probably be impossible for even a mountain goat made me realise that to be human is to be anything you want.
Animals rely on their biology to dictate what they can do in life.
As humans, we rely on our psychology.
Our Will to become.
If biology doesn’t let us do something we build tools that can.
We wanted to fly so we built airplanes, deep dive with oxygen tanks, and we have rockets to go to space—an environment completely off limits to all life on earth—except us.
Our superpower is the ability to put our minds toward any task and achieve it. To continually push the boundaries of impossible further and further back.
The athletes mentioned above combine good genetics and years of training to get to the level they’ve reached.
The thing is—everyone has something they can be uniquely great at.
For some, it's chess, music, math, communicating, dance...
Anything you want.
We can't all become Alex Honnold.
But we're all free soloing this life. There are no do-overs.
You have the freedom to choose what you want to evolve into. To be the best in the world at it.
Choose something amazing.
Become a freak of nature!
Until next time, friend ✌
P.S.
Do watch the documentary Free Solo 🏔