Wednesday 26 September 2012

COMFORTABLE IN THE POWER

 

In the pictures, the meaning of the title. 
 
I definitely feel something happening, as of late. It's that strange feeling that you get when you know that you're lacking something, but you can't exactly identify what.
This often happens in the morning, when I get out and I feel the fresh air, and I wonder how the conditions could be at the boulders.
But it's not that I simple want to go climbing, because this isn't completely true. I do, of course, but it's a bit complicated.
I don't need very much to get psyched, in fact I need very little. It can be a gorgeous line or simply repeating an old problem with an eliminate sequence, but in this moment I find it hard to get on the car and drive to the rocks.
I often found myself, in the last weeks, browsing my pictures folders on my laptop. There is a lot of rock in those pictures, but mostly there are lots of good friends. Some of them, I consider brothers.
I remember some of those trips, some of those days, as some of the best days of my life, not because I climbed something hard for me, but for the feeling of fulfillment.
The feeling that tells you that you don't need anything more, or different.
I really miss the company of my good friends, both for my real life and for my climbing life. Those friends who call you to go out for a beer and save your evening, or those who push you under the board when you don't feel like putting in yet another session.
In Céline's "Voyage", Molly tells to Bardamu that the lonesome traveller is the one that gets further. I feel that this is true for me, especially for my climbing. I am positive that, had my best friends been around, still climbing with me, I wouldn't have gotten as strong as I'm now.
The obsessive compulsive behaviour doesn'l like the good company of friends; the obsession doesn't want to have fun. The obsession wants to be fed with your obsessive behaviour.
Unfortunately, a few hours spent under wooden edges isn't all one's life.
One must be also happy, sometimes.
Maybe, lately, I lack this feeling of happiness, of "here's your prize". For sure I climbed what I wanted to. And it's not a coincidence that I write these thoughts right now: I can tell how good I did by how depressed I get after doing it.
I'm not exactly depressed right now, but I'm empty, and despite a strong desire, I can see it when I train. It's hard to put together body and mind. One day one is there and the other one isn't, and vice versa.
There are many many changes going on around me at the moment, and I feel the urge to change something myself.
I need to feel that everything can change if I want, that there still can be some improvisation in life. Maybe I just need a vacation.
Yesterday I found myself thinking about going climbing, and that's a thing I normally don't do, I just pack and go. The air was warm and humid, and I could not picture myself, in my mind, packing and driving. So I stayed home, I crushed the strings of my bass, I put in a great Beastmaker session, and most of all I spent a few hours sending around CV's and job requests. I did not speak to anyone for the entire day.
I can't change my climbing if first I don't change my life. We will see.
I've been here in the past, in this situation, but with a great difference. Now I know what I can do to be happier and more fulfilled, and although this could seem a paradox, the key to open the box is my job.
It's a powerful tool, because no matter what, I love it. With this tool I can do new things, I can use it to try and build me a new story. And if I don't succeed... Well for the present it doesn't matter.
This post could sound a bit enigmatic, it is for sure to a certain degree, but if we remember not to judge a book by the cover, everything can be clearer. Sometimes, what we see is just a fake. It's hard to run a life that is 100% true, to others and mostly to ourselves. It's like poker: you bluff and others fold.
But comes a moment for the showdown as well, because when I bluff, I bluff to myself. And I'm tired of it.
So the aim now is: be comfortable in the power; keep the head up in front of chaos and don't fear changes. 
I feel different. 
 

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