第二十九讲：攀岩感悟（2）

吉姆·柯林斯：现在我要说说两点关于攀岩的感悟，这两点在我看来非常有价值。首先，是对于自我放弃（failure）和被迫放弃(fallure)的抉择。我不知道这两个词该怎么翻译成中文。

高德思：我们会想办法的。

吉姆·柯林斯：是这样的：你现在要开始就地攀爬，这意味着你第一次爬一条新的路线。也可能是红点攀爬，即你练习过这条路线，但就地攀爬不确定性更高，因为你不知道支点在哪里，不知道你是否会因为过度紧张兴奋而出现勾不住绳索或是其他意外的失误。现在上路了。然后到了某处，你的肌肉突然开始不听使唤，心跳加速，不确定性陡然增加，心里变得焦急万分。这时候你就要做选择了。选择自我放弃或被迫放弃。当然，我指的这种情况是允许自我放弃的情况，虽然并不是每次攀岩都是如此。在这样一个相对安全的环境里，你必须做一个选择。选择自我放弃就意味着，你在心理上或者生理上放弃了。又或者你接下来不想尽全力了，或者是靠同伴用绳索拉着你。总之不管怎样，此时你精神上已经垮了。即便在外人看来你还在尽力爬，但你心里清楚自己已经垮了。

再看看被迫放弃，此时你并没有垮掉，你只是无法再向上爬了。你尽了全力，步步为营，决心要坚持到底，一路上你毫无保留，但还是掉了下来。然而，虽败犹荣，这完全是一种内心的荣誉感。这次攀岩并不是真的为了爬上山头，而是为荣誉而战。这完全是一种自我评价。因为你可以让人们觉得你是被迫放弃，但只有你自己知道是否真的是被迫放弃。知道自己究竟垮了没有。我会记录下就地攀爬的结果，是成功还是失败。无论是否登顶，我都把被迫放弃算作成功。关键在于：我到底有没有尽全力？这对我来说是重要的人生经验，因为生活中也有很多关于自我放弃和被迫放弃的抉择。

Jim Collins: Now, there are two lessons from climbing that I have found personally very valuable. One is, the constant battle between failure and fallure. I have no idea how this would translate into Chinese.

Thomas D. Gorman: We'll figure it out.

Jim Collins: But, the essence of it is this. You're on a climb, it's an onsite go, which means it's your first time on the route. It could also be a red point, which means you know the route, but onsite has more uncertainty, 'cause you don't know what the holds are, you don't know if you're going to be too pumped to be able to clip the rope or whatever it happens to be. So now it's like "go". And there's this point where you start to, your muscles start to fail, your heart rate is up, there's a high rate of uncertainty coming, and you've got anxiety. And there come these moments of decision, and choices between failure and fallure. Now, this has to be in an environment where falling is ok, and not in all climbs is that the case. It's relatively a safe climb, relatively safe. There comes this decision point were failure means, you let go. You either physically let go, you mentally let go and not try that hard, or you only give a half-hearted attempt to the next thing, or you have your partner hold you on the rope, or whatever happens to be, but you are mentally broke at that moment. You know it, even if it looks to an outsider like you tried hard, you know if you broke.

And then there's fallure. Now, a fallure is, you didn't break, you just didn't succeed getting up the route. You tried your absolute hardest, you went from hold to hold, you went fully committed attempted to go up, left nothing on the table, you still fell, but you fell in a completely honorable attempt to go, and it's all about the inner honor. It's about, it's not about getting to the top of the climb, it's about your honor. And it's all self-assessed, because you could make people think you went to fallure. You're the only one who knows if you really went to fallure. And, did you break, did you not break? And the battle and I would keep track, a little spreadsheet of success and failure on onsite.

Jim Collins: Fallure counted as success, didn't matter whether or not I made the top. The question is, did I go to fallure? And that to me has been kind of a life lesson; 'cause there's lots of choices between failure and fallure. There come these moments, do you put everything in, did you try you hardest, did you know that you couldn't have left one little thing unturned? I mean, you put, you know, you went, you still might have failed. You might not have made it, but you know what was a fallure attempt. You looked at it and you can’t expect any more out of yourself. Because you didn't succeed but you did it with honor and therefore, you succeeded. And for me, climbing is a constant test piece of failure and fallure and it's an inner journey and that cliff doesn't care. But, it's all what happens in here.

The other is, and a thing I think is about kind of keeping yourself anew but maybe it happens in fly-fishing too. Always be looking for the things that will make you a beginner. Huh? So, you can kind of, as you go along, you can say, I'm going to do more and more of this stuff I'm already expert at. And I'll do the climbs that I can most easily achieve because I'm most expert at those. Or, you can say, I'm not very good at wide cracks, for example, I think I'll go do wide cracks at age 52. Why ? Because I'm really bad at them. I will therefore get the joy of being a beginner. And the wonderful aspect of throwing yourself constantly into situations, where you aren't very good at it, which then allows you the joy of being a beginner. My wife likes to say I'm the most expert beginner she knows. And actually I think that's really true, climbing is a place where I actually, once I've mastered something I'll just put it in my repertoire. What I'm really interested in is the journey through what I don't know, and climbing provides that.

And the last thing from climbing that's been really key for me is, there are so many things from climbing. We talked a lot here about the people thing. When I was younger, I used to say, what climb do I want to do and I'll try to figure out who I can get to go with me. And if life is people and I think it is. I don't do it that way anymore. It's who do I want to climb with and then I'll figure out what to climb. Because the real quality of the experience is in who you're climbing with. In the end, because again, the rock doesn't care. The rock doesn't love you the way your partners do.

So, those have all been; now that's one I took from the research back to the climbing. I have friends that are always just like, this is the climb that I want to do, do you want to go with me? And then I have others, whom I tend to climb with a lot, who say, let's go climbing on Saturday? Ok, great, let's meet at the parking lot at eight. And we don't even talk about what we're going to climb. Until we met there at eight. Probably talk for about 15 minutes and not talk about the climbing and then, what do we want to get scared on today?