There is a 33 year old man that loved rock climbing without a rope. The disregard for his human life in such a dangerous activity made him odd and made him a first time ropeless rock climber at El Capitan, Yosemite Park. This of course made him famous, but at what price? There is no doubt he could have died at any moment yet he did not care for his life, all he focused on was climbing that rock, no one had done this climb ropeless before and many have died trying, that used a rope.
Why did he do it? It was such a blatant unnecessary risk of a human life and the danger is this: because he did it successfully as a skilled rock climber, and had it filmed, this movie will inspire young bucks, testosterone driven teenagers to think he/she, too, cannot be killed, to try it. Young men die with this uncontrolled testosterone brain doing a lot less, driving recklessly, racing, jumping off cliffs in undetermined bottoms of abandoned rock quarries, (I did this once as a teen). Later when your brain develops a very healthy understanding of life and dangers in it, you, hopefully, rethink such ridiculous dangerous acts. This is good, the human race will not survive otherwise.
But this world of a five senses only focus, glorifies a winner, an explorer of new terrains, an inventor, and therein lies a problem. Women get possessed in their pursuits as well, look at Madame Curie's hands after too many x-rays she performed on herself. Necrotic.
The x-rays although primitive in its nature helped to begin a needed insight into a human's body to locate disease. Sonograms and thermograms came decades later but it began with x-rays developed by Madame Curie. Does the end justify the means? In Madame Curie's discovery she did not know that the x-rays would cause necrosis eventually, if she did know would she have done it? I don't know.
But back to people who do these seemingly heroic feats risking a life for unnecessary conquests, such as beating the rock, that benefits only Alex Honnold to feel joy of the climb, his friends were glad he made the climb but more so they were glad he got it out of his system and lived. In the movie he said when he got to the top he almost cried but decided not to, after all, he never saw his parents shed a tear. A book tour, a talk show round, he becomes a motivational speaker for corporate America, will insure income so he can climb rocks for many years. What message will this movie send to the public?
My concern, if he wants to do this, it is his life, how did his brain become desensitized? Some think his father had Asperger's and that helped him not to know how to connect with others, his parents divorced, he was never told that he was loved or hugged, but we must realize his brain is "not wired for personal preservation, safety or "feeling" the value he has in life," or feel any obligations to the people that love him. This is a tragedy for him. His disconnect to others.
This film will inspire other young, inexperienced testosterone pumping men and women, not so wise, to die trying, some may with much practice succeed. But is this a price that all must pay in this generation of technology where, gaming makes reality a joke, or families disconnected by divorce, arguments over money, land, a perceived unfair distribution in a will causes families to divide forever? What about parents that ship kids off to boarding schools and full-time daycare so they can work, with no interruptions, from their own children? How about high functioning alcoholics, drug addicts, and food addictions in us all, that desensitizes us to feelings of being alive and valuing human life? And worse, much deeper and sadder, loses the search for our real purpose, a purpose outside of self and conquest, a purpose that makes us "feel" alive?
Our children are watching us and learning how to deal with life from watching us. How will the next generation survive? The only choice, turn off feeling anything to disguise the hurt, turn off like a button on a video game, sleep, wake up, repeat.
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