touching the void
the book
Touching the Void details Joe Simpson's ordeal in the Peruvian Andes. He and his climbing partner, Simon, reached the the summit of the remote Siula Grande in June 1995, conquering a never before climbed face of the mountain to get there.
Almost at the very beginning of their descent, Joe fell and badly broke his leg. Rather than leave him to die, Simon lowered him down the mountain, eventually resulting in him going over a cliff face. Attached by a rope, feeling his own safety eroding by the minute and with no way of knowing if his partner was dead, Simon cut the rope.
The aftermath of that decision provides the crux of the book. It's a harrowing tale of survival that is more powerful for being concise.
A should read.
why I read the book
I watched the documentary version years ago and found it incredibly compelling. They reconstructed the climb and interspersed it with talking head footage from the pair. His survival is incredible but it's the decision itself which provides the greatest fascination. What would you do?
The book came up on offer on Amazon and I thought I should read it. I've read some other adventure narratives and it's also a sporting memoir, albeit one with higher stakes than most in the genre. There's actually a stage version now as well which I'd be interested to see.
ideas and quotes
ambition
All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible - T.E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
We took the customary summit photos and ate some chocolate. I felt the usual anticlimax. What now? It was a vicious circle. If you succeed with one dream, you come back to square one and it's not long before you're conjuring up another, slightly harder, a bit more ambitious - a bit more dangerous. I didn't like the thought of where it might be leading me.
The danger of attaching your self worth to milestones rather than to behavioural or process related goals. If you get what you're after, then what? So many athletes feel similarly and can't enjoy what they've just done. You manage what you thought you wanted but you feel no different.
For an amazing take on this, read Ray Allen’s Letter to My Younger Self.
As if, in some strange way, the very nature of the game was controlling me, taking me towards a logical but frightening conclusion; it always unsettled me, this moment of reaching the summit, this sudden stillness and quiet after the storm, which gave me time to wonder at what I was doing and sense a niggling doubt that perhaps I was inexorably losing control - was I here purely for pleasure or was it egotism? Did I really want to come back for more? But these moments were also good times, and I knew that the feelings would pass. Then I could excuse them as morbid pessimistic fears that had no sound basis.
Achieving big goals is hard to divorce from an element of egotism. Without ego, it's hard to achieve great things. Some self-regard is important if you're to believe yourself capable and those who underrate their personal qualities tend to get depressed (can’t remember where I read this).
personal responsibility
Analysing after a climb what you did correctly or incorrectly is as important as being fit or talented.
So many talented people don't do the work. This growth mindset is the key to continuous improvement. Marry it with talent and the sky's the limit.
Ultimately, we all have to look after ourselves, whether on mountains or in day to day life. In my view that is not a licence to be selfish, for only by taking good care of ourselves are we able to help others. Away from the mountains, in the complexity of everyday life, the price of neglecting this responsibility might be a marriage breaking down, a disruptive child, a business failing or a house repossessed. In the mountains the penalty for neglect can often be death.
I believe this. Put your oxygen mask on first. Attitudes to the health service bother me in this regard. Most people should take greater responsibility for their own health. Not only would it benefit them, it benefits those who need more assistance than others.
We are fallible, and accidents will happen. I suppose the trick is to anticipate all the possible consequences of what you set out to do so that, if things do go wrong, you are better able to stay in control.
Visualisation is a key tool of high performance. This scenario planning is common across high risk or high performance environments. The danger here is that you only plan for things that have previously happened, ignoring what could happen that's never been seen. Very Talebbian.
Trauma
Telling and retelling the 'Void' story had inadvertently proved to be a good treatment for the condition. Apparently it is common practice for psychotherapists to make a victim recount as vividly as they can the full horrors of their experience. With each telling of their real story it gradually becomes a fiction, becomes someone else's experience, and they can separate themselves from the trauma. In short the hard-wired neural pathways to the amygdala, the fear centre, are blocked or at very least by-passed.
Refers to Tribes. Something that can be compartmentalised as a negative experience in that instant can be compartmentalised and dealt with. While Junger talks about how it's difficult for veterans to divorce their negative battlefield experiences from the camaraderie and sense of purpose of the military, Simpson continued to climb after his accident and his positive outlook on his experience is more to do with the subsequent career effects it had for him rather than any in the moment pleasure or purpose.
the road not taken
I often wonder what would have happened to my life if we had not had the accident on Siula Grande.
A part of me thinks that I would have gone on to climb harder and harder routes taking greater risks each time. Given the toll of friends over the years I'm not confident that I would be alive today. In those days I was a penniless, narrow-minded, anarchic, abrasive and ambitious mountaineer.
The accident opened up a whole new world for me. Without it I would never have discovered hidden talents for writing and public speaking. Despite having worked hard I do sometimes wonder whether I just got lucky?
In Peru we had gone to unusual lengths to take the ultimate risk and yet despite all the pain and trauma it now seems a small price to pay for such an inspiring adventure. Isn't memory a wonderful deceiver? Almost losing everything in Peru was a sensation quite as life-enhancing as winning. I seem to have been on a worryingly long winning streak ever since. Where will it all end?
Life can deal you an amazing hand. Do you play it steady, bluff like crazy or go all in? I'll never know.
There are plenty of stories that deal with this idea. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow. The idea that the value is in the journey not the destination. It’s what’s compelling about this story. We know the ending when we start.
RELATED works
tribe - dealing with trauma
127 hours - another unbelievable survival story. Aron Ralston cuts his own arm off after getting trapped along in the desert
unbroken - true story of Louis Zamperini, Olympic runner turned WW2 bomber who survived Japanese POW camps