When one is more housebound than one would like, eccentricities are guaranteed to surface. One must allow oneself to go a little bit mad in order to stave off a larger all-encompassing madness. Like the ghostbusters at the end film Ghostbusters, who are instructed by the pan-dimensional entity, Gozer the Gozerian, to choose the form of their destructor (in their case the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, who briefly terrorises Manhattan) we get to choose our idiosyncrasies. But what will it be in your case? Perhaps a ruthless ascent through the echelons of the UK wing of the Taylor Swift fan club? No, apparently it will be Paul Gauguin fan fiction that stops just short of injecting itself into the Twilight universe.
I have plastic figure of Ponda Baba (known pejoratively as ‘Walrus Man’) from the first Star Wars film. You can pull him arms and hands off to simulate the savage lightsaber injuries that are dealt to him by Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Mos-Eisley Cantina. Since I have no frame of reference for Gauguin, I am going to imagine both speculative versions of the artist (with and without hands) as Ponda Baba. This will help me to visualise the problem. I will stare at the Ponda Baba figure and I will say to him “You are Gauguin now”. Then I will pull his hands off.
What does it mean to be a successful artist? Anyone who has seriously engaged in a creative medium, and who has worked at it daily, will tell you the ultimate value lies in the ongoing process rather than in the reception of what is produced. That was as true with (the late Beach Boy) Brian Wilson, composing his teenage symphonies to God, as it was with (the also late) Seth Putnam from Anal Cunt, recording himself singing improvised lyrics regarding the baldness of Earache Records Sales Director, Howard Wulkan, over a compilation of disco classics that was playing in the background, and then releasing the session as a seven-minute concept album titled ‘Howard is Bald’. When the focus drifts from the process towards the impact the art might have (something you have minimal control over), one loses connection with one’s vision, the process is compromised, the art suffers, and it’s a miserable experience. I would define a successful artist as somebody who uses the means at their disposal to engage with and express their vision. There may be an element of cope in that interpretation.
Let’s say Gauguin doesn’t give a damn about vision or process. For him, being a successful artist entails throwing paint at the last known location of the zeitgeist in the hope that something sticks. It is about garnering enough fame and money to extract a good living from the dog eat dog Tahiti art gallery scene.
You present two versions of misfortune. There is the external variety where Gauguin loses his hands as a result of some stroke of damn bad luck beyond his control. Then there is the internal variety where Gauguin simply lacks the talent to make it as an artist, but is only able to learn this hard truth a posteriori, through trying and failing.
I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as that. I think in the latter instance of internal bad luck, there is a hell of a lot of external luck involved. First of all being a successful artist in the tangible sense of the word entails more than artistic ability. You need to be able to market your art and yourself as a package – to convince others of the value of both. Let’s say that Gauguin is able to do that. He might still fail to become the toast of the viciously competitive Tahiti art world as a result of a host of external factors that are beyond his control. His art might not connect with the public appetite – it might be ahead of its time. Other new artists might be dominating the spotlight. He might fail to connect with the right people.
I am writing about The Divine Comedy (the band, not Dante), which is essentially Neil Hannon and whoever he is working with. I remember the ‘band’ as they were in the early nineties. Hannon disowned his debut album. He went on to release a pair of albums that received critical acclaim but didn’t chart. His talent was evident but he was not successful, though I think that perhaps a haircut that didn’t make him look like a Bond villain would have helped. Then he caught a break. Chris Evans began playing ‘Something for the Weekend’ on his Radio One show. This gave Hannon’s work exposure and allowed him to generate the momentum for a career in music that continues to this day.
Hannon’s abilities as a songwriter certainly played a part in his success. However the deciding factor were the actions of a man who had the wherewithal to expose his music to a wider audience. What if that hadn’t happened? What if the stars didn’t align for Hannon? Is he a failed artist? I don’t think so. If he possessed a god-like knowledge of the steps that were required to achieve fame and fortune and then still managed to fuck it up, then I would say ‘yes’. It goes both ways. This morning I was listening to Jack Pepsi by Tad, who were briefly signed to Warner Bros, less on the basis of the quality of their music, and more because Nirvana and Soundgarden were shifting units for other major labels. The minimally talented Menswear were signed to London Records during the Brtipop feeding frenzy. On paper they were successful artists. In reality they were just lucky. They were in the right place at the right time and they knew the right people. Ability didn’t really factor in.
You are venturing outdoors with increased frequency which is heartening, and speaks of a man who is not yet done with life and who is courageous. When you embark on a journey I expect there is some forward planning. What if one of these outings goes badly wrong, despite your preparations. Are you a failure because external factors beyond your control, and maybe even beyond your knowledge, intervened? The failure is to stay at home because something bad might happen.
Regarding your proposed deal with the devil, I would want a very precise definition of ‘climbing’. Does standing on a chair to reach something on a high shelf count? What about the kind of social climbing that might come as part and parcel of your bloody and brutal rise through the ranks of the Taylor Swift fan club. You are a clever man, but the devil is smarter than you and he’s played the game longer.
You very first line… to this I can attest. Now I can’t pretend to walk a mile in Sagar’s shoes (I’m sure he’d forgive my insensitivity, least I hope he will), I know myself from 4 years working from home, post Covid, with a wife and 4 children, frankly knowing how close it drove me very close, very close, to the edge… though I wonder how much of that situation arose almost from the fact that I had the choice to end the solitude, at least I should have. Yet I all I endured was the guilt of embracing the very eccentricities I’d always threatened but ne’er had the freedom to embrace. What separates me from some others, I suppose, had all the attributes I might’ve needed to “escape”, yet I didn’t
Thank you for sharing the story of Seth Putnam. I doubt this was your intention but I'm crying laughing (whilst trying not to) because I read this in public
I have considered writing a detailed history of Anal Cunt who were by turns horrifying, willfully unpleasant, and incredibly funny, though the latter was sometimes unintentional. I am pretty certain that, if I did and then posted the results here on Substack, I would immediately lose some, if not all, of my subscribers on this platform.
Putnam was a complicated man; an unrepentant arsehole for sure, but one who was aware of his own absurdity. He was racist to the marrow of his bones and homophobic too, though the band often played gay bars. He was an avid fan of The Village People and once followed them around on tour and hung out with the band after shows. He even wrote a song describing their influence on the vocal style and fashion of early death metal bands, where he correctly observes that "'Evil Dead' by Death is actually "Liberation" from the Village People".
I have thought a great deal about why I like such a terrible person and I think that it boils down to this: Chris Martin or Bono, and even Bowie or Jagger would have succeeded in whatever profession they chose. People like Putnam are not mercurial; they don’t have options. They either lean into what they are or they live with their head’s down.
But then my partner, an enthusiastic, bearded dude, much younger and quite new to climbing, I had met that very day thanks to a common friend, said: you should do Pink Panther, it's supposed to be brilliant and it's just E2 and you are such a good climber... And I felt compelled to do it, just because he suggested it. I didn't know him or really care about him but somehow he convinced me to go against a deep unease just by saying that...
What an idiot.
I am half way up this thing, I have been hanging on a flat jug for the best part of the last 15 minutes, increasingly anxious, unable to find any gear, looking down at my last piece, a micro nut a good 4 metres below. I had struggled to find decent gear from the start of the route, surprise surprise, if the wall looks so blank the gear is shit...I had eventually decided to run it out to the jug convinced that a could put a bomber sling around it but no, tough luck. Too flat. And the crux is obviously the next section. E2 5c, what is that in proper grades, 6b+? Maybe not even.
It should be easy. I am well into my high 7s on bolts...
In fact, I was actually a beginner at trad climbing. My first route was a very soft E1 just over a year before. I spent the summer trad climbing, rushing through the grades, under the supervision of one of the boldest trad climber of the Lakes (as per James McHaffie in the preface of his book, 'How hard can it be?'), a local legend, whose advice was invariably, just go for it, this is easy for you.
During that period I was recovering from a deep depression and I was under an enormous amount of mind numbing medications. While I wasn't properly suicidal, it's fair to say that I cared much less than normal about myself...of course I could still feel fear but the attitude was: fuck it, let's see how much I can push my luck.
I had a near miss, a big fall at Reecastle crag trying to onsight an E3. A cam I thought was bomber, zipped out of the crack while the other one I had added 'just in case' luckily held, stopping me not far from my amused belayer. Yes, amused. Because that is the typical reaction to a near catastrophe in trad climbing.
There is a sort of passive aggressive macho culture in UK climbing. Some people like: I have done this (very dangerous) climb and I think nothing about it, now up to you (you coward). It is inciting self destructive behaviour. It is sadistic. One could say that all of mountaineering is like that but no, not quite. Talking about the 8000s for example the risk is very much taken seriously and firmly at the centre of the discussion. In UK trad the risk is something to understate and laugh about, otherwise you are a coward or at least a party pooper. Maybe it's just the way I felt it but I definitely did. Sandbagging is another aspect of it. Undergrading, underestimating the danger of some, often technically easy, routes. For example, for the route I am still hanging for dear life on the flat jug, the protection is described on the guidebook as 'adequate' and indeed an E2, if is technically 5c, on the he upper end of the grade spectrum, should be a well protected route. But I can assure you that the gear was very marginal and difficult to find, at least onsight.
Famously sandbagged routes don't get their grade or description changed in the guidebooks. It's just a grade after all, often given by just one person, the first to climb it... except because of the grade someone unprepared could be lured into climbing the route and hurt themselves badly or worse...
What a laugh for the brave first ascensionist.
While the fatal or severe accidents are rare, the potential near misses are ubiquitous. After all we very rarely test our protections, it could well be that 10% of the gear is rubbish? Possibly more?
Trad is a collective delusion for which a few unlucky ones pay a very high price.
Back on Pink Panther... Eventually I saw the obvious little horizontal slot, worn out by the gear placed over the years to protect the crux of the route. It was just literally in front of my nose but I was blinded by the fear, still struggling to accept that the sling was not at option...
I proceeded to put a micro nut in said slot, one of those that hold just 2K newton or something...I didn't put the brass one that is supposedly stronger (maybe?), I didn't double it up despite there being plenty of space in the slot. All because of the mist that had invaded my mind.
And so, terrorized, I carried on climbing the crux. On shaking legs. The move was not very hard but delicate enough to feel very touch and go in the conditions I was in. I definitely could have fallen. I was very close to falling. I think there was a good chance that the gear would have ripped and I would have decked from about 15 metres. Life changing injury or death.
But I didn't fall. I carried on to the belay, on much easier and well protected terrain. Shaking my head in disappointment. Why did I do this? What for? This is so stupid.
I didn't have the elation that usually followed after having been a bit scared on a climb. I was angry with myself for putting myself through that. I was angry with my partner who was cheering me and saying that I looked 'rad'. But most of all I was sad, sad to have gambled with my life, after overcoming depression, after having moved back to the UK from France to be close to my children, after all the love that there was in my life. On a rock that meant nothing to me. Played russian roulette. Never again.
1) After one more (admittedly pleasant) day of trad climbing I packed up my rack and abandoned it without looking back once.
2) I started trying hard on bolts (how nice to climb without any fear, taking big safe falls...), trained and climbed my first (and probably last) 8a
3) I managed to have to leave the UK for a grotesquely huge moral failure at the end of last year
4) This year in May I bought a new mountain bike and pretty quickly got obsessed about riding it to the point of stopping climbing completely...for the moment!
I always found the gear in the Lake District so tricky! And it really doesn't help when the grades are not a giveaway. I really wish I had just stuck to bolts now. I'm glad one of us did!
I feel really deeply for your loss Paul. I am glad you seem to have found some peace recently (?). If you want to have a chat (about how shit the gear is in the Lakes or other 😂)I am here
I'm a philosophy student (Birkbeck, part time MRes) working on the ethics of risk, and this is the first time Williams' Gauguin example has made sense to me. Thank you. I find your ability to apply your analytical mind to your own life with such unflinching honesty frankly gobsmacking. (In a good way!)
It's hard, as a stranger, to comment publicly on some of what you write without it feeling intrusive. Your discussion of making a choice between pursuing climbing and looking for a conventional relationship (with 2.5 kids and a labrador) has parallels with the Gauguin example, but also reminds me of something from the solo show on Risk I did at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019.
I would ask a random audience member "what's the biggest risk you've ever taken?" As well as the moves to new countries, the leaving a steady job to start a business, and one man's impulsive leap from a high place (that had left him with long term injuries) several people replied "getting married." All of them appeared to be there with a spouse and sometimes children.
That played a part in developing my own thinking about risk - that it's not (at least, not in the interesting cases) about spinning the roulette wheel and hoping you get lucky. It's about embarking on a life project that will entail open-ended responsibilities for dealing with unforeseen situations.
Thanks again for sharing your thinking, I'm finding your writing very enlightening.
Glad it was of help! Williams is a very difficult writer, but also one of the most rewarding in my experience. What you say about risk sounds right to me: it’s much more interesting and subtle in real life than the “obvious” examples make it seem.
I've over the years moved to the view that there is good luck and the absence of good luck but not bad luck. Since bad luck is essentially the result of a series of decisions minus the good luck required to avoid catastrophe. Sport is a great proving ground for this theory. I am glad you enjoyed the weddings Paul.
I mean, I think that when it comes to art a lot of people do sabotage themselves so as to never have to find out whether or not they actually have what it takes, but I also think that the framing of giftedness as an innate quality people either have or don't have is a misunderstanding of what makes good art good. Like most other skillsets, artistic ability is fundamentally a question of time & labour rather than natural giftedness.
I think I agree on both points. The first certainly. On the second, whilst I would certainly agree that much artistic ability comes down to time and labour rather than just natural giftedness, I also think that at the limit whether someone is not just possessed of ability, but say a generational genius, is ultimately something they either have or don’t, something That cannot fundamentally be taught (although even if one has it, one certainly still has to learn how to use it fully)
oh I definitely get what you’re saying. There is a parallel thing in education at universities. The ridiculous myth that some people are just born geniuses and never have to try. This is completely false. Even those with plenty of natural ability will never achieve highest standards unless they work incredibly hard. (But it’s also true that in say philosophy, hard work alone cannot get people to be the level of e.g. Hume or Kant. To be the very best requires a certain something that the vast majority of people will never have no matter how hard they work).
From one fat, lonely, single failure to another, would recommend getting a dog if you can possibly make it work, sharing care with family/friends maybe?
Unfortunately, pets are not easy for me anymore. But perhaps a house cat might be manageable... though I think a dog would probably be better, not very manageable for me in my present life.
I don't think that's really correct about Anna Karenina and Vronsky? To me it seemed that neither of them are sure whether they love each other. (Same with Levin and Kitty at first, but God seemingly intervenes to get them hitched.) The point of weddings is to force couples to resolve this ambiguity, and recruit society to the goal of cementing the chosen resolution. This is why it is devastating for Anna that she cannot get divorced and remarried. They are trapped in unresolvable uncertainty forever. Or at least until, well, you know what happens.
This discussion about leaving for Tahiti reminds me of credit assignment problems in Machine Learning. You have some running estimate of how "good" each action is, and you update that estimate after taking that action and seeing how it turns out. But what exactly do you update with? You can update quickly, based on what you think events will turn out after a little while; or, you can update late, only after seeing how events actually play out for a good while.
It turns out either strategy will "work" in some sense, but there's no universal way of saying that one works better than another. Anyway, I guess my point is that moral philosophers should read Sutton & Barto.
You may be right. It's been over 10 years since I read it myself, and I don't have a strong memory of the details. And the Williams use of it in his classic paper on moral luck is extremely schematic.
When one is more housebound than one would like, eccentricities are guaranteed to surface. One must allow oneself to go a little bit mad in order to stave off a larger all-encompassing madness. Like the ghostbusters at the end film Ghostbusters, who are instructed by the pan-dimensional entity, Gozer the Gozerian, to choose the form of their destructor (in their case the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, who briefly terrorises Manhattan) we get to choose our idiosyncrasies. But what will it be in your case? Perhaps a ruthless ascent through the echelons of the UK wing of the Taylor Swift fan club? No, apparently it will be Paul Gauguin fan fiction that stops just short of injecting itself into the Twilight universe.
I have plastic figure of Ponda Baba (known pejoratively as ‘Walrus Man’) from the first Star Wars film. You can pull him arms and hands off to simulate the savage lightsaber injuries that are dealt to him by Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Mos-Eisley Cantina. Since I have no frame of reference for Gauguin, I am going to imagine both speculative versions of the artist (with and without hands) as Ponda Baba. This will help me to visualise the problem. I will stare at the Ponda Baba figure and I will say to him “You are Gauguin now”. Then I will pull his hands off.
What does it mean to be a successful artist? Anyone who has seriously engaged in a creative medium, and who has worked at it daily, will tell you the ultimate value lies in the ongoing process rather than in the reception of what is produced. That was as true with (the late Beach Boy) Brian Wilson, composing his teenage symphonies to God, as it was with (the also late) Seth Putnam from Anal Cunt, recording himself singing improvised lyrics regarding the baldness of Earache Records Sales Director, Howard Wulkan, over a compilation of disco classics that was playing in the background, and then releasing the session as a seven-minute concept album titled ‘Howard is Bald’. When the focus drifts from the process towards the impact the art might have (something you have minimal control over), one loses connection with one’s vision, the process is compromised, the art suffers, and it’s a miserable experience. I would define a successful artist as somebody who uses the means at their disposal to engage with and express their vision. There may be an element of cope in that interpretation.
Let’s say Gauguin doesn’t give a damn about vision or process. For him, being a successful artist entails throwing paint at the last known location of the zeitgeist in the hope that something sticks. It is about garnering enough fame and money to extract a good living from the dog eat dog Tahiti art gallery scene.
You present two versions of misfortune. There is the external variety where Gauguin loses his hands as a result of some stroke of damn bad luck beyond his control. Then there is the internal variety where Gauguin simply lacks the talent to make it as an artist, but is only able to learn this hard truth a posteriori, through trying and failing.
I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as that. I think in the latter instance of internal bad luck, there is a hell of a lot of external luck involved. First of all being a successful artist in the tangible sense of the word entails more than artistic ability. You need to be able to market your art and yourself as a package – to convince others of the value of both. Let’s say that Gauguin is able to do that. He might still fail to become the toast of the viciously competitive Tahiti art world as a result of a host of external factors that are beyond his control. His art might not connect with the public appetite – it might be ahead of its time. Other new artists might be dominating the spotlight. He might fail to connect with the right people.
I am writing about The Divine Comedy (the band, not Dante), which is essentially Neil Hannon and whoever he is working with. I remember the ‘band’ as they were in the early nineties. Hannon disowned his debut album. He went on to release a pair of albums that received critical acclaim but didn’t chart. His talent was evident but he was not successful, though I think that perhaps a haircut that didn’t make him look like a Bond villain would have helped. Then he caught a break. Chris Evans began playing ‘Something for the Weekend’ on his Radio One show. This gave Hannon’s work exposure and allowed him to generate the momentum for a career in music that continues to this day.
Hannon’s abilities as a songwriter certainly played a part in his success. However the deciding factor were the actions of a man who had the wherewithal to expose his music to a wider audience. What if that hadn’t happened? What if the stars didn’t align for Hannon? Is he a failed artist? I don’t think so. If he possessed a god-like knowledge of the steps that were required to achieve fame and fortune and then still managed to fuck it up, then I would say ‘yes’. It goes both ways. This morning I was listening to Jack Pepsi by Tad, who were briefly signed to Warner Bros, less on the basis of the quality of their music, and more because Nirvana and Soundgarden were shifting units for other major labels. The minimally talented Menswear were signed to London Records during the Brtipop feeding frenzy. On paper they were successful artists. In reality they were just lucky. They were in the right place at the right time and they knew the right people. Ability didn’t really factor in.
You are venturing outdoors with increased frequency which is heartening, and speaks of a man who is not yet done with life and who is courageous. When you embark on a journey I expect there is some forward planning. What if one of these outings goes badly wrong, despite your preparations. Are you a failure because external factors beyond your control, and maybe even beyond your knowledge, intervened? The failure is to stay at home because something bad might happen.
Regarding your proposed deal with the devil, I would want a very precise definition of ‘climbing’. Does standing on a chair to reach something on a high shelf count? What about the kind of social climbing that might come as part and parcel of your bloody and brutal rise through the ranks of the Taylor Swift fan club. You are a clever man, but the devil is smarter than you and he’s played the game longer.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DArhmliS2j5/?igsh=MXB4c3FkYWpsb3h3OA==
You very first line… to this I can attest. Now I can’t pretend to walk a mile in Sagar’s shoes (I’m sure he’d forgive my insensitivity, least I hope he will), I know myself from 4 years working from home, post Covid, with a wife and 4 children, frankly knowing how close it drove me very close, very close, to the edge… though I wonder how much of that situation arose almost from the fact that I had the choice to end the solitude, at least I should have. Yet I all I endured was the guilt of embracing the very eccentricities I’d always threatened but ne’er had the freedom to embrace. What separates me from some others, I suppose, had all the attributes I might’ve needed to “escape”, yet I didn’t
I expect that added to my guilt
Thank you for sharing the story of Seth Putnam. I doubt this was your intention but I'm crying laughing (whilst trying not to) because I read this in public
I have considered writing a detailed history of Anal Cunt who were by turns horrifying, willfully unpleasant, and incredibly funny, though the latter was sometimes unintentional. I am pretty certain that, if I did and then posted the results here on Substack, I would immediately lose some, if not all, of my subscribers on this platform.
Putnam was a complicated man; an unrepentant arsehole for sure, but one who was aware of his own absurdity. He was racist to the marrow of his bones and homophobic too, though the band often played gay bars. He was an avid fan of The Village People and once followed them around on tour and hung out with the band after shows. He even wrote a song describing their influence on the vocal style and fashion of early death metal bands, where he correctly observes that "'Evil Dead' by Death is actually "Liberation" from the Village People".
I have thought a great deal about why I like such a terrible person and I think that it boils down to this: Chris Martin or Bono, and even Bowie or Jagger would have succeeded in whatever profession they chose. People like Putnam are not mercurial; they don’t have options. They either lean into what they are or they live with their head’s down.
Fascinating piece, Paul. You are a great thinker and a great writer. Please keep on keeping on!
Love the way you think and write. You are a courageous dude that’s for damn sure.
27th May 2023. Dow Crag, Lake District
Fuck. Fuck me!!!
I should never have got on this fucking route!
I'd had a bad feeling since the morning.
But then my partner, an enthusiastic, bearded dude, much younger and quite new to climbing, I had met that very day thanks to a common friend, said: you should do Pink Panther, it's supposed to be brilliant and it's just E2 and you are such a good climber... And I felt compelled to do it, just because he suggested it. I didn't know him or really care about him but somehow he convinced me to go against a deep unease just by saying that...
What an idiot.
I am half way up this thing, I have been hanging on a flat jug for the best part of the last 15 minutes, increasingly anxious, unable to find any gear, looking down at my last piece, a micro nut a good 4 metres below. I had struggled to find decent gear from the start of the route, surprise surprise, if the wall looks so blank the gear is shit...I had eventually decided to run it out to the jug convinced that a could put a bomber sling around it but no, tough luck. Too flat. And the crux is obviously the next section. E2 5c, what is that in proper grades, 6b+? Maybe not even.
It should be easy. I am well into my high 7s on bolts...
In fact, I was actually a beginner at trad climbing. My first route was a very soft E1 just over a year before. I spent the summer trad climbing, rushing through the grades, under the supervision of one of the boldest trad climber of the Lakes (as per James McHaffie in the preface of his book, 'How hard can it be?'), a local legend, whose advice was invariably, just go for it, this is easy for you.
During that period I was recovering from a deep depression and I was under an enormous amount of mind numbing medications. While I wasn't properly suicidal, it's fair to say that I cared much less than normal about myself...of course I could still feel fear but the attitude was: fuck it, let's see how much I can push my luck.
I had a near miss, a big fall at Reecastle crag trying to onsight an E3. A cam I thought was bomber, zipped out of the crack while the other one I had added 'just in case' luckily held, stopping me not far from my amused belayer. Yes, amused. Because that is the typical reaction to a near catastrophe in trad climbing.
There is a sort of passive aggressive macho culture in UK climbing. Some people like: I have done this (very dangerous) climb and I think nothing about it, now up to you (you coward). It is inciting self destructive behaviour. It is sadistic. One could say that all of mountaineering is like that but no, not quite. Talking about the 8000s for example the risk is very much taken seriously and firmly at the centre of the discussion. In UK trad the risk is something to understate and laugh about, otherwise you are a coward or at least a party pooper. Maybe it's just the way I felt it but I definitely did. Sandbagging is another aspect of it. Undergrading, underestimating the danger of some, often technically easy, routes. For example, for the route I am still hanging for dear life on the flat jug, the protection is described on the guidebook as 'adequate' and indeed an E2, if is technically 5c, on the he upper end of the grade spectrum, should be a well protected route. But I can assure you that the gear was very marginal and difficult to find, at least onsight.
Famously sandbagged routes don't get their grade or description changed in the guidebooks. It's just a grade after all, often given by just one person, the first to climb it... except because of the grade someone unprepared could be lured into climbing the route and hurt themselves badly or worse...
What a laugh for the brave first ascensionist.
While the fatal or severe accidents are rare, the potential near misses are ubiquitous. After all we very rarely test our protections, it could well be that 10% of the gear is rubbish? Possibly more?
Trad is a collective delusion for which a few unlucky ones pay a very high price.
Back on Pink Panther... Eventually I saw the obvious little horizontal slot, worn out by the gear placed over the years to protect the crux of the route. It was just literally in front of my nose but I was blinded by the fear, still struggling to accept that the sling was not at option...
I proceeded to put a micro nut in said slot, one of those that hold just 2K newton or something...I didn't put the brass one that is supposedly stronger (maybe?), I didn't double it up despite there being plenty of space in the slot. All because of the mist that had invaded my mind.
And so, terrorized, I carried on climbing the crux. On shaking legs. The move was not very hard but delicate enough to feel very touch and go in the conditions I was in. I definitely could have fallen. I was very close to falling. I think there was a good chance that the gear would have ripped and I would have decked from about 15 metres. Life changing injury or death.
But I didn't fall. I carried on to the belay, on much easier and well protected terrain. Shaking my head in disappointment. Why did I do this? What for? This is so stupid.
I didn't have the elation that usually followed after having been a bit scared on a climb. I was angry with myself for putting myself through that. I was angry with my partner who was cheering me and saying that I looked 'rad'. But most of all I was sad, sad to have gambled with my life, after overcoming depression, after having moved back to the UK from France to be close to my children, after all the love that there was in my life. On a rock that meant nothing to me. Played russian roulette. Never again.
1) After one more (admittedly pleasant) day of trad climbing I packed up my rack and abandoned it without looking back once.
2) I started trying hard on bolts (how nice to climb without any fear, taking big safe falls...), trained and climbed my first (and probably last) 8a
3) I managed to have to leave the UK for a grotesquely huge moral failure at the end of last year
4) This year in May I bought a new mountain bike and pretty quickly got obsessed about riding it to the point of stopping climbing completely...for the moment!
I always found the gear in the Lake District so tricky! And it really doesn't help when the grades are not a giveaway. I really wish I had just stuck to bolts now. I'm glad one of us did!
I feel really deeply for your loss Paul. I am glad you seem to have found some peace recently (?). If you want to have a chat (about how shit the gear is in the Lakes or other 😂)I am here
Absolutely fascinating thinking and writing. Thank you!
Anna Karenina - yes!
I'm a philosophy student (Birkbeck, part time MRes) working on the ethics of risk, and this is the first time Williams' Gauguin example has made sense to me. Thank you. I find your ability to apply your analytical mind to your own life with such unflinching honesty frankly gobsmacking. (In a good way!)
It's hard, as a stranger, to comment publicly on some of what you write without it feeling intrusive. Your discussion of making a choice between pursuing climbing and looking for a conventional relationship (with 2.5 kids and a labrador) has parallels with the Gauguin example, but also reminds me of something from the solo show on Risk I did at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019.
I would ask a random audience member "what's the biggest risk you've ever taken?" As well as the moves to new countries, the leaving a steady job to start a business, and one man's impulsive leap from a high place (that had left him with long term injuries) several people replied "getting married." All of them appeared to be there with a spouse and sometimes children.
That played a part in developing my own thinking about risk - that it's not (at least, not in the interesting cases) about spinning the roulette wheel and hoping you get lucky. It's about embarking on a life project that will entail open-ended responsibilities for dealing with unforeseen situations.
Thanks again for sharing your thinking, I'm finding your writing very enlightening.
Glad it was of help! Williams is a very difficult writer, but also one of the most rewarding in my experience. What you say about risk sounds right to me: it’s much more interesting and subtle in real life than the “obvious” examples make it seem.
I've over the years moved to the view that there is good luck and the absence of good luck but not bad luck. Since bad luck is essentially the result of a series of decisions minus the good luck required to avoid catastrophe. Sport is a great proving ground for this theory. I am glad you enjoyed the weddings Paul.
I mean, I think that when it comes to art a lot of people do sabotage themselves so as to never have to find out whether or not they actually have what it takes, but I also think that the framing of giftedness as an innate quality people either have or don't have is a misunderstanding of what makes good art good. Like most other skillsets, artistic ability is fundamentally a question of time & labour rather than natural giftedness.
I think I agree on both points. The first certainly. On the second, whilst I would certainly agree that much artistic ability comes down to time and labour rather than just natural giftedness, I also think that at the limit whether someone is not just possessed of ability, but say a generational genius, is ultimately something they either have or don’t, something That cannot fundamentally be taught (although even if one has it, one certainly still has to learn how to use it fully)
I appreciate that you're just using this example metaphorically, but it’s a pernicious myth that devalues the labour of artists
oh I definitely get what you’re saying. There is a parallel thing in education at universities. The ridiculous myth that some people are just born geniuses and never have to try. This is completely false. Even those with plenty of natural ability will never achieve highest standards unless they work incredibly hard. (But it’s also true that in say philosophy, hard work alone cannot get people to be the level of e.g. Hume or Kant. To be the very best requires a certain something that the vast majority of people will never have no matter how hard they work).
Agreed
Incredible writing and incredible courage - huge respect to you.
From one fat, lonely, single failure to another, would recommend getting a dog if you can possibly make it work, sharing care with family/friends maybe?
Unfortunately, pets are not easy for me anymore. But perhaps a house cat might be manageable... though I think a dog would probably be better, not very manageable for me in my present life.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2025/10/24/paul-gauguin-where-do-we-come-from-what-are-we-where-are-we-going/
I don't think that's really correct about Anna Karenina and Vronsky? To me it seemed that neither of them are sure whether they love each other. (Same with Levin and Kitty at first, but God seemingly intervenes to get them hitched.) The point of weddings is to force couples to resolve this ambiguity, and recruit society to the goal of cementing the chosen resolution. This is why it is devastating for Anna that she cannot get divorced and remarried. They are trapped in unresolvable uncertainty forever. Or at least until, well, you know what happens.
This discussion about leaving for Tahiti reminds me of credit assignment problems in Machine Learning. You have some running estimate of how "good" each action is, and you update that estimate after taking that action and seeing how it turns out. But what exactly do you update with? You can update quickly, based on what you think events will turn out after a little while; or, you can update late, only after seeing how events actually play out for a good while.
It turns out either strategy will "work" in some sense, but there's no universal way of saying that one works better than another. Anyway, I guess my point is that moral philosophers should read Sutton & Barto.
You may be right. It's been over 10 years since I read it myself, and I don't have a strong memory of the details. And the Williams use of it in his classic paper on moral luck is extremely schematic.
Where is the substack of this Williams guy, I will set him straight
Valhalla
It just occurred to me that your view of the Experience Machine would be very interesting to hear.
from a while back
https://diaryofapunter.substack.com/p/tears-in-rain