Deconstructing meaning
Camus asks us to consider all our projects and endeavors to be Sisyphean: ultimately pointless, but not thereby subjectively meaningless and not necessarily unconstitutive of a subjectively worthwhile life. On this reading of the myth, mountaineering – the striving to get to the top of a mountain – plays the role of a sort of purified, generic allegory for any and all of life’s endeavors, that is, for human endeavor in general.[1]
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The so-called ‘golden age of mountaineering’, when the major peaks of the alps were ascended for the first time and exploration of mountains in the Greater Ranges began, commences with the Enlightenment. Is it the case that mountaineering can fill the void left by the ‘flight of the gods’ as the role of divinity and the transcendental assurances it provides declines in the life of the individual and their society? I.e. is mountaineering a particularly apt symbol for the endeavors of the godless, like Sisyphus?[2]
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Mountaineering appears especially contrived to be arduous enough to test resolve across the various facets of fundamental human concern, and to this extent, mountain adventures under- taken successfully constitute very precisely a sort of response to the imperative of meaning-making: don’t give up on your intention; don’t give up on your project![3]
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Consider these three passages above from Rufus Duits’ “Mountaineering, Myth and the Meaning of Life: psychoanalysing alpinism.”
I read Duits’ piece a few weeks ago, but not until today did it strike something within me. The Canadian Route, a climb I worked on intensely for much of the winter season, has been the subject of several of my reflections thus far this semester. I began trying it in the fall because I needed something to work on. I had little hope of sending it, but I enjoyed it, nevertheless. In March I returned to the Canadian Route after a few months away from sport climbing and found myself entangled in the process.
I got really, really close to sending. Five times. And then, I quickly regressed. My final session on the route, before today, was quite poor. I started falling lower than what I expected of myself and took it as a sign that I needed a break. I was truly heartbroken, to step away from the climb without doing it. I was 20+ sessions deep—potentially more physical effort than I had ever put into a route. But what was worse about the pit I had fallen into was that those 20 sessions were the bubbling up—and bubbling over—of a dangerous slew of anxiety, pressure, and expectations.
Taking a step back felt like giving up. But I had come to a point on the route where I no longer believed I could do it. I had given 10, maybe more, send attempts where I had pulled onto the wall without believing I could send. I quickly learned that by not believing I would send, I was really just intending to fall. So, I did the hard thing. I stopped trying.
That was four weeks ago, and today, re-reading Duits’ piece by mere coincidence before I headed out to go climb, I was told: “don’t give up on your project!” I smiled, reading that line this morning. I had already made plans to get back on the route today. Not to send, but just to reacquaint myself with it as a training exercise, more than anything. Of course, I was admiring the funny way of the universe and the timing of Duits’ message, but really, I was smiling at the distance I had placed between myself and Duits’ message over the last month.
He told me not to give up on my project because it is a meaning-making endeavor. Though ultimately pointless, Duits argues that our projects can still hold the subjective meaning we give to them. These meanings, collectively, constitute the meanings of our life. But what meaning do I want to derive from the Canadian Route? For what seemed like an eternity, I derived the meaning of my life from climbing that route. Every time I didn’t do it (every time I tried it), I felt like my identity as a climber was chipped away a little bit. Maybe it was an ego thing. Maybe it was because I wanted to do the route so badly. But whatever it was, the meaning I had made out of the route was so intense that other things started to seem pointless.
After deciding to take a break, I didn’t know what to do with myself for a few days. There were no other climbs I wanted to do. Everything felt insignificant if it wasn’t the Canadian. I was stuck within the subjective meaning I had created. And this is the crux of Duits’ ask: does everything need to fill a void? Does everything need to contribute to my life as being worthwhile?
Last week, the final week I made the drive from Chapel Hill to Fayetteville, I was thinking about the journey I had traveled every week since August. Hundreds of miles of highway diving and carving through the Appalachian Mountains, two tunnels beneath insurmountable peaks, and the longest single arch bridge in the western hemisphere were between me and the Canadian Route. Great manmade feats dominating the vast landscape between the two cities, covering ground I could only dream of crossing by foot. All waiting to take me to a 35-foot section of a cliff that I could not climb.
The best part about the Canadian Route is that I hike in from above. The hike ends with me standing atop the cliff, powerful and almighty over the gorge, before I descend the metal ladders to the base of the wall. I place myself in the position to be defeated, over and over again—and not because I will never make it to the top of The Cirque, but because I will never stay there. My resting place—my home here—is above the Canadian Route. The rest of my life is, literally, above the Canadian Route. I could live all my remaining years standing atop the route and still would never feel satisfied without clipping my rope into the anchor. And so, I continue to descend below my resting place, week after week, hoping to make it even a fifth of the way back up.
Duits proposes that I should think of this task as Sisyphean. I should create meaning in it. And in many ways, I am pushing a boulder up a hill. But, in equally many ways, I am pushing the boulder back down the hill, despite making it to the top every time. I am not certain that I need to find meaning in the Canadian Route. Or, maybe, I just haven’t found the right meaning yet.
But I can certainly attest that after revisiting the route today, breaking my monthlong hiatus, I felt that it was utterly pointless. As evidence of this, my life went on for the last month. Shocking! Finding the route to be utterly pointless didn’t come to me as a sign that I had started anew, that I had a clean slate to make a new purpose, however, but that I had made it over the hump of meaning and found the expanse of nothingness on the other side of the rainbow. And it was quite peaceful.
Duits, R. (2020). Mountaineering, Myth and the Meaning of Life: psychoanalysing alpinism. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 47(1), 33–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/00948705.2020.1715227
[1] Page 38
[2] Page 39
[3] Page 39