Category Archives: inspirational

Try.

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I am constantly battling with abstractions. I am drawn to them, surrounded by them…but part of my intellectual wiring resents them. I am a simple person with a love for the real, the definite and the frequently harsh truth. I am constantly reviewing my motivations, the integrity of this project, holding myself up to the light and checking for thin, weak spots, for holes.

So, I want to question the point of inspiration. I mean, who needs it? What does it do and why should anyone care? This is a pretty central question to me since part of our mission is to inspire. I’d be a hypocrite and a fool if I renounced pure abstractions and yet propped up the need for my project with those same ideals.

Inspiration is not an abstraction. It’s not a feeling–true inspiration IS action. If someone truly inspires you, you DO something with that inspiration. It is energy which in constant motion and may change forms and morph in various stages, but it keeps moving. The purpose of electricity, lets say in battery form, is not to stay put in the batteries, but rather to power up devices which are used and appreciated because they affect the world and people around them.

So what’s the catch? I see a lot of abstractions thrown around–and lots of self congratulatory back-patting at having charged up “batteries” while failing to ever flip the switch and DO something about it. Inspiration is not a feeling that fades, having made no real change. That is just called delusion. Inspiration is that feeling that gets you psyched and then sticks in your subconscious like a popcorn hull that lodges in your gum at the toothline. It forces you to TRY. And keep trying.

I am not attached to an outcome for this project. I see its potential, and it is massive. I also see a lot of white noise and apps and games and tweets and retweets and words and sounds and pictures and white noise that could also completely obscure this project and drown it out. It may culminate as a tsunami or you may have to listen in impatient silence, waiting for the “splash”.

I am only attached to trying. I am attached to the process and the struggle. That is the point of all this: to TRY.

 

Banting and McLeod discover insulin! (ok its 90 years late, but I’ve been busy)

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90 years ago today, Frederick Banting and John McLeod first tested the affects of injected insulin on an actual 14 year old, diabetic patient.  They went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize for their work and today, I and millions of other people are alive because of the innovation and vision of these doctors and their team.

These days there are lots of folks looking to take their work one step further and find a way to get the pancreas to return to normal function–which in short means reanimating dead tissue–so it is no small task that today’s researchers are facing. Many diabetics are fixated on “curing” type 1 diabetes and hanging onto the results of each latest study–only to find a cure is not ”just around the corner” despite what some would have us believe. I would LOVE to have a working pancreas again, but since the possibility of a TRUE cure is akin to raising the dead, I have chosen to focus my efforts in a slightly different direction.

I am frequently torn on the issue of a “cure”. I feel like I am the odd man out since I am one of the few who is not crying out for a pharmaceutical cure. No one lives forever. If I manage my diabetes vigilantly using diet, exercise and insulin, I can live as long, as healthy and more adventurously than most people without diabetes. Of course that’s a big IF. Discipline, hard work, and yes, suffering are the prices to pay–but aren’t we as a society a little soft–IE in need of some good old-fashioned elbow grease?

YES. We have an obesity epidemic that is out of control. Pollution, waste and detachment from nature are built into our lifestyles. These are the bigger, more immediate threats to a good quality of life than whether your insulin comes from a syringe, a pump or a pancreas.

The salient point of this rant is not to judge the efforts of others, but rather to ENCOURAGE people not to WAIT for a cure to live a better life. To dispel the myth that removing the challenge is the end all-be all. I would love nothing more than for the gifted scientists who are hard at work  to have a breakthrough which would result in a cure that normal people could afford. In the meantime, hard work, a good diet and connection to the environment–well that is doable for anyone–RIGHT NOW. Those are the lynch-pins that keep us dangling above the quality of life that we want.

I am thankful for insulin. I am thankful for the folks who are working to eliminate the steps we have to take in getting that insulin into our systems-but I will never pin my quality of life on any industry above my own attitude and work ethic. By pushing the boundaries we are faced with, we honor the efforts of those who have made discoveries (thanks, Banting and McLeod!) and all of those who are still laboring to move the proverbial “high camp” a little further up the mountain!

 

 

 

 

Now let’s all go climbing!

Mini progress

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Got done finished unpacking the car. Its a pretty sweet little rig we’ve got, even if it’s no chick magnet!  I will have a short video coming up in my next blog to show a little bit of that process. Also, we got some of the episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” transferred onto my Zen media player which may sound like a fools errand but I know that comfort TV will be much appreciated when we are a few months (or weeks?) into this.

So the task at hand is looming large and intimidating before us. So much to do, so little time blah blah blah. At the end of the day I have been realizing (largely through Stef’s input) that we just have to do what we do and not reinvent the wheel. Climbing and going all over the place in beat up cars is what we do. It always has been really. Why the anxiety now?

Lots of people are watching–and more are checking us out every day. This equals pressure. Don’t screw up. Don’t get sick or injured. Don’t forget to film every moment of waking life. Don’t forget to eat. Don’t forget to take your insulin. Don’t forget that eating sh*tty food will make you tired and unable to perform. Don’t forget to check and double check your tie-in knot…

It is a struggle to stay true to one’s self and one’s mission. People watching, looking to you, makes you want to impress people or live up to their expectations. Of course we don’t want to go broke either so there is that piece of the puzzle. Let me rephrase that. We don’t want to go so far into debt that we have to deploy our golden parachutes and piss off all of our constituents! Seriously though, being broke is part of the price that you pay to do this kind of thing and it is a sacrifice that I have found to be totally worth it, and it is nothing new to us. It’s just that sometimes when you see almost everyone else running the opposite direction you DO question if everyone knows something that you have completely overlooked…then again its possible that the opposite scenario is the case!

Forcing myself to relax is something that I have learned (and am still learning) to do when I am climbing. Perhaps that’s another reason why I am drawn to what people perceive as a “risky” activity–because it hones my ability to dial in my brain and see that none of the stuff that I am currently freaking out about really matters.

Climbing is what I do. I just have to go out and do what I do. Like I always have.

Thanks for putting up with my little locker-room speech! I have a video to put together and I am going to be making notes about our dietary approach for the road, so you will be hearing more about those spell-binding topics this week!

In other news, BG (blood glucose) has been good–running a little low but thats ok by me–I like eating!

Also, I would like to point out that the weather here in San Diego is AWWWWWWWEEEEESOMMMME!!!!! I can’t wait to be that annoying asshat that is always rubbing it in that their weather is FANTASTIC in the middle of the winter to the vast annoyance of all their friends. Yep, I am going to be THAT GUY.

Counting the cost

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This will not be the first time we have packed our stuff up and headed out into the great blue yonder searching for adventure. So why does it feel different?

In times past we sallied forth from our home in NY which was the “hub” of our wheel which would always be there for us to come back to. Family was there. Friends were there. Old work connections were there. Home was there.

I have lived for all of my 29 years in Orange County NY. Stefanie has been here for about the last 10 years of her life. This year has been one of upheaval, of discomfort–of change. Relatives dying, moving away, work drying up, friends moving on with their lives and suddenly, like a fart in a gale of wind, the hub is gone and all the strands of our life are dangling and blowing in the wind like tattered curtains masking a shattered window pane.

I am aware that to many people reading this, it may sound very self indulgent to dwell on these facts. “Dude, you’re going on a sick vacation! What’s not to like?!”

That’s sort of true–although true adventure feels much more like hard work at the time and the “vacation” feel usually is more of an aftertaste…not having a place to come back to, (not just in terms of a physical dwelling, but even in terms of belonging in this area) makes the process of pulling up stakes for what will be the last time here a lot more emotional–a lot more committing.

Also, having to leave our precious fat little Mr Kitty behind will leave a void that will be nagging at every turn.

Literally everything is up in the air. No idea where we will land after Project 365. All of the prior trips I have taken have shown me that adventure without the people to share that adventure with afterwards can be a very futile pursuit. Without going into excruciating detail, there are a lot of  ’what ifs’ that are written into the fine print here and many of them have dark and sinister implications.

So why voluntarily do this? I wish I had a good answer to that question–for myself and for you who read this.

The best I can say for myself is that I can’t not do this.

I have felt my life’s path leading me to this precipice for many years. I am aware of the risks. I am aware of the costs–and that is the point of this ranting. How could I responsibly venture off like this without really squaring the price with the potential outcomes?

Without the dissolution of our comfort zone we would never be desperate enough to try something this outlandish–and in the words of RFK, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly”. Those of our relatives who have passed away recently were always supportive of our oddball, adventurous habits–and we honor them by embracing the path that they helped us learn to walk upon as small children. Hard work builds character. We will definitely have a lot of character as a result of this process.

Sharing this adventure is paramount to everything else–and there are amazing connections we have made even at this point, as well as re-connections with people from our past who we had fallen out of touch with. And Mr Kitty…well…he will be one more reason to be humble in the mountains and a necessary and nagging reminder that the summit is optional, while returning to the bottom is mandatory.

People want to see adventures in bold colors–action, agony, extremes and power. I have great confidence that we will all experience those things, right here for you who are following along, and out in the vertical world for you who join us. But the reality is that the shading, you know, all the “grays” are what lend the big picture its depth.

There is a lot on the line here. I have counted the cost. I know what I have just put the “downpayment” on.

So let’s go hard because we can’t go home.

Welcome PCGI as a sponsor of Project 365!

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What does PCGI stand for? Professional Climbing Guides Institute- a non-profit organization committed to developing, defining and improving the safety, technical and educational standards of guided rock climbing and instruction in grade III and under terrain. Basically, PCGI is an organization that trains the trainers, teaches those who will in turn be in charge of instructing and protecting others who want to experience the joys and freedom of outdoor climbing on “real” rock.

If you’re not a climber, this may not mean much to you–but keep reading and I bet that’ll change.

PCGI has agreed to sponsor Project 365 and that is obviously a significant achievement for us since they are our first major backer–but that fact alone really fails to convey the excitement that I am feeling about this development. To fully paint this picture, let me take you back to the fall of 2009…

 

Climbing had always been an escape from the reality of my diabetes and other people–sure I had to manage my sugar out on the rock, but I was usually alone or with Stef. I didn’t have to explain how my diet worked or the gadgetry I used to check my sugar or how many times a day I had to take injections. I climbed to get away from it all and the isolation, by default, made me feel normal. Now all that was about to change.

See, I had decided to begin the journey to becoming a climbing guide. I had opted to put my skill set under public assessment in order to make my passion pay for itself–and it seemed noble and worthwhile. What is better than getting paid to share what you love with people who want to learn? But before I could have the title I had to prove myself. I now had to tell people ‘in the interest of full disclosure, I want you to know that I’m diabetic’ and wince, while waiting for them to recoil in horror. I had been climbing for a couple of years and had learned to deal with the fear of heights–but I was totally afraid of talking about my condition with other people–but if I was going to be a guide, I had to be open about my condition and its limitations.

I sought out PCGI training because I was told that it was different. It was supposed to be more adaptive–I didnt quite know what that meant but it sounded suited to my needs so I signed up for a course with Zeke Federman, out in Bishop CA. I remember talking to him at one point and feeling a bit flustered, because instead of a traditional learning model where the instructor TELLS you what is up and that’s that, Zeke asked me what my goals were. What did I want to learn and why? I wasnt expecting to be heard. 

Through out the actual process of the course Zeke kept steering the narrative back towards our motivations and what we wanted to get out of the course and to be able to do with it. He made clear that obtaining certification was more cut and dried but that the road to reaching proficiency was different for every person and he helped us individually explore our own paths.

I’ll never forget our conversation about my having diabetes. I was pretty concerned about it making me less fit of a candidate to be a guide or that I would become a liability to potential employers. I was blathering away in my usual self doubting fashion and when I finally came up for air, Zeke just looked at me kind of quizzically and asked, “Do you know what you need to do to take care of yourself and stay safe?”

I nodded.

“Well just make sure you keep doing that” he said.

It may sound overly simple to some, but the reality was profound–and empowering. I did know how to take care of myself. I had the power to make good choices about my food and insulin that would allow me to function at the same level as anyone else! This conversation shaped my view of myself and empowered me to begin taking a path that has frequently crossed and recrossed the folks at PCGI and now has led me to the point of undertaking an project to give back that same empowerment to others!

The PCGI organization as I have come to know them individually as fellow guides and mentors are representative of a new and “student centered” learning philosophy that is second to none. Instruction is a partnership, a sum total of everyone’s experience with the goal of helping people find their own path to excellence. They truly invest themselves in the success of their students–I am proof of that.

I have had to learn to manage risk in all areas of my life. The mentors at PCGI have helped me translate my life experience managing risk in dealing with my diabetes into climbing terms which has enabled so much freedom and growth in my life. That is exactly what I want to share with other people now–the reality that your experience as a diabetic can be a powerful tool if you approach it properly and from a position of power and confidence.

So yes, its awesome to have other people recognize your work and its awesome to have financial support–but to have it come from the people who helped you really learn to stand on your own two feet, well, that’s a whole different kind of special. So that is why we are psyched to welcome PCGI as a sponsor of Project 365–and you will be hearing more about their organization and getting to meet many of their mentors and guides, as we will be seeing them in various corners of North America and recording our time climbing and pursuing certification with them. We are really thankful to have you guys on board!

Last but not least I want to give a special shout out to Jewels Doskicz from the Northern AZ chapter of the JDRF who has been HUGELY helpful in connecting us with all the right people and helping us set up a climbing event for type 1 kids at her gym in Flagstaff.