Resistance...

We all encounter it; it won’t be denied. It is a force of nature. It’s the bad shoulder, the plateau, the streak of forced rest days, the eternal one-hang, the redpoint day that everyone and their mom is working through beta runs on your project. It’s the job that makes you a slave to the weekend weather forecast, and the family that keeps asking why you don’t move back to the flat Midwest so they can see you more often.
 
In the past few years, as I’ve focused on climbing routes that are at my absolute limit (and thus increased the amount of resistance I'm up against), I’ve realized that the way a person moves through…around…into…resistance has a lot to do with how I feel about them. I’m not saying that I have it all figured out. I’m saying that I’m learning by observing. If this is one way I determine quality of character in others, then it must also be a way others determine the quality of my character.
 
I am retiring in 12 months and 21 days. Actually, Charlie is the one truly retiring, and I’m just hitching a ride, so to speak. Those who know us are painfully aware of our plans, mostly because you’re probably sick of hearing us talk about it. We’ve spent our past 4 years together with this retirement as our common goal. We’re ditching 95% of our belongings, packing up the dogs, and living on the road in search of steep terrain until we can’t stand it anymore and are inspired to re-grow some roots.
 
So how does this relate to this whole ‘resistance’ theme? Sounds pretty fluid, forward-moving, and positive, yes? The resistance comes in the day-to-day of being present in the moment. It’s so damn tempting to spend every minute looking forward to our future of lounging in the camper until the day rises up to condition, productive weekday projecting sessions, and rest days spent exploring new crags and local color. But what if that future doesn’t come? What if our grand plan is thwarted by some unforeseen force of nature? What if we experience resistance so strong we aren’t able to find our way around or through it?
 
To be blindly pragmatic, with total disregard for the possibilities of reality, is not a smart approach where things like health and the stock market are involved. Yes, we have a plan that we fully expect to enact, but that isn’t now, and now is where we are. If every minute doesn’t count, why should the minutes in 12 months and 21 days be any different? Right this minute, our resistance comes in the challenge to experience every day with a passion that’s not reserved for the future, but continually growing as we learn to apply it more and more fully.

Someday we'll likely need that passion to help us move through a different sort of resistance, one that comes as our bodies decide they're no longer capable of functioning at the level we demand. I hope that when that day comes, the quality of our characters will be sufficiently evolved that we hardly skip a beat in our brief single-pitch stint on this planet. One of my favorite teachers, Matthew Sanford says, "Our bodies are leaving us." From the moment we leave the womb, the entire process of growing and aging is not, as we tend to view it, an arc, but rather a straight line. That life is as simple as a beginning and an end, and the thing that makes it interesting, that turns resistance into experience, is this individual evolution of a body and a mind to a mind/body. This is important. It's beautiful, and terrifying. It's the spark that lights the passion.