Mere Mortals

Scaling a skyscraper is crazy.

When my daughter announced she wanted us to watch Alex Honnold climb a skyscraper live, with no nets or ropes, I said that’s nuts.

I desperately wanted to understand what would compel someone to go to such an extreme, when it dawned on me: It must be an attempt to avoid something else.

Because I know that when I have something I must do, somehow, I will find a million other things to do first.

I know this because I have several closets, a basement, and a garage that need cleaning out and organization, but doing something else always seems more compelling.

And I just wonder if, like me, there might be an unorganized closet, basement or garage somewhere that Alex is avoiding.

I’m only trying to find some kind of common ground to relate—human to human.

Because the way he bounded up that building, like it was “no biggie” was, at least to me, an absolutely unbelievable and extraordinary feat.

From the very beginning my hands started sweating. This, while I reclined on a sectional, tucked under a blanket with my dog, completely safe and secure.

As the camera started to show the view below him, I involuntarily began a low guttural groaning. My husband looked over at me, realized there was nothing to be done, and tried valiantly to ignore it. When Alex hoisted himself up over the round cornice pieces on the corners, the groan volume increased. Several times a muffled “Help!” escaped from me. 

The empath in me was barely hanging on to a now sweaty blanket. All I could think was “OMG, one wrong move is all it takes”.

Yet Alex seemed completely unphased. When he got to the point where employees working in the building were awaiting his ascent and put their backs to the window to capture selfies with him, I was screaming. 

What about his focus?

These people, safely standing on the floor of their office, were waving and holding signs, while he literally was dangling 90 stories up.

He simply smiled at them, waved, and continued climbing.

At every floor I was saying, either inwardly or outwardly: “Ok, OK that’s enough now, you can stop. WE BELIEVE YOU! PLEASE COME DOWN NOW.”

I noticed that I kept looking down, wishing to be grounded. But Alex kept looking up.

He just seemed intent on continuing upward.

Just looking at the comparative size of a singular man, against the sheer height of Taipei 101, with the backdrop perspective of crowds of people below was almost overwhelming for me to process.

I had also seen Free Solo where he owned El Capitan, which is much taller than Taipei 101. But in my limited life experience, I’ve never seen anything at that scale, so it doesn’t have the context or the personal relevance of a city skyscraper, many of which I’ve stared up at from ground level, mouth agape.

Alex's climb was an utterly amazing, unbelievable, and Superhuman feat.If only we could all be as courageous and unbothered. So memorable!

And to me at least, completely unrelatable.

I mean, if he’d hesitated just once, maybe slightly losing an edge and then gripping it back again. 

Or if he’d had a small breakdown during one of the breaks when he arrived at a ledge.

Maybe just a little crying with one or two exclamations of “I can’t! It’s too much! How can I ever make it?” Followed by a strengthening of resolve, a confirming of his “why” (perhaps a “This is for my MOM!”) and pressing onward.

Some tiny show of vulnerability might have made it more relatable for me.

And possibly for others like me, who may struggle with overcoming barriers, and are only working with the stuff of mere mortals.