i'm begging you to love something again
i tried to jump for this my entire session and missed every time
i'm climb and i'm naturally part of the r/climbergirl subreddit because i like to hear people bitch on the internet (myself included but i'm more of a hater, not a venter and i think that's a distinct and very respectable difference).
after a year on the forum, i noticed a common question/theme/complaint that should frankly be on the FAQs if we had meaner mods (bring back haters):
hi, i've been climbing for 4 months, i bought the climbing shoes, got my arcteryx on, i'm showing up, where is my community
it's a fair question on the surface but being part of many online spaces, i think it speaks to something bigger.
two related things are happening:
first, the entitlement and speed-running of gratification;
second, mistaking aesthetics for actual love of the game.
1. entitlement and gratification
in the book cultish by amanda montell, montell references a 2015 harvard divinity school study that found that people are seeking "both a deep spiritual experience and a community experience'.
i think with the rise of aesthetics, people try to shortcut the process of belonging through aesthetics instead of time, true connection, and repeated failure. there's a subconscious entitlement that if you get the right gear, put on the right costume, then you can also get all the accoutrements that come with it like a popeye's combo deal1.
i get the desperate need to feel like you're a part of something and the frustration of not being able to make friends2. but community is more than you just showing up at the gym for four months. you have to put in the time, actually talk to people, be fucking interesting, build real relationships, try, fail then try again. i'm begging you to try. try like the kids that used to loiter for 3 years on fairfax until the guy at Braindead is finally like yo bro do you need a job?
just because you started climbing for a few months doesn't mean you automatically 'up-level' and start collecting items. and then bitch to the internet when the timeline didn't meet your expectations.
which really begs the question, do you even love it?
2. mistaking the aesthetic for real passion
because when you chase the aesthetic instead of doing it for the love of the game, you absolutely won't like it when you fail. you will crumble at the first sign of pushback. you won't like it when you don't progress at the self created timeline you've made for this new persona of yours.
instead of loving something, you treat your new found hobby like an andrew huberman self help video, you're always looking to uplevel, uplevel, stop with the upleveling.
i'm currently reading Dilla Time by Dan Charnas and it's inspiring as shit. being so talented, loving something so badly, learning everything there is to love about it, doing things for year and years and not receiving widespread recognition until after he passed? it's love.
people forget what it's like to love something, forget what it's like to fail, forget what it means to really work for something. do you know what it was like being a 2009 k-pop fan, do you know how many alt burners you needed to get to vote for your favorite artists at 3am, do you know about translating and hardcoding translations into youtube videos without any real translation services online? and you did it for the community?
do you know the rush? do you even know love?
that's why you don't look like a mob wife, a coastal grandma, grandpa-core because its all a costume to you. you don't look like a person who loves deeply loves fashion, in your 90s jeans and leather jacket, you look like adam sandler.
you're not knee-deep in poshmark AND mercari, waiting for a dead man's rap CD collection to surface because you've been tracking his widow's facebook account for 10 years. why is she still offloading his dockers, we want the cds ma'am.
because that's what unhinged, unbridled love of the game looks like; not the costume, but the patience.