Thoughts...

So I mentioned that I'd be trying to integrate more thoughts.  Here's one:

This week, Zach mentioned another staff, Jesse, introducing himself with a fun fact: that he'd stayed with head-hunters in Borneo for two weeks before they gave him a native tribal tattoo.

"Whoa!! What?!  Who does that?!  Who can say they've done that?!"  was Zach's reaction.

My reaction was, "yeah, but did he climb with them?"

Oi.  This is the point at which I get so stoked on climbing that I lose sense of what life can be outside of it.  When rainy days send me into a tailspin, and animal closures make me want to scare the piss (literally) out of desert tortoises.  (*little known fact: if you scare a desert tortoise, their natural response is to pee--which could be the releasing of water they've collected over the course of 10 months or more).

Obsession.  That's what this mindset is.  It's unbalanced idolatry.  Sure it's passionate.  It's commitment.  It has some redemptive qualities.  But it is not beneficial when it comes to measuring every other part of life against the focus, adrenaline, pursuit, community, and time investment that it requires.

So I've been pursuing relationships that include mountain biking, running, watching movies, slacklining and throwing a frisbee at the park...basically trying to balance all the other things in my life that I enjoy.

In a word: balance.