The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
- Albert Camus
Spring is here in Barcelona. We’ve all been drinking our beers in the plazas all winter, but it’s nice that the sun is out. Soon the beaches will fill, and the tourists will come.
I’ve been working to transform the draft of a memoir I never liked into a novel that I do like. It’s going well, in that the writing flows, feeling more like play than work. It’s about the books that influenced a young man at key moments in his work and life, but mostly in his relationships. 79,000+ words so far. Months more work to do.
The renovation in the countryside is finally progressing. The builder is working every day with his crew, even Sundays. He promised to be done by the Festival of St. Jordi (23rd of April), and it looks like he may actually hit it. The rooftop terrace is nearly done, and the new roof. New cement about to be poured on the lower level. Honestly can’t believe it’s finally happening. You can see the view of the mountains I’ve been dreaming about for two years.
When I’m in the country, I’ve been climbing very hard. Feels amazing to be strong like this at age 44. I’m not even sure I’ve hit my peak yet. Sent a 7b+ (12c) the other day on only my second attempt, a difficulty near the top of what I’ve ever climbed. With the warm weather though we have to chase shade, and there are fewer cliffs facing away from the sun. How much longer can I keep this up before another season passes?
When I’m in the city, I seem to meet new, beautiful and interesting people every week. The climbing circle from the gym is strong. The social life is full. I’ve been hosting various friends for most of the last two weeks. Last night, I danced: salsa, bachata, merengue.
Dancing as an act of rebellion.
I.
Everyone is scared.
The world is scary but I’m not talking about that. I’m scared is what someone tells me when they don’t want to try climbing. Fear of heights. I tell them I do it because I’m scared of heights.
A few weeks ago, I was twenty meters up on a vertical swath of limestone in Siurana, feeling so scared it was almost paralyzing.
I was so scared to lead another five meters of rock that I abandoned the climb and traversed to an easier route, a comforting, enveloping crack I could stick my entire arm into. I abandoned the existential battle for my soul in favor of easier ground.
But I’ve had a thousand moments like this. They’re dispiriting when they happen. This moment even more so because it was a climb I’d been on the previous year, and a grade I should have been comfortable on, 7a+ (12a). But the moves were delicate, the bolts were far away, and the falls, if I messed up, were quite long.
But knowing a fall is safe is not the same as feeling it in my body. Knowing you are safe in the world is not the same as the feeling many of us feel. Yet climbing level sets by putting physical reality directly into your face. There is no hiding from it. It teaches you both deep confidence and profound humility, often in the same week.
It was a few days later that I finished the 7b+ on my second try. All flow, all execution. Not just a feeling, but a black and white, incontrovertible success: climbing from the ground to the top with no falls and no rests on the rope.
There are highs and lows in life. It’s always a practice, always an infinite game.
II.
“Beware of looking for goals,” wrote Hunter S. Thompson. “Look for a way of life.” It’s a subject I’ve written about multiple times before. Treat life as an infinite game, only find the one you enjoy playing.
Yet there must be signposts along the way.
A climbing project can be completed or not. The renovation could drag another year, or be done earlier. A book must be finished or abandoned. Even a newsletter can find its natural end. You need not continue to write your Substack if it doesn’t fit the way of life you desire.
But the older I get (I’ve allotted myself one use of this phrase per month), the more I find myself abandoning projects that are not driven by intrinsic motivation. If I can find a way to do it where it feels like play, that means I keep going. If it feels like an obligation, I try to change it or stop (or vibe-code it away).
I try to do this because I’m following Hunter S. Thompson, and I’m following Camus. When Camus says that we must make our existence an act of rebellion, I respond that I am against workism, and live accordingly: with fewer hours, with clear boundaries. I say that spending one’s days in quiet desperation is to be rejected. I say you must reassert control over your own focus and attention.
That is the most subversive act of rebellion most of us can do right now.
III.
In a piece about the fall of the Assad regime, journalist Robert F. Worth reported that the Syrian dictator “was spending much of his time playing Candy Crush and other video games on his phone,” and thus couldn’t be bothered to mount an effective response to the militias that were about to take over his country.
Good riddance to him—no one is shedding a tear for the Assad regime. But the cautionary tale remains.
The opposite of rebellion in the Camus sense is meme culture. It’s living our lives in imitation of someone else’s. We are all directed to self-actualize, to “work on ourselves,” and yet we continue in our imitation games, because we can’t find other ones to play.
Two years ago, I managed to invent a game entirely of my own, which is rare. I called it the Rumney Tenagi. It’s a challenge I made up to climb every 10a in Rumney in one day. As far as I can tell, no one has repeated it before or since. It was me attempting to break out of the imitation game, a small attempt at rebellion in a way that felt authentic and specific to me.
Completing the challenge had the exact kind of effect I’d hoped for when I conceived of it:
I found a new level in my climbing, a level I’d never experienced before. I was twenty-three pitches in, all mind, body, soul, and spirit were in sync… I was in pure flow state. Occasionally I paused and looked down at myself from above, and realized what was happening: I was floating upward. Every small shift in weight, every dance of the feet felt like grace. Every small step from nub to fin pure technique. I was on a cloud. This was it, the last one. I had found something new deep down, and I knew it… for those ten minutes it took me to climb, it felt practically like another plane of existence.
It may be scary, but go find your own Tenagi. (But of course I would be honored if you choose to repeat mine.)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Those come very timely for me, in the middle of a rebellion against workism.
I'm also a climber and a salsa dancer, and I happen to be around Barcelona most of the time. If you ever feel like being invited to a beer while having a chat I'd be very happy!