A curious experience in roped climbing (whether on auto-belay, top-roped climbing, or following a leader on a multi-pitch route) is the presence of instinctive fears that should have no rational basis for persistence. Like the fear of falling, for instance. There you are, tied in with your faithful figure-eight knot into your climbing harness, whichContinue reading “Climbing And The Persistent, If Irrational, Fear Of Falling”
Tag Archives: self-improvement
Climbing The Grand Teton (And Finding Myself At The Top)
In August 2012, my wife and I went on a road-trip through parts of the American southwest and west: New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota were our most prominent destinations. We camped and hiked in several national parks; I made note of some of those experiences here. Among the national parks we hikedContinue reading “Climbing The Grand Teton (And Finding Myself At The Top)”
The Self As Prison
In his review of Charles Simic‘s The Lunatic: Poems and The Life of Images: Selected Prose Phillip Lopate makes note of Simic’s “cultivation of awe,” his “opening himself to chance, that favorite tactic of Surrealists” and makes note of this pronouncement: Others pray to God; I pray to chance to show me the way out ofContinue reading “The Self As Prison”
Old Battles, Still Waged: Accepting ‘Defeat’ In Self-Improvement
Over the past couple of days, I have engaged in a time-honored academic ritual: the cleaning of one’s office. Old books, journal articles, student papers and blue books, random handouts from academic talks, conference badges–all fodder for the recycling bin. But I went further, looking for especially archaic material; and I found it in myContinue reading “Old Battles, Still Waged: Accepting ‘Defeat’ In Self-Improvement”
Learning To Live With The Fear Of Heights
I’m terrified of heights; vertigo, nausea, fear, and anxiety instantly make an appearance as I near an airy ledge of any kind. Cliffs in the wilderness, building balconies, these all induce these effects in me. My fear of heights bothers me; I like hiking, I like mountain views, and the best ones are always upContinue reading “Learning To Live With The Fear Of Heights”
On Failing In Our Own Style
In Flaubert’s Parrot (Vintage International, New York, 1990, pp. 39) Julian Barnes writes: But then Ed Winterton liked to present himself as a failure…. His air of failure had nothing desperate about it; rather, it seemed to stem from an unresented realisation that he was not cut out for success, and his duty was therefore toContinue reading “On Failing In Our Own Style”
On Not Recommending One’s Choices
Recently, all too often, I catch myself saying something like the following, “I took decision X, and I have my fair share of regrets and self-congratulation about it but I would not recommend X to anyone” or “In all honesty, I couldn’t recommend that you take decision X as I did.” Or something like that:Continue reading “On Not Recommending One’s Choices”
On Not ‘Interfering’ With Others’ Self-Conceptions
Sometimes, when I talk to friends, I hear them say things that to my ears sound like diminishments of themselves: “I don’t have the–intellectual or emotional or moral–quality X” or “I am not as good as Y when it comes to X.” They sound resigned to this self-description, this self-understanding. I think I see thingsContinue reading “On Not ‘Interfering’ With Others’ Self-Conceptions”
Mankind as Deluded Sisyphus
As the apocalypse closes in again on humanity in Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle For Leibowitz, Joshua, who has been ‘chosen’ to ‘escape’ into space, leaving this world behind, wonders about the cyclical nature of human history: The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they seemed to become withContinue reading “Mankind as Deluded Sisyphus”
Falling Off the Wagon
I had a bad week. Starting Friday April 18th, my brain went on the blink. In the following nine days, I only blogged twice (instead of my usual daily schedule), went to the gym only three times (instead of my scheduled seven times), read no books, and only entered into minor bouts of editing. IContinue reading “Falling Off the Wagon”
Samir Chopra 