Taipei 101

Living in the dirt, eating in the dirt, sleeping in the dirt.

These were the words of Micha Dash an American climber who once shared with me to describe the necessary sacrifices one would take to live as a ‘dirt monkey’

Climbing for Micha was everything. Climbing for me at that time was also everything. Back then climbing was an underground pursuit. It hadn’t yet been opened up to the wider audience of the collective and you could sense that. I certainly experienced the potency and exhilaration associated with the act of climbing as well as inclusion in the relatively small community.

One thing I noticed about climbing was the symbiotic relationship it shared with poverty. To be a climber usually ment that you would be willing to live a sort of nomadic lifestyle, sacrificing the financial rewards of participating within a working class society for the love of the climbing itself.

To excel at one thing, you generally have to sacrifice others, and this usually resulted in working less and burning through your reserves of cash, resulting in making lifestyle choices that were rather frugal.

But like most things that start off small and discreet, climbing gained traction. With indoor climbing walls quickly establishing themselves as robust and proven business models and the introduction of facebook, instagram and other forms of social media. climbing had been opened up to a global audience.

And with fame, comes hunger. Hunger to be entertained. Step forward those who could carry the projection of a celebrity along with performing acts of heroism and athleticism and you would have god like individuals that could reach near mythological status within peoples imagination. And those individuals are money making machines.

Who would have thought from its humble beginnings within the slate quarry’s of north Wales and the dales of the Yorkshire moors, climbing would ultimately end up in the lap of Americas cultural guardians and overlords.

So placing naivety aside, exposure comes at a price and that price is dilution. Once a thing is diluted, the scales are tipped and the tangible essence is lost.

To maintain balance things must grow organically. I now fear organic growth has been superseded for the price of a subscription.