The Climber and the Philosopher: William James and Alex Honnold on Challenge and Happiness

NOTE: This was the preliminary text I used for the presentation on Tuesday.

    We typically think of happiness as the absence of pain or discomfort.  As if we can achieve some sort of end-all/be-all mindset where we are just… well, happy.  I disagree with this sentiment. Happiness is not some sort of destination in of itself, rather it is the byproduct of individuals overcoming challenges as they strive for a higher goal.

    After spending a week at a conference of sorts, William James declares that he never once had a gloomy though or shed a single tear.  Under the typical definition of happiness--absence of pain--one would classify him as happy. Yet once he leaves and is faced with the cruel brutality of the world, he states:

“Ouf! what a relief! Now for something primordial and savage, even though it were as bad as an Armenian massacre, to set the balance straight again. This order is too tame, this culture too second-rate, this goodness too uninspiring. This human drama without a villain or a pang; this community so refined that ice-cream soda-water is the utmost offering it can make to the brute animal in man; this city simmering in the tepid lakeside sun; this atrocious harmlessness of all things,-I cannot abide with them.  Let me take my chances again in the big outside worldly wilderness with all its sins and sufferings. There are the heights and depths, the precipices and the steep ideals, the gleams of the awful and the infinite; and there is more hope and help a thousand times than in this dead level and quintessence of every mediocrity.” --William James, What Makes a Life Significant?

Within the sheltered nature of the conference, James articulates that there was something missing for him to be completely happy: challenge.  His statement reveals a disgust for the tame life, saying that the ‘atrocious harmlessness’ is unbearable. James argues that the climbing the ‘precipices of ideals’ is better than the quietness of mediocracy.  

    Elsewhere, James argues that happiness is found in the marriage between consciously chosen ideals and energetic activity.  As an individual, we must strive for a higher goal and then devote yourself to pursuing that goal. What are the crises of life?  But merely opportunities to strive for higher goals and a better version of ourselves. When faced with a challenge or crisis, we struggle to overcome it.   This process leads us to a more complete version of ourselves. Yet, we will never work up the resolve to face our fears unless we have a goal in mind or an objective we are striving to reach.   The challenges of life are mountains for us to climb. Happiness is the moment of satisfaction we have when we survey the landscape from our height before returning once more to the demanding climb ahead.

    The best example of this challenge-oriented happiness can be found in National Geographic’s documentary on Alex Honnold, Free Solo.  Honnold is rock climber that specializes in a type of climbing called “free soloing,” e.g. climbing without ropes or safety harnesses.  The documentary follows him while he prepares for the record-breaking free solo climb of El Capitan, 3,200 foot peak in Yosemite National Park.  Without any sort of safety backup, one mistake means death. The amount of precision required for this ‘sport’ is as if Olympic-level athletes were told that anything short of a gold was death.  You have to be 100% perfect. At some point, Honnold and a fellow climber, Tommy Caldwel, sit down and discuss other climbers that have died. Between the two of them, they know 30-40 people that have died.  The weight of the possibility of death looms over the entire film.

    Throughout the film, Honnold, his girlfriend, mom, the camera crew, and his climbing buddies all have to grapple with the possibility that he might die.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  Each individual had to weigh the value of the accomplishment against the fear that they might watch their friend, Alex, die.  Jimmy Chin, director of the film said:

“I’ve always been conflicted about shooting a film of free soloing because it’s so dangerous.  It’s hard to NOT imagine your friend--Alex--soloing something that’s extremely dangerous and making a film about it which might put undue pressure on him to do something dangerous, and him falling through the frame… to his death.  And we have to work through that, and understand what we’re doing is something we can live with, even in a worst case scenario.” [emphasis mine]

Considering how dangerous free soloing is, each member of the team must evaluate their position and decide to follow through despite the potential of Honnold’s death.  They understand that death is part of risk, but each eventually come to the conclusion that death is a risk they are willing to take.

This is how Alex Honnold’s achievement plays into the challenge-oriented happiness proposed by James.  Unlike other free soloers, Honnald does not have an adrenaline addiction for wanton risk (“Most people that do [free soloing] have a mentality of whatever happens, happens,” Honnald notes).  No, the story of Free Solo is about a man setting a goal and systematically working to achieve it.  He works out each element of the climb until he has mapped out the entire granite slab.  “[Others] Talk about facing your fears, I try to expand my comfort zone. I work through the fear until it’s just not scary anymore.”  Neither James nor Honnold is saying that in order to be happy we must have our life on the line. No, they both advocate for setting a lofty goal for oneself and then tackle the hurdles to accomplish it.

Both James and Honnold have hold to this idea that happiness stems from choosing to strive for a goal, calculating the cost, and then disciplining oneself to summit the challenge. Happiness is what obtain when we overcome a challenge and achieve a goal.  Note the obligatory nature of overcoming challenges in the following statements: 

“You face your fear because your goal demands it.”

    -Alex Honnold

“Act for best, hope for the best, and take what comes.  If death ends all, we cannot meet death better.”

    -William James

Both individuals have a sense that they recognize the worst-case scenario, and then decide that they would rather live with the failure rather than to have never embarked on the adventure in the first place.  Set a goal, act for best, expand your comfort zone, work through the fear of failure, and begin climbing the precipices of whatever ideal you wish to summit.