Not this time, this time you’ll be chasing rocky up those steps (not in a gay way) and clipping the belay on that 7a.

So step one: Define the goal. French 7a

Step two: Determine timescale. March 31 2012

Step three: Take that first step.

 I’m not refering to how you make yourself go for a run or give up cigarettes but instead why you do any of the things you do. Why are you in the job you are in? Why do you live in the town you live in and why do you update your Facebook status? How many of these choices are made by us and how many are made by our peers and our surroundings?

If you look back along  the twists and turns of your undoubtedly incredible life how many conscious decisions did you make yourself and how many times did you have them made for you? Do we strive for top earning jobs because that is what we want or is it to apease our family and impress our friends? Do you really love the sport you play or do you just want to be better than your friends? Do you write a blog because you enjoy writing or because you are a pretentious douche? So many questions.

Three years later and I’m in the throws of a full on climbing addiction but one very different from my first day of climbing in Chile. I have become obsessed with climbing hard,  improving and getting to the next grade. Many climbers talk about the two biggest attractions of the sport; progression and adventure as two mutually exclusive ideals. If you want adventure you have to accept that you will be a low grade bumpler who’s mearly playing at climbing and if you want to be an uber wad you have to exchange the sights and sounds of alpine peaks for a stopwatch and a bedroom fingerboard.

But does it have to be this way? It is so easy to slip into this way of thinking,  you are either a boulderer who at the end of his climb has performed the most technically demanding move he is physically capable of but is only 5 metre off the ground or you are an alpanist who has done little more than walk slowly up hill but is on top of the world.

If you want to excel in aything you have to specialise, but I have always been a jack of all trades,  I want to experience everything that climbing has to offer. I may reach for both and seize neither, I’ll have to make sure I have a good belayer.

A sinking feeling develops, another night gone by and no story to tell. The props, location and cast were all the same and they failed to produce anything new, like a sitcom running into its final series.

More photos will be published, the image has to be maintained. The old school friends, the ex partner must see what a good time you are having.

The youth of the 60′s dreamed of changing the world whilst we dream of the perfect profile picture, we got lost somewhere, but at which point?

Does the world need another blog, probably not and although I can’t promise you Othello or The Scottish play I hope to produce an intersting read about Climbing, life, the Universe and everything. Not a tall order for a stone monkey with a chalk covered keyboard.