THE REAL THING

Photo of Burkey by Vince Rockwell

This was originally posted behind the paywall on the old GJ site in 2012 or 2013 and we later printed it in the REJECTS Zine. I wanted to push it out further because soon, the collection of not-rejected Sermons, titled POISON, will be published soon and it is Burkey who penned the Foreword to the book. He has been involved with our varied projects since 2007 and has become an essential and active contributor and coconspirator upon whom we rely. His actions and words coincide. He is a searcher. His ideas have transformed our own perception and appreciation of what we do and are trying to do. Burkey has been an integral part of our growth, our accomplishments, and our evolution as human beings.

He posted the following (splendid) essay on the Station 515 site many years ago. It distills to the essence many ideas we hold dear and communicate through this project. Burkey attended the first seminar we taught in 2007 when we were testing the water to see if we really knew anything, and whether what we wanted to teach, what we had to say, would reach and affect our students in the way we wanted. Since then training has evolved for Burkey from a passing interest to an intentional line of physical and philosophical inquiry to a second job, and finally to a full-time job and consuming passion. I am proud to have influenced his path, and happy to say I have been influenced by him.

When I read The Real Thing today I was reminded of when I first grasped the difference between the pretenders and the genuine article. In 1980 I bought a copy of Dougal Haston's novel titled "Calculated Risk", which had been published the year before, shortly after his death. It's a story of extreme climbing though the theses presented within could be applied to any lifestyle that involves high risk. Early in the book one of the protagonists makes the first ascent of an oft-tried, very severe route in Scotland and he does so alone. Later, in the pub, he describes his ascent to a group climbers while a friend observes their reactions.

"… they showed the fear, awe, envy and resignation typical of people in varying forms of competition who are suddenly faced with the realization that someone nearby is in a slightly different and better class than they."

It was an epiphany. I recognized that there is a hierarchy and that it's OK, essential even. I chose there and then to become the real thing and used Haston's book as a thesis and blueprint for my climbing career. As I progressed I learned to despise posers. I hated pretenders who tried to occupy the same space as the real thing, using words and puffery to distract from actions that would undermine their declarations if anyone bothered to look beyond them. I fought constantly to ensure that I always took ACTION before TALKING whether in the mountains, or later, on the shooting range, on a bike and with the gym.

Burkey's essay reminded me that this is the real spirit of the old place and our current space: that talk is erased by action, and eventually words become redundant because everything can be communicated with action.

___________

The Real Thing

It's hard to believe sometimes, but they are out there.

The real thing.

People who are larger and deeper than their reputation. People who speak more often with their actions than their words. People who deliver more than they promise. People who know the difference between action and acting. People who do.

We all know that Talk - Action = 0, but it is worse than that. Every time we hear the chatter that will never amount to anything, every time we meet someone whose presence pales in comparison to their persona, we all become a little more cynical. Words lose their meaning.

Follow-through is an inverse of how many exclamation points a person uses.

The person I respect is not the one who tells me they are going to show up every day, but the one who shows up when they say they will.

The person I respect is not the one with the most exciting story, but the one who shares the un-embellished facts and has a reason in the telling.

Generally, the more a person asks for something, the less they deserve it. Respect, recognition, rewards ... these are not given. They are earned.

It shows up in the gym, the dramatics. We have all seen it, flopping and wailing after a "hard" session. The act, the shit show ...

Yes, it hurts. So what? Is that helping? Is that who you want to be?

We call it training for a reason. It is not the real thing, it is preparation. It is rehearsal. It is practice for how we want to perform and behave when things are truly difficult. Actually frightening. We try and touch the edges of fear and exertion with the goal of deepening the well, expanding our will into new and darker territories. We train to act rightly, to act deliberately, to behave the way we have decided to even in the worst of circumstances.

What behavior are you training? To complain? To make excuses? To be dramatic?

Theatrics do not belong here.

I have seen people touch that place where they actually collapse. Muscular failure, the body not obeying the mind. Each time you wail and throw yourself to the ground you are saying you are the same as those individuals, saying you are as committed and as willing. And we both know you are not. We all know.

This is not theater. Do your work, do what you must to get through it, and know that each action leaves a mark. Enough marks paint a picture. A portrait of who you are and what you stand for.

The difference between the real thing and the posers is simple. It is a choice. A history of choices executed over time. Your actions have consequences. What kind of mark do you want to leave?

Live deliberately. Train deliberately.