I decided to go watch Free Solo this afternoon. I had seen a snippet of Alex Honnold’s 60 Minutes special while in high school, and remember being impressed. Then I discovered this documentary about him won an Oscar. Even better, it was being shown in some local theaters.
The short version is this: No film has made me feel less competent and driven, yet I don’t envy necessarily envy Alex’s single-mindedness.
Before I get into that, I want to encourage everybody to see this documentary. It’s stress-inducing, beautiful, and everybody in the film has an incredible passion about them. Alex’s focus on climbing El Capitan, his girlfriend’s passion for him and their life together, as well as the camera crew working with Alex all weave an amazing narrative. It’s fantastic. You can also read the National Geographic article about the climb if you’re interested in the details.
Enjoying the filmography, as well as the feat Alex pulled, are both quite easy. It’s no wonder this documentary was so well-received. Yet Alex himself is the more interesting part of this film. He has the personality one might expect from a child prodigy, a narrow focus on specific goals, and that brings him immense joy. It was something that I admired, but could not entirely grasp. It is always inspiring to see someone so fully living their best life in the way that brings them the most joy. He has something to be dedicated to, and as long as he’s able to keep climbing, there’s no doubt he will.
I faced multiple crossroads at the end of high school and throughout college, and each decision took me a bit further away from the drive and narrow focus Alex has in his life. I think this is why Alex himself affected me far more than the anxiety I felt from watching him free solo. At the end of high school, I was incredibly focused on music. I would practice percussion multiple hours a day, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Then, I chose not to pursue music in any serious way in college. While I’ve found a bit of that passion again, it’s not as focused or intent as it could be.
Baseball was similar, but that decision came earlier when I chose to do pit orchestra my Junior year of high school instead of playing baseball for the school team. I still played in the summer, but did not play at all in college. The passion is there, but since I didn’t pursue it I just don’t have the foundation laid anymore to keep going with it.
The final, and most immediately important, decision was choosing to go into my current job instead of attending grad school. Retrospectively this was a more natural decision, but it was the final nail in the coffin that held intense focus on a narrow field.
I’ve always idolized people who excel at one particular thing, yet always made myself out to be as well-rounded as possible. Naturally this is a conflict that my brain doesn’t accept quite yet, and so I hit some dissonance when I see someone like Alex who is so incredibly focused on something, and has pursued it successfully for 10 years. A part of me wants that sort of focus on every project that intrigues me, yet I know that’s just too much cognitive load and I need to pick and choose on what I can improve on over certain periods of time. It continued to make me think, which was great.
He has an interesting personality and mentality about him that is reflected incredibly well by both his candid comments in the documentary, and what others near him had to say. It makes sense when you learn the camera crew has been working with him for 10 years. It’s not clear to me how others who’ve seen this film view it; to me, while the climb itself was amazing, it’s difficulty was absurd enough as to make me desensitized to it by the end. I was focused on how Alex can mentally do what he does, day in and day out. It’s quite incredible.