My neighbour, Phil, told me about this documentary showing at our local theatre, The Fritz. It was about an amazing rock climber and mountaineer who made an incredible number of first ascents of mountains in North America. I was struck by the difference, or graduation, between “focus” and “obsession”. Fred Beckey achieved what he did because he was obsessed about climbing new routes and thus singularly focused on this desire…or was he? We got to see a ninety-six minute window into a man’s life of ninety-four years. There was rich sense of other aspects of his life, occasionally touched on, that intrigued me; his relationship with people; his soul baring with women; his love of poetry; and his observation of the lives of other people.
It caused me to ponder about my own aspirations, focus and obsessions…