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Jaybro

Social climber

wuz real!

Apr 12, 2009 - 12:55pm PT

Cat's produce Kitty yummies, favored by all dogs, they even eat the coughed up hairballs.

Jaybro

Social climber

wuz real!

Apr 12, 2009 - 01:03pm PT

i just have good-looking friends. L & Scuff, and Beth & Ed.

and oh yeah, Scuffy is up, now, OR should I say he is risen...

cintune

climber

the Moon and Antarctica

Apr 12, 2009 - 01:30pm PT

Lois, you would probably enjoy this: http://www.amazon.com/Feeding-Rat-Climbers-Life-Edge/dp/1560253274

The pleasure of risk is in the control needed to ride it with assurance so that what appears dangerous to the outsider is, to the participant, simply a matter of intelligence, skill, intuition, coordination-in a word, experience. Climbing in particular, is a parodoxically intellectual pastime, but with this difference: you have to think with your body. Every move has to be worked out in terms of playing chess with your body. If I make a mistake the consequences are immediate, obvious, embarrassing, and possibly painful. For a brief period I am directly responsible for my actions. In that beautiful, silent, world of mountains, it seems to me worth a little risk.

'Pass the Pitons' Pete

Big Wall climber

like Ontario, Canada, eh?

Apr 12, 2009 - 01:50pm PT

Poor Lois. She doesn't get it, but at least she gets that she doesn't get it.

bvb

Social climber

flagstaff arizona

Apr 12, 2009 - 01:59pm PT

i think hemingway nailed it:

"auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports ... all others are games."

dirtineye

Trad climber

the south

Apr 12, 2009 - 03:33pm PT

maybe it's just something fun to do, how about that?

Maybe trying to explain climbing to a non-climber, or worse to have such questions posed by the world's greatest dilettante means we have visited a place not meant for visiting.

Jello

Social climber

No Ut

Apr 12, 2009 - 06:52pm PT

I like this thread, LEB, thanks for posing the question.

For different people, climbing is all those things: a sport, a passion and an atavism. Sometimes, for people like me, it's all three. But, you've identified the source of the endless "discussions" concerning "ethics" here on ST. For the sport climber wishing to push personal gymnastic boundaries, it's all about strength and movement. On the other hand, the passionately committed trad climber is willing to risk injury or even death, just to avoid placing a feww small bolts in the rock. The atavistic climber doesn't care quite so much about arguing which is better; he just wants to do as much trad and sport climbing, ice climbing and mountaineery, as possible.

-AtavisticJello

hossjulia

Trad climber

Eastside

Apr 12, 2009 - 07:52pm PT

I do believe all kids are born with a desire to climb, out of their cribs and playpens, up onto the counter, the porch rail, the roof of the shed, the giant Cottonwood next door. You name it, kids climb it. Am I right? (Please tell me if you know of a small child who did not climb onto things.)

If this is indeed true, then I propose that climbing is un-learnt by assimilation. Fear and pain from a fall might help.

So is the person who continues to climb through socialization atavistic? I don' think so. I think it is in all of us, but squashed by society at an early age. As are many natural traits that humans most certainly posses. Like LEB's desire to plant corn. (I have been having an irrational need to gather wild plant seeds the past 2 years.)
If you have parents who think a little better than the average, they may preserve this trait in you by not making it seem scary or weird.

So no, I don't think its an atavism, but an active trait.
Those that turn it into a passion just never learned that it is socially unacceptable to take such unnecessary risks.
Thank God!

It sure is good sport too!

drljefe

climber

Old Pueblo, AZ

Apr 12, 2009 - 07:55pm PT

Hossjulia-
Nicely said!

cintune

climber

the Moon and Antarctica

Apr 12, 2009 - 09:10pm PT

If the atavism theory was true, though, we'd all be arborists, not rock-climbers. Our kind of ape actually moved (or adapted) to a savannah environment well on our way into the Pleistocene, when we got good at standing upright and running. There is scarce evidence of rock-climbing being anything but an occasional isolated phenomenon until the 1800s, when cheap manufactured ropes became widely available.

Podge

Trad climber

Princeton, NJ / Coral Gables, FL

Apr 12, 2009 - 09:16pm PT

Not to be Debby Downer, but this is perhaps one of the dumbest topics I have ever seen.

Wow... I just read the first post. I cannot believe this has generated so many responses.

Given:

Definition of Climbing: the sport of scaling rock masses on mountain sides (especially with the help of ropes and special equipment)

Definition of Passion: a strong feeling or emotion

Definition of Atavism: a reappearance of an earlier characteristic

Proof:

Climbing is a sport (Given)

Sports can be passions (Vallerand, Rousseau, Grouzet, Dumais, Grenier, Blanchard; Passion in Sport: A Look at Determinants and Affective Responses; 2006)

Passions are not traits (Given)

Atavism refers to traits (Given)

Passions cannot be atavisms

Therefore, climbing cannot be an atavism

TGT

Social climber

So Cal

Apr 12, 2009 - 09:30pm PT

An almost socialy acceptable expression of the warrior gene in times of relative tranquility.

With an ovetone of tribal identity thrown in.

Is it an accident that the pioneers of American rock climbing were homebound during world war II? (mostly due to their value on technical or scientific issues)

Or that the Stonemasters missed Vietnam for the most part by months? (same demographic for the interwar generation in Europe who for the most part barely missed WWI)

American climbing for the most part has been stagnant since 9-11.

Plenty of real jobs for warriors.

Podge

Trad climber

UMiami

Apr 12, 2009 - 11:32pm PT

Definitions come from Princeton University WordNet.

Definition of Trait: a trait is a distinct, phenotypic character of an organism.

Emotions and feelings are not traits.

WBraun

climber

Apr 12, 2009 - 11:53pm PT

Locker = LEB stalker/leg humper

Atavism

dirtineye

Trad climber

the south

Apr 12, 2009 - 11:58pm PT

Author:
WBraun

Locker = LEB stalker/leg humper

Atavism

LOL now that is funny!

Podge

Trad climber

UMiami

Apr 13, 2009 - 12:30am PT

Ugh... too long, did not read.

cintune

climber

the Moon and Antarctica

Apr 15, 2009 - 06:39pm PT

Breaking news on this obscure topic. Fossils are suggesting that early humans didn't really climb trees all that much after all.

Combined with other skeletal details, the evidence indicated that early human ancestors could not have been good climbers. Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr DeSilva says: "Early hominins may have climbed trees like modern humans can and occasionally do today; however, this study suggests that vertical climbing and arboreality were not significant parts of their locomotor repertoire."
He specifies: "Modern chimpanzees safely and effectively climb trees in part because they are capable of extreme dorsiflexion and inversion at the ankle joint. Although early hominins have been hypothesised to be adept tree climbers, none of the 29 known fossil tibiae or tali from 4.12 to 1.53 million years ago possesses the combination of features functionally correlated with vertical climbing in modern chimpanzees. If early hominins were engaging in any substantial amount of arboreal climbing, then they were doing it in a manner ... distinct from modern chimpanzees."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/why-our-ancestors-couldnt-ape-chimps-1668260.html