Speaking of Fear

Climbers are a curious lot. They have a lot of peculiarities, lots of things that were new to me. One of these things were speaking about fear. In no other community have I observed such open discussion about personal fears, but for climbers it is an everyday topic. Fear of falling is a primal instinct and an inherent part of climbing. It is something you must overcome on order to thrive. Indeed, fear management is a central part of climbing technique. Where else would people, especially men, talk about their fears without being labeled as sissy?
On the other hand, most often when climbers talk about some specific route, they would say that it is scary. In other words, the climber is not saying that he is scared, but that the route is scary. Initially, that would seem like he is not admitting to being afraid, in order to so to say, save face. But this is not the complete truth. It is also a way of coping with fear. By moving focus away from "I am scared" to "the route is scary", the climber can make the fear an objective issue instead of a subjective issue. The fear is associated with the route and it is thus not a personal feature of the climber. An objective fear is much better than a subjective one, since it can be handled on the rational plane instead of emotional plane and the climber can thus retain much more control of the situation.
This brings us to climbing terminology; In their terminology, climbers have even separated dangers (i.e. fears) into objective and subjective dangers. An objective danger is the actual level of danger, for example, the level of risk of serious injury or death related to a fall at some spot. The subjective danger is the perception of fear, the emotional feeling of fear. Subjective fears are often not directly commented, but they are attached to a specific spot; besides to being scary, we could specify that a route is exposed (i.e. climber is exposed to large elevations), badly protected (i.e. it is difficult to attach equipment to the rock to protect falls), or run-out (i.e. distance between fixed points of protection is large whereby the length of potential falls is large).
Making fears objective is thus a technique of climbers. Generating vocabulary for different kinds of fears as well as associating fears with routes make them more concrete and controlling them is therefore easier.
Another fear management technique is more personal. This technique is known and employed also among performing artists. It is based on turning fear into an advantage. Fear brings a tremendous source of energy into a person. Usually that energy is a negative energy, but by choice, he can turn it into positive energy. Turning fear into energy can enhance the power to focus on the current task. It makes the climber and the performer stronger. A climber without fear is reckless and as such, not a very long-lived climber. A performer without fear of performance, is a performer who does not care much about the audience and thus cannot be much of a performer. Fear is thus an essential part of and necessary for both climbing and for performing.

What I find interesting is that everybody, climbers but especially non-climbers, associate climbing with danger. After all, climbing is in comparison to, for example, motorbiking, a relatively safe sport. According to insurance statistics (citing from my memory), out of 100.000 climbers, about 2 will die during an average year from climbing related accidents, while out of 100.000 motorcyclists, 8 will die. Still, according to my experience, people associate climbing much more with danger than motorcycling. My theory is that the fear of falling is such a primal instinct that we instinctively associate climbing with danger. The fears of high speeds or collision is not nearly as deeply rooted in our system, since high speeds is a new feature for humans on the evolutionary time scale.
It is also interesting how our capabilities in fear management is influenced by our overall mental state. Sometimes, when I have had some personal problems, such as, say, love worries, I've lost my confidence, which seriously deterred my climbing abilities. On the other hand, a seriously broken heart could make me reckless, completely demolish my fear of dying, since "nothing matters anymore". However, the best mental state for climbing is a peaceful state, where confidence is a based on awareness of ones' own abilities, where unnecessary risk is avoided, but irrational fears are "objectified" and used as a source of mental energy. This is probably the reason why so many climbers are attracted to things like yoga. If that gets them into a peaceful state, good for them, but personally I attempt to find mental stability through introspective observation, or in other words, by finding mental health.

Faith vs. intelligence

I've been reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and I must say that Dawkins makes quite a few good arguments. For me, the ultimate question is, should we trust faith or intelligence? The more I think about it, the deeper this question becomes. In fact, I would claim that this is, overall, one of the most fundamental questions of philosophy. After all, philosophy attempts to explain the world through logical arguments, and logic is by definition intelligence and thus the complement of faith. We begin to understand the gravity of this question when we realise that we are essentially using logic to determine if logic or faith is the better solution. It is therefore an intrisically self-referencing question (Gödel would like this, wouldn't he?). In other words, we are trying to use logic to find out if logic is applicable to all question.
From a logical point of view, my reference to Gödel is not at all arbitrary. The current question lies close to the issues Gödel considered. For example, one of Gödel's question was "Can we find a logical proof for all true arguments?", that is, is logic an answer to everything?
However, from a holistic view point this is not the right question. We cannot answer a question on the validity of logic with a logical argument. The implicit (or, actually, the rather obvious) self-reference might short circuit any argument. On the other hand, to dismis logic on the base of such a self-reference is similarly a flawed conclusion. Ultimately, I cannot see any way around this logical short circuit. Quite simply, without logic, we cannot argue that logic is the answer.
The only remaining option, for me, is to have faith in logic. I cannot but believe that logic is the only way to go. This is an inherently contradictory statement. To put it in a more obvious form, "I have faith in that faith is not the answer".
The arguments of Dawkins, that clearly must remain within logic, might thus not be applicable. Interesting. Any teoist arguing against Dawkins, would thus not be able to provide anything of significance, since he would be forced to either use logic in order to prove something or, express his faith which would not convince anyone who doesn't already share that same faith.
Now I seem to be going in circles. This is a clear indication of the logical short circuit.
Finally, I would argue that human culture is based on logic, languages are based on logic and the only way for us to intrepret reality is through logic. Therefore, I see now alternative but to trust logic. I have faith in logic.

Isänmaallisuus

Älkää käsittäkö väärin, minä olen suomalainen ja pidän Suomesta, mutta identiteettini ei ole riippuvainen siitä.

Olen täällä Saksassa usein törmännyt mainoksiin joissa mainitaan "Saksalainen menestystarina" tms. Jotenkin se aina kolahtaa ikävästi. Minä en ole saksalainen, eikä saksalaisuuteen vetoaminen ole ainakaan positiivista mainosta. Jos ei sitä muulla voi mainostaa kuin tuotteen saksalaisuudella, on siinä tuotteessa kyllä jotain toivomisen varaa.
Ensin ajattelin että tämä olisi jotenkin erillaista kuin koto-Suomessa, mutta pian huomasin ettei se lainkaan pidä paikkaansa. Kaikki "Osta Suomalaista" kampanjat yms. ovat ihan samaa huttua. Tällaiset kampanjat ovat aina jättäneet minut aika kylmäksi, mutta nyt ymmärsin syyn.
Nationalistisuus on minusta aina vaikuttanut jotenkin heikolta. Aivan kuin näillä henkilöillä ei olisi mitään muuta johon ripustaa identiteettinsä, joten nationalistisuus otetaan esiin paremman korvikkeena. Kansalaisuus kun lopulta on aika sattumanvarainen asia. Suuri osa valtioista kun on enemmän tai vähemmän jonkun kabinettisopimuksen tulosta. On siis täysin sattumanvaraista mihin kansalaisuuteen kuulut. Sattumanvaraisen ominaisuuden ympärille on aika surullista rakentaa koko omaa identiteettiä. Voivoi.

Mikä on sitten parempi vaihtoehto? Ylipäätään olen sitä mieltä että identiteetin rakentaminen jonkin ympärille on osoitus huonosta itsetunnosta. Täydellisessä maailmassa identiteetti olisi subjektin sisäinen ominaisuus, sen ei pitäisi olla riippuvainen ulkoisista asioista. Riippuvaisuus mistä tahansa itsen ulkoisesta asiasta on potentiaalinen kärsimyksen lähde. Kaikkeen, joka ei ole oman pään sisällä, liittyy menettämisen pelko. Esimerkiksi, jos menetän jonkun uskomuksen kansalaisuuteen liittyen, menetän osan itseäni, joten minun on suojeltava kansalaisuuteeni liittyvä uskomuksia. Tästä pyörähtää käyntiin itsesuojelumekanismeja, joiden lopputuolkset saattavat olla aika arvaamattomia. Ei hyvä.

Parasta olisi siis luopua kaikista riippuvuuksista. Eihän se käytännössä ole mahdollista luopua kaikesta, mutta pienet askeleet siihen suuntaan parantavat jo paljon.