PICTURE BOOK - One Day as a Tiger - page 65

CHAPTER 9
PICTURE BOOK
There were some parallels between Alex's approach to climbing and his approach
to the study of law. He rarely rushed to conclusions; instead he tried to find the ra-
tionale for any particular point of view or course of action. If he could not settle his
own mind on a subject, he would either drop the debate or select some dialectical
opposite to pursue . [1] That could be trying and annoying. Most of the time, he fo-
cused on what he was doing. For Alex, thinking was a process to inform decisive
action. Speculative or abstract thought he considered a waste of time and a mug's
game.
The flaw in this pragmatic approach is that it can box you in, a flaw shared with
any thinking based solely on logic. To make a decision to follow a course of action
meant you had to accept the consequences. It is perhaps one of the underlying
reasons people climb big mountains. It extends the period of action during which
there is no need to consider anything else but the climb. The dangers intensify the
experience of the decision made. Alex was not a man to avoid a tough call. Not
backing away from a decision was part of Alex's character. To do so would have
been seen as weak.
After our season in the Alps, Alex decided not to quit climbing, but rather to turn
it into a way of life. That meant much more than climbing being a lifestyle. We had
plenty of friends who had one of those; it usually implied more time in the pub and
in bed than out on the crag. Alex realised if he was to overcome his fears about
climbing, then he needed to get a lot better at it. That didn't mean entirely giving
up everything else and organising his life around climbing. And it didn't happen
immediately, as with most climbers who aim to be professional. It developed over
a few years.
To achieve his aims, Alex decided to do three things: first, climb as much as pos-
sible; next, find ways to keep doing it - meaning money; and finally, avoid going
crazy or killing himself, as some climbers were beginning to do. Despite a later
reputation to the contrary, Alex lived a much more organised and restrained life-
style than many other climbers. Unless someone else was buying, two pints was
about right for an evening.
During my second year of post-grad work, I moved up to the Lakes to live in an
isolated farmhouse above the Duddon Estuary, ostensibly to finish my MPhil. I