死亡常态化 Normality Of Tragedy

树叉儿

死亡常态化
Normality Of Tragedy



周二晚上点开“Alpinist”的网页，就像无所事事的时候会点开Tumblr，BBC新闻或者UKClimbing网页一样，我会点开其中屏保页面看看。“Alpinist”是个很棒的网站，很多很不错的内容，但作为一家小型媒体，编写新内容有点迟缓。毫无疑问他们需要更多时间编撰世界上最出色的攀登杂志，尤其当你缺乏思路的时候，值得一览。在首页上有六篇报道，后面的五篇我都读过了，最新的一篇是12月31日道格·沃克（Doug Walker）遭遇雪崩遇难的bu告。紧跟着是瑞恩·杰宁斯（Ryan Jennings）在攀冰中遇难以及日本的女登山家谷口佳在下撤中滑坠遇难的讣告。

我看了一会儿这一页，又点击了过去几个月的新闻，看了会儿贾斯汀·格里芬（Justin Griffin），杰拉德·费格尔（Gerhard Fiegl），道格·汤姆金斯（Doug Tomkins）等等等等。悲伤的故事留给你的只是无语哽咽，但新闻却和其他一样，只是死讯，简单的好像是播报足球比分。几周之前我看过另外一篇Alpinist的新闻，有一位登山者在沿新路线下撤中遇难。报道是他的搭档写的。他的遇难是在接近文章结尾部分提及，标题中的悲剧也有所预示。接着，作者很快就转至描述攀登感受，“当我们坐着直升机回来的时候，我开始意识到我们攀登的，也是Garry攀登的路线有多么的美妙，完全是亮冰和混合攀登，这确实到了我们极限的边缘。Garry站在顶峰，这是他最难同时也是最宏伟的攀登，我感激这一切。我永远无法忘却他明亮的眼睛。”我看过如此之多类似的，以至于无法理解这样的文字是多么的扯淡。它提出了一个最基础的问题，事关我们这项运动以及从事这项运动的人们的心理，也就是为什么要写这个东西？其他人写文章赞扬一次跑岔了出事了的攀登，这样的场景太过寻常。然后你需要问，当有人死了，你写文章褒奖这样的攀登究竟是何用意？这本是一篇朋友死讯和最后一次攀登的讣告，但却成了“你”的攀登故事的注脚。我很肯定作者写这篇东西并没有这么直白的意图。这是对登山中死亡常态化的一种控诉，因为他写的和其他成百上千人写的没有什么区别。

长久以来我注意到人们一种诡异的注意力和一种单一化的思维模式，特别在意远征或攀登中某人的死亡。这个人并不是个陌生人，而是你熟知的，感情甚至可能如手足般牢不可破，就这样在你面前……稍息片刻，接着就是facebook上悼词，而充斥在下面的评论似乎更加强了悲剧的意味。然后你又继续着你的攀登和远征。死亡不过像是马路上一条减速带。

尝试哈林在艾格北壁上的路线，这个计划在我脑海里存在了很久，也是这条路线的第四次尝试。直到今天，依然钟爱这次攀登尝试。一次次的我欺骗自己，这将是最后一次，但一直伴随的感受是我害怕这是我的葬身之地。现在的生活是如此之好，绝对完美，我害怕这种状态也是我命运的归宿。我用了两个月的时间思考路线，筹划，焦虑，紧张，担心，每个有凡妮莎依偎的晚上都感觉到死亡的存在，但我也坚信，我这个TMD的二X一定会来。登山是个挺王八蛋的游戏，为什么我要继续下去？我不害怕从此不能说话，不能工作，再也无法在生活中侃侃而谈吗？但生命的价值又究竟在何方？

这是我们这个时代的故事，充斥着自恋和自我陶醉。我联想到竞技体育，毒品，肉体关系，很多人都毁在了追究毫无价值的东西之上：金牌，一个保持直至被打破的纪录，山上的一条路线。我很清楚你们是怎样的人，被自私和自恋蒙了双眼和心，却看不到自己病态的真相，而那些在你身边为你喝彩的也一样。

有意思的是我还会常想起斯蒂夫·豪斯Steve House。要我说是他是个说不定那天就会被发现死在哪儿或者失踪，最终被他无法平息的壮志碾个粉碎。类似的还有MacIntyre，Rousse，Lafaille，Beghin等等。但当我看他这些天的Instagram，却发现这个男人畏缩了些许。他在和妻子一起滑雪，很快乐，他知道作出牺牲会带来什么。对斯蒂夫来说，那只是一次改变了生活的意外事故。我虽然肯定他正计划着回归，但我也希望他不要像那些人一样。

对那些人来说，没有毒品一样的刺激的生命只有半条。如果有更多人意识到，登山怎么被TMD光荣糟蹋了，我很想知道悲剧和快乐是不是还会一起伴生成长。

来自andy-kirkpatrick 09 January 2016 blog
翻译/陶瓷虾
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I clicked onto the Alpinist website on Tuesday night, one of those ‘screensaver’ sites you visits when your mind goes blank and you need something to do, clicking on Tumblr, BBC news or UKclimbing - sort of something to do before you have something to do.  The Alpinist site is a good site, with a lot of good content, but being a small affair it’s slow to produce new attention fodder, their time taken up producing the best climbing magazine in the world no doubt, but one worth a visit when your thoughts nip out.  On the front page there were six news stories, the last five ones I read already, while the newest one was an obituary for Doug Walker killed in an avalanche on the 31st of December.  The one proceeding this was an obituary for Ryan Jenningskilled by ice climbing, then another for Kei Taniguchi who slipped and died while descending a mountain in Japan.

I looked at the page for a moment, clicked back to news the previous months, read down to the deaths of Justin Griffin, Gerhard Fiegl, Doug Tomkins, and on and on it went.  Sad tales that left you only speechless, but just news like all the rest, just dying, as easy as checking the football scores. A few weeks before I’d read another piece on the Alpinist site where a climber had been killed during the decent from a new route, the account written by one of his partners.  He death is added in a paragraph close to the end, foreshadowed by the word ‘tragedy’ in the title, then the writer swiftly moves on to describe his feeling about the climb “When we were coming back in the helicopter [on the second flight], I started to actually realize how amazing the line was that we climbed, that Gerry climbed. With all the blank ice and mixed climbing, we were really on the edge of our possibilities. Gerry stood on the summit of his biggest and most difficult climb and I’m thankful for that. I will never forget his shining eyes.”.I had read so many pieces like this before that I almost failed to recognise just how odd such a piece of writing really was.  It asked a fundamental question about our sport and about the psychology of people who do it, namely why was it even written?  It was so easy to just see it as yet another write up of a climb that went awry, but then you need to ask, when someone dies what is your motivation to even write up the climb in such a way?  An obituary about the death of a friend, and his last climb, but a story of ‘your’ climb with their death almost a footnote?  I’m sure the author had no intention of writing something so transparent, an indictment of the normality of tragedy in mountaineering, because what he wrote was no different from a thousand other news pieces.

I see it all the time, a strange sort of focus and single mindedness, were people are on extended trips or projects where someone dies, not a stranger, but someone you know, maybe a bond as strong as brother, and right there in front of you… and then - after a brief pause for a Facebook eulogy, replete with comments that reinforce its tragedy -  you just carry on with your trip or project, death no more than a speed bump.

This has been on my mind a lot of late, planning on returning to try the Harlin on the Eiger - fourth time lucky - but now much in love.  As is always the case I kid myself that this will be ‘the last time’, but I also fear - as I always have - that as life is so good now now, so absolutely perfect, like some final destination I’m happy to stay, that this will be the one that kills me.  I spend a month or two thinking about the route, planning and scheming, stressing, worrying, feeling that death each night I cling to Vanessa knowing I’d a fucking idiot to want to go back.  And then atlantic storms pile in, one after the other, the date I’m due to go - today - put back, the window getting smaller, so small soon it’ll be impossible to fit, and in bed I can lay with her and know the danger of me and my desire has passed once more, work and stuff and love and fun blocking the way.  Alpine climbing is a bastard game, so why do I play it, why not just stop - am I scared of losing my voice - losing my job, no more free kit, no more opportunity to talk about my life.  But what is that life worth?

Is this a story of our age, of our narcissism and desire to gobble up the pig of life, that life does not matter in the end, that we are at war with nature and there will be casualties?  I’ve thought about this a lot in terms of competitive sport, in terms of drugs, bodies and relationships wrecked in pursuit of something of no value at all: a gold medal, a record only held until someone breaks it, a line on a mountain.  I know full well that when you’re that person, entangled and blinded by your selfish narcissistic dreams you just can’t see the truth of your sickness, and neither can anyone around you, who cheer you on and say good luck as you tap the vein.  What you take as joy and colour and living is the that joy and colour and living when the spike goes in, that rush as the drug flushes real life back - real love and understanding and clarity of the human heart.

It’s funny but I often thought these things about Steve House, a man I’d say was once wrapped up too tight in himself, a man who I thought would one day lie dead someone where, down a hole, on ledge, lost or found, but crushed by the end game of his unquenchable ambition, another Macintyre, Rouse, Lafaille, Béghin (this list could fill a book).  But when I look at hisInstagram these days I see a man who - perhaps - has withdrawn that needle a little, see him skiing with his wife, having fun, breathing at last, knowing what real sacrifice brings - perhaps.  For Steve maybe a life changing accident was just that, and although I sure he plans his return, I’m sure - and hope - he will not be that man again even if he wants to, even if that life without the drug feels like only half a life.  I wonder if thinking like this, having some kind of growing realisation of just how gloriously fucked up alpinism is, the tragedy engrained in its joy, well maybe that’s a start.  Maybe it’s not a weak man who pulls out the needle and walks away.

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