Q: What's one thing you would absolutely tell your son (future or present)?
A: I have an adopted son, Cody, and he is from another sector of the galaxy. We have learned from one another and have clashed at times, being extremely different. We have loved the same woman, his mother and my wife, a bad triangle. What I would want him to remember, if all else is forgotten, is that he is of great worth in my eyes. My father failed to communicate such a thing to me, and it hurt me deeply and still does have its evil effect on me. Much of my climbing life, to ascend rock was, on some level, a labor to be loved, to find the love in friends I desired from my father. 

Q: What is the most important trait in a person?
A: The most important trait in any person is that which he or she brings indisputably, as a gift, to the world, the prominent, defining quality that sets that person apart. If such a trait is combined with integrity and generosity, the individual is not likely to fail. 

Each of us, I believe, has magical, original qualities, though the world tries to suppress such things, out of an insistence that we conform and become like everyone else. In my case, I came rushing into the world with a huge degree of energy and love, and with all the moral genius that tends to govern the young, yet was extraordinarily impacted by hurtful remarks, jealousy, and various false brethren I was shocked to discover existed among what I initially imagined to be a camaraderie of good, honest spirits. I was inexperienced, naïve, and out of fear of not being accepted began to produce sides of myself for the world that weren’t me. Some viewed me as a prodigy of sort, a genius in small order, while others appeared to terribly resent that I should achieve so high a profile at a young age. This latter group never allowed themselves to be the measure of who I was or might become. Through the years, I began to realize the quality I most wanted to have and continue to try to have. I speak of being the measure of those around me, being able to appreciate others for what they have to offer or might one day have to offer. 

As I once heard, it is a spiritual gift to be able to recognize the talents of others. A bit of an icon at a young age, I suppose it was natural that I would be judged, scandalized, lied about, and belittled, and on the receiving end of rumormongering and deceitful manipulation, that fellow members of my climbing family should try to reduce the value of my contributions or felt threatened by things I achieved. Studying the lives of the great poets and artists, it has become clear that people are threatened by any type of genius, even if it’s on a modest level, such as my own, that talent casts some aspersion on their own level of talent. It need not. There were masters at portraying me in a bad light, yet right alongside the very opposite, where people admired me and were honest enough to recognize me and who even give me more than I deserved, in hope I might live up to it. That’s what I mean when I say “generous.” They also forgive me when I acted badly or showed that I hadn’t yet grown up. 

I want to have the trait of touching others in good ways, to regain that full energy and love of youth, before it was corrupted.