After Realization, you weren’t really tethered to anything. You wrote that you were considering giving up climbing. If you weren’t climbing, what would you be doing?
At that time, when I wrote that article, I was intensely focused on Eastern philosophy and meditation. I was contemplating these material achievements. I was wondering what the point was. Climbing a rock – what’s the big deal? I hadn’t experienced a lot of other things in life. Part of me wanted to experience something else. To try other things. 

For me now, I feel that climbing is a part of who I am. It’s my way of life. It’s my way of expressing myself. My way of being in the world. In the past, I questioned it a lot. Now it’s obvious. This is who I am. This what I do. I’m much more aware of that now. I think about how fortunate I am to be supported by all these companies and in reality the climbing community that supports those companies. I feel so fortunate to be supported by everybody to live this life, to travel around the world and to try and raise the standard of climbing. I feel very confident in my path through life, but in the past, yeah, when I climbed Realization it was a high moment I had to work really hard to work for and it felt like there wasn’t anything else. Actually, climbing is never-ending thing. There is always ways to evolve with it. There is always going to be something harder.

At what point does a climb become too hard? At what point does it become impossible?
Well, take the route that I just bolted in Ceüse that I said was too hard. There were six moves in a row that I could just barely hold onto. I could only take my weight off the rope for a second or two. For six moves, it was like that. I could say that it was too hard for me, but I can hang off all the holds, so theoretically if I can hang onto the holds, I should be able to move off of them. It’s possibility. Maybe not for me, but Realization was bolted 15 years before I did it and it’s possible. Maybe in 15 years, some little kid will come up to that route and climb. It will be the next level. Maybe 5.16. I don’t know. 

Basically, that’s the limit. You have to at least be able to hang onto the holds. There has to be enough hold, to hold hang onto. If it’s a V14 to V14 to another V14 it’s possible. It’s just a matter of time before someone links it. Maybe not in my time.