Your Voice to be Heard
In a world full of noise, extreme actions are the only signals you can hear.
On June 3, 2017, Alex Honold climbed El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, without a rope — also referred to as free solo. Being the first person to ever try such a venture, he reached celebrity levels of fame, overnight. By doing the unthinkable the whole world couldn’t help but take notice.
Honold ascended himself to an almost 3,000-foot steep wall(3 times as high as the tip of the Eiffel Tower) where no mistake is forgiven. He reached the peak within a remarkable 3 hours and 56 minutes, a route that usually takes two to three days in a usual setting. This came as a shock even to seasoned climbers, justly calling it the moon landing of free soloing.
But despite the achievement, many rushed to call him crazy. Doesn't he value his life? Does he have a death wish? See, these are the type of people that can’t appreciate the simple things in life. The questions and statements one could say are endless.
There is a film named Free Solo that was released shortly after the "moon landing", which went on to win an Academy Award. The film documented the emotional and physical preparation leading to the day of the ascendency. Watching the film you see a person that is dedicated to his craft, a bit quirky, and unconventional by society's standards. He lives in a van, following good weather, and travels wherever the next rock to climb is. Hearing him talk you get the feeling that Alex is a pretty down-to-earth guy without any visible egotistical character traits. Even upon finishing the route, you can see him being genuinely happy and not at all cocky.
After all the attention from the media with interviews and the such, one would expect him to drive the wave of fame and be somewhat changed. But he didn't seem to care much, continuing to do what he has always done. Climb big walls.
El Capitan is not the only rock Alex has climbed over the years. In 2016 he climbed Complete Scream in Northern Ireland. In 2014, he free soloed El Sendero Luminoso(The Shining Path) in Mexico. And the list goes on. He has broken many records, both with or without ropes, dating back to 2007. This gave him monumental levels of confidence in his climbing abilities, with El Capitan being the epitome of it.
(In 2016 he took an ARI scan and found that his amygdala is far less sensitive to stimuli, making him less fearful compared to the average person)
Despite this, the question remains. Why do all this?
And although what he did was flat-out nuts in terms of risk, there is a reason why someone would attempt such a thing, or any extreme action for that matter.
The typical first reaction is to dismiss the action as unnecessary and the person doing it as just crazy. He has an inflated ego, willing to risk his life to get attention, you might say. This is more telling about you though than for him.
Because you can't give an adequate explanation, you make up an arbitrary one. The fact that you don't have a label about a particular thing marks it as unknown in your head, which breeds a subtle, constant, low-key anxiety. You don't like that so you have to give labels to combat this uneasy feeling.
The incorrect assumption that naming something is tantamount to explaining it, is unresistible. It absolves us from the tiresome activity of taking into account the labyrinth of circumstances that could lead to what we observe. "He is crazy" is clear and easy. We throw a label and we are done with it.
(this is a known cognitive bias named nominal fallacy. More here)
Of course, I do not know what Honold’s motivations really were or anyone's that performs a dangerous act, but it is fun to imagine. What situation other than “crazy people doing crazy things” can lead to such behavior? Can it be that instead of cocky individuals seeking attention, they act in reaction to something?
Without a doubt, our times are the busiest. Noise is everywhere and attention span is reaching goldfish-like levels. With a simple scroll in social media, it is easy to feel like an outcast. The successful CEO, the influencer, the actor, the internet-famous celebrity. These get glorified and seemingly receive all the attention deeming what is different as not current. As a result, if your tastes or interests, or life choices are not aligned with the "norm", you are left out of the conversation.
Social media promised to connect us all, and it kinda did. But along with that, it made us potential celebrities, trying to project our best moments. A couple of decades ago uniqueness was a signal. Now with everyone broadcasting their alleged uniqueness, it becomes noise so it is difficult to stand out even if you are exceptional. Even if you have a profound statement to make, it will likely get lost in a sea of competing signals.
This was not an issue a few years back when the internet was a place we would visit, instead of a place we inhabit. And it is not to say that it is the internet's fault, but merely a dynamic that arose from the messy usage we do when something is new and exciting.
Many say that young people are getting more intense and radical these days. In a sense, this can be viewed as a reaction to the noise too. Take GenZ for example. GenZ is a generation that got smartphones and social media during early puberty(around 2011). This played a crucial role in forming the breakable character that defined this generation. The influx of stimulation — and then distraction — was so much that anxiety and depression levels skyrocketed since then.
This creeping normality raised a fragile generation and produced artificial commoditized role models. The gap between the two became insurmountable. To the point that role models became so out of reach, leading the rest of us towards self-hatred and that we are not enough.
Initially, social networks enabled a mosaic of weirdness that led to an abundance of perspectives. An ingredient that made people love the internet, and want to spend time on it. But soon it delivered the inverse. A distraction machine, a clockwork-orange-like space where we collectively self-sensor.
So the heart of the problem is that with an increasing amount of signals, it gets difficult to spot the one signal you can relate with.
So where does this lead?
In a world where noise is everywhere, to be heard and noticed you must do something that makes a hell of a lot more noise. Something that can’t be ignored. The higher the noise, the louder the signal has to be.
A provocative statement might gain attention for a bit, whereas a dangerous act will most definitely stick for longer. That is why people engage with them so their statement can hopefully become a signal in the noise.
Back in the day, you were on TV because you were special, nowadays you are special because you are on TV.
(Paraphrased quote from a Woody Allen film that I can't recall who said it)
An extreme action as a signal is a unit to measure social distraction. The more noise out there, the higher it will prompt people to act in an over-the-top way in order to be noticed. Of course, people act stupid all well, in ways that never fail to amaze us, all for a few moments in the spotlight. So just being offensive or shocking is not enough. There has to be some indication that the signal is honest.
But do we have to go on to such extremes just to make a statement? If what you have to say has indeed value then it would be heard and appreciated either way.
Right?
Well no.
For a signal to stand out, it must be genuine. And for a signal to be genuine, it must be costly. If it wasn't costly, we wouldn't value it since it would be easy to copy, making wannabes able to fake it. Honold climbing with no rope was costly. A lot. If he wrote an article talking about his non-profit foundation, it wouldn't fly. Posting on social media about his love of climbing, and living an unconventional life, wouldn't get him far either.
Turns out that costly signaling is a real thing and a field of study in evolutionary biology. One well-known figure that studied costly signals was Israeli zoologist Amotz Zahavi.
Zahavi noticed that some animals develop characteristics that go against Darwinian evolutionary theory. They develop traits that don't seem to foster survivability but rather hinder it. This makes natural selection work against them while sexual selection for them.
By “handicapping” themselves they become vulnerable to attackers. This acts as an honest signal of bravery that is hard to copy. They stand out due to it so they are more likely to be picked as a suitable mate. This type of signal is often referred to as the Zahavian signal, as an homage to Zahavi.
(A classic example of Zahavian signaling is the peacock's tail. A peacock's tail seems to serve no obvious purpose other than to impress other mates. But it also makes the carrier even more visible and rises the risk of predation)
With Zahavian signaling being costly, few engage with it. Instead, we try to fake our way with cheaper substitutes. One such substitute is virtue signaling which essentially carries no cost. It doesn't take any courage to add a country's flag or a phrase of a noble cause to your social media profile image. Or block midday traffic, sprayed with red paint thinking you are saving the planet. This is nothing more than the commoditization of a person's need to feel virtuous and noble.
Many times a statement cannot be expressed with words alone. It needs more context. And even if words could convey sufficient meaning and make their way into a book, few would read it. To compress your worldview and stance towards life in an effective statement that stands out, it must be accompanied by a loud act. It is the fastest way to make people listen. It sort of works like a loud verifiable proof and an honest signal that what you say and do has value.
I'm pretty sure that many people became a milder version of Honold after watching him. They might have started climbing easy routes or hiking or doing some activity, that they always seem to postpone. Honold likely did what he did for himself so his actions can speak and his voice can be heard. But as a side-effect, people were able to recognize an honest signal. It is like he shouted from a megaphone and people listened and incorporate a good habit into their lives.
Somehow the obvious, stated after an extreme action sounds more significant. You hear that exercising is good for you but it sounds different when you hear it from David Goggins for example.
You need a dude that runs ultra-marathons on weekends to drive a simple point home and stress its importance. He can do what all the experts in five-minute clips on the evening news can't. You constantly see academics these days lecturing about the enormous benefits of exercise. They present all the latest research about the astonishing effect it has on the brain and nervous system. Quite often though, these experts are visibly unhealthy, making it difficult to take them seriously. The evident lack of skin in the game makes everything they say sound like atonal music, something with no real takeaway.
All this fuzz just to persuade you to do some kind of 10-minute magic workout or to simply take a morning walk around your neighborhood. And you still won't do it.
Probably squeezing some lemon into your water to improve blood circulation will be the most practical thing you do after watching lectures online and reading a dozen of books about nutrition.
Both the sea of noise and the intensity of the lonely signal that tries to stand out, rise and fall in tandem. In a noisy world, we have to see the 10x action to take notice. So the obvious can sound significant and useful again, and make a tiny step of progress in our personal lives.
Some of us would want to “normalize” such people and calm them down. Prompt them to take it easy and don't shake the waters too much, making the rest of us uncomfortable. And because we have the words that we rush to utter, we have the conviction that we know what they are all about. We unjustly place them in the same bucket we place attention whores that engage in idiocy gymnastics, all for the sake of internet vainfame. But they are not the same. Even if some of them appear so from time to time.
By trying to make their statement be heard, many more people get to benefit, even infinitesimally, which is still a big win. This is what sets the “just crazy” apart from the crazy.