Project Diary: Social Outcast 5.12a

It's hard to describe why this climb means so much to me. On the surface, it's a single-pitch climb up a small cliff in New Hampshire that, quite literally, leads nowhere. But it somehow became one of the most important things to me during one of the most tumultuous years of my life.

I chose Social Outcast as my next project after My Mind is a Blank 5.11+ for two main reasons. First and foremost, it was the next grade up: 5.12a. Climbing 5.12 is a major milestone for American climbers as it's considered the beginning of advanced, difficult rock climbing (though that's quite subjective). It's such a significant benchmark that there have even been books written solely about reaching this grade.

The second reason was simple; it was a majestic, intimidating, oppressive, and beautiful line that excited me as much as it terrified me. And it was a climb with a deep history. I felt drawn to the idea of etching my name into the legacy of this route; maybe in honor of those who have come before me.

I projected this route during a fragile time in my life. At work, I had just switched to a team that was supposed to be everything I ever wanted in my career; a greenfield project on a small team, working on cutting edge technologies with plenty of opportunity for growth and promotion.

I was miserable.

Final rest before the finish crux

I was burnt out, working on a toxic team for a vision I didn’t believe in. Climbing for a time was no longer was purely for joy, but an escape from that stress. For so long, I had tied a large part of my self-worth and meaning in my life to professional success. And despite finding that success, I felt an emptiness. I toughed it out for a year, slowly growing more and more jaded and apathetic. It got worse and worse until I finally cracked. I had a spectacular, public meltdown in June, and made the decision to leave the team.

This aspect of my life that I once so tightly tied my self-worth to disintegrated right in front of me. I had a glimpse into what it was like to be working on the cutting edge, building the “next big thing”. I got to meet those staff engineers, technical leads, and directors that I had once so desired to become one day.

And I wanted no part of it.

When something that used to be a major part of your self-worth loses meaning, you can end up feeling meaningless yourself. I've always been goal-oriented, maybe not so much for tangible gains, but for my own sanity. I suddenly felt very lost.

But then I released Ghost Bikes, and something shifted in a way I hadn’t expected.

Ghost Bikes had been a two year long project that I could never figure out. I wrote the first draft in 2022; it was 11 pages long and I hated every bit of it. I shot it anyway, but never put it together because it didn’t feel like a compelling story to tell, even though I felt passionately about the subject matter. Once 2024 came around, I was looking for a creative outlet to get away from work, so I made the decision that I was going to finish it for the sake of finishing and just settle for whatever I could salvage. I decided to scrap 75% of the script and tell a different story, one that I could hear my own voice in.

I define art as evoking in the audience an emotion that you once felt. The emotion of the first script was just sadness and disappointment. Which makes sense, but it felt boring and even disrespectful, in an odd way. So I tried to hone in on exactly what I felt the first time I saw these ghost bikes. I wasn’t just sad. I found a different story, one that was melancholy, absurd, hopeful, even humorous. When I first shared it with close friends, some were confused by that. But I was confident on those being the emotions I wanted.

When I released Ghost Bikes, I didn’t think it would be very popular. I figured a few Bostonian cyclists might like it, but thats as far as it would go. To me, the reception didn’t matter, just finishing it was important. The only thing I really cared about was not disrespecting the late cyclists the film was about. But to my surprise, it was well received. So many people reached out sharing how it touched them, the emotions they felt, and the beauty they saw in it. Some of which were colors I never saw myself before. It was strangely cathartic, shedding tears with strangers for those long gone, people we never knew. I had woven a shared moment out of emotions I’d carefully crafted; anguish, yet joy. Despair, intertwined with hope.

Through Ghost Bikes, I felt the power to decide what is meaningful in my life. It gave me closure after my soul-crushing experience at work, and a new found freedom to define my own meaning. It didn’t have to be a traditional definition or one that others agreed with, it just had to be my own. From the emptiness of losing meaning in the things in my life, I found the empowerment of creating my own.

Social Outcast is nothing more than a rock climb. It leads up an arete to the top of a cliff that you could have just walked around to anyhow. Climbing it won’t win me any sponsorships; it’s not even the hardest line on that cliff. But it’s a beautiful, storied climb, carrying a shared struggle. Anguish, yet joy. Despair, intertwined with hope. A testpiece of technical prowess, perseverance, and grit that we can only climb individually, yet all share in common. And I get to choose the meaning of it.

As I was getting closer and closer to sending my first 12a, my long time relationship had also come to an end. While I found climbing to be an escape from the turmoil of my job a few months prior, this period went differently. My climbing had become an expression of emotion, rather than a release of it. Like with Ghost Bikes, I found more complex colors and emotions in the movement.

Yes it was hard, but it was more than that. Something more precise. It was desperate, intense, raw, painful, yet so joyous and wonderful. I writhed and I fought and I screamed and I ripped all the skin off my hands. And whenever I fell, I couldn’t help but smile through touches of tears as I lowered back down to my friends, who were there to support me through it all. And then I tied back in and got back up. After 5 months of training, projecting, and 8 sessions total, I stood on the top. Closing this chapter of my life, I felt equal parts euphoric and mournful. And I found these emotions to be a perfect reflection of everything I’d been going through.

Social Outcast is just a rock climb. It’s a single pitch leading to nowhere. But for me, it was the sharp tenderness of being 25.