One of the things that drove me absolutely nuts about working with my dad was his attention to detail. Things always had to be perfect: perfectly straight, perfectly aligned, perfectly level, perfectly even, perfectly perfect all the damn time. More recently, when my dad was helping me build out my van, I marveled at how easily he could make everything he cut and assembled come together flush and beautiful. I realized then that I was watching a product of a lifetime dedicated to achieving a kind of perfection in his work.





Another thing I noticed while working on my van with my dad was how he responded when something came together perfectly. It always pleased him. Now let me be clear: assembling my van involved hundreds of individual steps, and my dad nailed nearly every one of them. And for every single one he nailed, he took a moment to enjoy it. To appreciate what he had done. When I was younger, I thought this was hubris; my dad is from Argentina after all and possesses nearly unflappable self-confidence. Working on my van, I realized that he just found pleasure in the lovely smoothness of the flush alignment of wood, in the process of creating something functional from disparate parts.





It was in thinking about this that I finally saw how much of my dad had seeped into my personality through those days working with him. He was never much for words, but, in the hours I spent miserably filling tiny holes with spackle or putty, I was absorbing his fascination with perfection.





Looking back, this explains why I have always been fascinated with stories of true discipline, of people and characters willing to sacrifice in order to achieve perfection of some kind. Christ, the Buddha, Bruce Lee, Siddhartha, Prince Andrei, Paxti Usubioga… the list of personal inspirations goes on and on, and they all have that quest for perfection in common. I think this is what most informs my climbing today.





An earlier draft of this piece lacked a clear definition for what “perfection” means in climbing; I balked at attempting to define it. The definition likely varies from person to person. Some people seek a sort of flawless execution of a sequence of moves; others tend to see perfection as a way of looking at a line. I can help but think that, because of the nature of reality and language, there are as many potential definitions as there are climbers. Defining something as abstract as “perfection,” even when narrowed to a particular pursuit like climbing, is almost impossible, but, for me, perfection in climbing has to do with the directness of effort, with the holistic engagement of mind and body with each other and with an environment separate from both, and with the process required to achieve that state. That is as close as I can come to a strong definition.





This is perhaps why I have gravitated towards bouldering more and more over the years, until, finally, I sold most of my other climbing gear season. In carpentry, there is a perfect simplicity that makes up the aesthetic value of an object. Unlike other forms of art or building, which often derive their beauty from the interlocking of complex elements, from the coalescing of so many separate parts into a whole, the kind of building my dad has always seemed to enjoy is beautiful because of its directness. It’s the difference between Joyce and Hemingway; there is always something beautiful about the simple form, about the form that draws a straight line to its function. This is something of how I see bouldering, devoid of excess as Hemingway is devoid of metaphors and similes. No rope, no bolts, no climbing partner; when you boulder it is, in essence, simply you and the rock you are climbing, you and the perfect execution of the only moves that will get you to the top. In carpentry, if you make a mistake it is your own responsibility; in bouldering, if you can’t execute a move or sequence, then you simply are not ready, be it because of a lack of strength, of mental fitness, of technique, of imagination, or of sequence reading ability.





This brings to mind the process that leads to an expertise. Like my dad, I have discovered a love for the process that leads to improvement. I remember him telling me stories of the furniture shop he worked in as a teen in Buenos Aires (child labor laws didn’t quite exist there, then) and the machine shop he worked in when he moved to Los Angeles when he was 17. One of the things he likes to remind me of is that he never settled for doing exactly what he was told; rather, he always sought a better, more efficient way. He also never settled for the one task assigned him. Instead, he spent hours, after he was done with his task, learning how to make other pieces and use other machines. He credits this drive to be better as a major part of his success in life.





Without really realizing it, I have applied the same principals in my climbing. Every season, I approach training with an eye towards what I can improve upon, what I can do better physically and mentally. I go into every season with lofty goals in mind, goals that I know are probably out of reach but that I think will push me harder to eventually get to a place where they aren’t. And now, nearly ten years into climbing, I have managed to accomplish some things I never thought I would. I don’t just mean grades, either. The drive to improve myself is, essentially, an exploration of self-discovery. This same drive, the drive that has admittedly led me to send harder and harder climbs, year by year, correlates directly with the part of myself that has found ways to travel every year, that took the leap to move to the Sierras, that got me through my grad program. Nothing in the mind or body is isolated from the entirety of the self; seeking perfection in one aspect of your life spills over, I think, into all the other parts of your existence.





I am sure there is something to be said here along the lines of the idea of mindfulness. This idea is becoming more and more common, and perhaps more and more misunderstood (and warrants its own post, eventually). Admittedly, it is beyond me, and I don’t have much to say in that vein. If I were to ask my dad what he thinks of mindfulness, he’d just look at me as if I had said something silly. He’s not much for abstract thinking, unlike me. For him, the pursuit of perfection through his work is a natural result of his dedication to living life. He couldn’t imagine doing things any other way. Half-assing is not an option for him. If I really pressed him for words, he’d likely say something along the lines of one of my favorite quotes, one from Hunter S. Thompson: “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.” He’d ask me why I would waste time doing anything unless I thought doing it was worth doing it to best of my ability. A damn good question, and maybe one that we should all ask ourselves more often.

One of the things I most vividly remember about being a kid is working with my dad on weekends and most summers. I hated it. Then again, I doubt many kids would enjoy spending a Saturday doing finished carpentry in track homes that smelled like fresh paint and lacquer. Looking back, I have, predictably, come to appreciate those experiences quite a bit, as they taught me many things that I would not realize were useful until much later. Some of those things directly apply to my approach to climbing.