Original Posted By: "Andy Garrett"
If we were Sherpas at the base camp to mount Everest, and a new person came intocamp with the stated plan to climb it, and all they talked about was the colorsthat they had picked for their tent and then complained about the cost ofquality ropes, what would you tell them? Are you being a better ambassador tomountaineering by just being polite and welcoming, or is it a better idea to explainto the new person that a successful summit is made of long and carefulpreparation, learning and work, and it will cost money, and By the way, your bestguidance is going to come from Sherpas who have lead climbers to the summitbefore. You would also explain that the 10% who make it to the top follow thisnot just because they want to summit, but also because they want to live. After the new guy is done telling everyone in the village, who are mostly tourists,all about his color coordination and objection to rope that cost more than$4/foot, you politely say that color doesn't matter, physical fitness and conditioningdoes, and although it was once done, no one climbs on $4/ft rope anymore,it is all done on $5/ft rope, that is why the book says use $5/ft rope.That once you are up on the mountain you will see strains put on the rope thatyou can not understand by looking at the price tag in the village, and he shouldjust listen to you because you have been to the top, and you have also seenpeople killed by cheap equipment. It doesn't matter now anyway, because heis in terrible conditioning, and it will take several seasons to get in shape,and in the long run the cost of $1/ft on rope will be meaningless then.The reasonable new climber will understands this. He remembers that when he becamefluent in a second language, became a working musician, and when he was incompetitive sports, the common thread to find the reward, was long preparation,and following the guidance of a coach who had been there before and had longdemonstrated the path to many others. He understands that the goal in each ofthese was to "Become" something greater than he was, a word that means therewas a transformation of how he felt about himself. He understands that his actualgoal is to "become" a skilled climber, and then use these skills to summitEverest. Summiting is not the primary goal, and people who don't want to putthe work into the training and transition to being a climber, people who justwant the trophy as cheap as possible, will never make it.The Unreasonable new arrival doesn't like to hear anything about this. He comesto the village unable to differentiate between bureaucratic rules and acceptedand proven wisdom of experience. He can't tell the difference between garbagelike cliques, pecking order and blind dues paying, and the very different situationof working for something for a long time and later understanding it earnedyou the respect of people who had done the same. Unable to differentiatethese things, he rejects it all, and honestly believes it is all negotiable andinterchangeable. He does not understand that he has left suburbia, the officecubicle, and world where repeated broadcast babble is substituted for understanding.He is in a new arena, and he is just getting acquainted with the ideathat his home currency isn't very valuable here.The reasonable man gets to work on the task of 3,000 hours or so to transform himselfinto a climber. The progress of each week is self-rewarding, because thegoal is the transformation, not what one might do with the skills once he hasthem. The unreasonable man, focused on possession of the trophy, does not starttraining, he starts bargaining. He wants to know if there is some way toturn 3,000 hr into 1,500 hr. He gets attached to any story that seems to be aboutcleverly reducing the 'cost' of getting to the top. He likes fir ladders insteadof spruce ones, and latex tents instead of doped ones. While these ideasall have merit when selectively applied by experienced climbers, the unreasonableman's attraction is purely about short cutting the system. He doesn't understandthat having Google translate on his I-phone isn't the same as being ableto speak a few words with the Nepalese natives. Completely missing the point that it costs what it cost to climb the mountain,and the real side of the equation you control is if you become a climber or not,and being an understood and respected climber is about what you know and cando, and not where you have bought tickets to, the unreasonable man is stuckon the price of things, particularly that $5/ft rope. Because he can't tell thedifference between random rules and wisdom, and because he has never operatedin an office with the death penalty for small mistakes on the job, he comesup with the brilliant idea of taking a poll of the tourists in the village tofind out if the Sherpas are full of shit. If 51% of the tourists say $4/ft ropeis great, then this confirms what he 'knew' that people who want you to use$5/ft rope are just salesmen (even though they don't sell rope). He believesin polls because they are surveys fill his internet world and are the basis ofhis illusion that corporations/neighbors/ politicians care what he thinks. Heknows he matters, that is why he votes on TV singing shows.To his surprise, the first people who speak up after the poll are not tourists,but climbers who have been to the top. They all tell him to use $5/ft rope. Someof them even have tales of almost falling when the previous standard was $4/ftrope. There are some people in training that say they are still thinkingabout climbing slowly and using $4/ft rope, but the unreasonable man, who is reallyjust seeking any affirmation of his belief that he can save money and getthe same goal, misses the point that none of the people who are in favor of$4/ft rope have been to the top, and that the original climbers on $4/ft ropewere using new rope, not rope reconditioned in Pakistan. The only people who werequalified to inspect ropes and treat them were 2 shops in the US, and thatcosts money. The unreasonable man concedes the $5/ft public debate for the worst reason: Heis concerned what other people in the village think. Still, at heart, he reallyisn't convinced. He will revisit this exact same approach on every single aspectof preparation and training. Because most people are polite, he will nothave others point out that he really isn't getting in better shape, nor is hisreal knowledge of climbing increasing. Over time the progress he makes will notyield satisfaction because he can't see the light at the end of the tunnel,which to him is getting to the top of the mountain. Because no one takes thetime to say he has the wrong mindset, he ends up wasting 5 years living in thevillage, learning little, conducting the same type of poll over and over again.One day he gets fed up, declares that he would have been to the top long agoif he had been in a village of friendly Sherpas and supportive townspeople.It is all their fault. He puts up a notice on the bulletin board saying he isselling his gear, but no one wants it because it was all cheap stuff built arounda $4/ft rope collection, assembled by a guy who wasn't really into the work.As he is carrying the gear to the dump outside the village on his way back to suburbia,he meets a new guy walking up the trail. He makes him a great bargain,and points out that the gear includes a well known book on climbing writtenby a Sherpa named W. Nguyen. Unreasonable guy has a very believable sales pitchsaying the gear was great, but he didn't need it anymore because he had decidedto go back to suburbia and drive around in a three wheeled RV. New guy isvery excited, because just like the unreasonable guy, his goal is to be ableto tell people he climbed the mountain, not become a climber. To his perspective,he just saved a bundle of cash, and he is appreciably closer to having asummit photo on his face book page. The deal is struck and the cash exchangedjust outside the entrance to the dump. The new guy carries the gear into the village,and walks into the town square where he stands on a box and introduceshimself, and in short order tells everyone what decorative color he is goingto paint his tent.----------------------------------------------------If you have been on this list for a long time, you know that there have regularlybeen people who show up with a great flurry of interest, stay a month, andthen fall away to oblivion. If there are ten a year, over ten years, then youhave seen this 100 times. Now quick, name four people with flying airplanes thatstarted that way.........It isn't just this list, or even airplane building. This is common to most listthat involve building something that takes considerable effort, and particularlylearning a lot of new skills. I have spent time reading on boat building sitesand Diesel engine swap forums, they have the same issue, but those to subjectsare hobbies, and aircraft building is my craft and calling. It is importantto me that Homebuilding find better ways of binging new people in, not justas a spectator/ EAA member but as real, active builders with an effective planfor success, which I define as finishing a good, reliable plane and reallylearning skills, traditions and ethics of aviation. That is transformative ina persons life, most other experiences pale in comparison..So, How do we get more people into a position where they have a fair chance atsuccess in homebuilding? First, you have to be honest with them. You have to tellthen that the odds are against them going in, so before they look at anythingelse about it, they should me most interested in one single thing: Understandingthe different approaches between the 10% who make it and the 90% who don't.If they are focused on anything else, but have not even considered this,they are almost certainly in the 90%. Seriously, a new person who has spent a lot of time deciding what paint job hewants and is obsessing on the cost of parts he will not have to buy for severalyears, needs to be told that he is not in possession of the perspective commonto the 10%. I am for trying to say it with more tact than I can muster, butI am against being so excessively polite and welcoming, out of a fear of alienatingor discouraging the new arrival, to go so far as the message to the newarrival gets lost. This is for everyone to consider. People who have been all the way through theprocess can and should share what ever perspective they have. You are a Sherpawho has climbed this particular mountain, and you know it in ways that othersdo not. In reality the new builders don't divide into neat groups of reasonable and unreasonable.This division and the percentages actually exist inside each new builder,and I believe that you can appeal to the reasonable side of each builderby articulately explaining why he might want to invest the real effort in transformingis abilities and knowledge, and how merely finding a short cut to afinished plane is not synonymous with this. You will not reach all people, andsome will take time, but after decades of hands on teach in writing, I stillthink it is worth the effort. -ww.Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.p ... ___Subject: Pietenpol-List: Re: Speaking of getting started.....