There is a movie out on Netflix called The Alpinist.
It tells the story of the life of a young man.
A young man who did not fit within society’s prescribed parameters.
And underlying his story was another story — the story of a mother who had the courage to let him be who he was meant to be.
The man’s name was Marc-Andre Leclerc.
Marc-Andre lived a life many us would find outrageous, even idiotic.
He lived in a tent in the woods. No home. No mortgage. No job. No phone.
He spent his days with his girlfriend climbing mile-high mountains.
Without a rope.
Yes, without a rope.
One mistake — one false step — one bad gust of wind — and he would fall to his certain death.
I simply couldn’t get over this fact.
“Why would he do that?” I thought to myself as I watched The Alpinist with my wife in the comfort of our suburban home.
“Why would he risk his entire life on one mistake?”
“Even if he didn’t make a mistake, even if every movement was absolutely perfect, a snow storm, avalanche, wind, hail, a bad piece of rock, any of it could end his life in an instant.”
“Why? Why would he do something so foolish? So selfish?”
I needed to know.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around his life — his choice to live this way.
His life was so counter to my own that I struggled to overcome the cognitive dissonance that arose while watching the documentary.
“Why didn’t he find a ‘normal’ job?”
“Shouldn’t he be trying to climb the corporate ladder? Open a 401(k) and 529s and start saving for his hopeful retirement in 40 years?”
“How could he live with his significant other under a stairwell or in the woods? Shouldn’t he be trying to save money for a down payment for a house within the suburbs?”
“Where was he going to raise his family? With the bears and wolves in the woods?”
“And, how could he climb the tallest mountains in the world-WITHOUT A ROPE?”
“What an idiot. How foolish. How could he throw his life away like that? How disrespectful to his parents that worked hard to give him this life. How ungrateful he is to have taken his one chance to live, this one precious gift of life, and risk it every single day. For what? Fame? Glory?”
My wife and I remarked to each other that our three young boys would NOT be rock climbing, and we would ban this film for the first 21 years of their lives (if not more if we could help it).
After spending the first half of the film releasing my shock and anger over his life, my mind finally began to calm down, and I was able to admire some of God’s artistry from his summits.
But it wasn’t my awe at seeing the world above the clouds knowing this man reached this point without the aid of a helicopter or other form of technology; nor was it my begrudging respect as he accomplished things that no man in the history of humankind achieved.
No, what changed my opinion on Marc-Andre Leclerc— what perhaps changed even me — was the way he climbed.
It was simply breathtaking to behold.
One arm’s length at a time, you watched the master of his craft move up the mountain with nothing but his fingertips gripping onto millimeter thick edges.
Life and death jam packed in Every. Single. Movement. Every breath.
As he climbed miles upward above the clouds on sheets of glass.
No phone, no walkie-talkie for aid. No rope to escape a bad situation unharmed. No flares for the helicopter to save him.
On the mountain, he had to earn every second of his life with his mind — with his will — with his strength.
And his eyes, and his eyes were…calm. Shockingly calm.
His movements and his demeanor hypnotized you to a place where you were no longer watching a man who was recklessly risking his life, but a child climbing the rope pyramid on a playground who looked down from his summit at his father with the unspoken words, “I was made for this.”
And, Marc-Andre was made for the mountains.
You would watch this prodigy as he slammed his ice axes over and over again into an ice over hang that could not have been more than 6 inches wide, and you simply marveled.
You marveled at his genius, as he analyzed and identified every edge, every surface, finding the only one that would keep him alive.
You marveled at his athleticism, as he struck with precision the exact right spot, at the exact right depth, at the exact right speed, as he moved up the mountain.
You marveled at his mental fortitude, as he stayed perfectly calm despite knowing one imperfect movement would end his life.
He was quite simply a marvel.
Definition of marvel — 1: one that causes wonder or astonishment.
Watching this artist at work froze you in a state of wonderful astonishment.
Where Da Vinci painted on canvas, each movement by Marc-Andre was a stroke of his brush as he painted on his preferred medium — the mountain.
And when he reached his summit, when he had completed another masterpiece, he did not scream for joy — he did not start calling the media outlets to tell them of his feats. He simply smiled. Took a moment to acknowledge the views and began his descent downward.
And begin his search for his next painting.
Marc-Andre didn’t free solo mountains to appease his ego or to be on the cover of magazines. His goal wasn’t to be known across the world as one of the great alpinist. He was motivated by something deeper.
As if he had found his one true life — his calling. And regardless of how absurd or extraordinary that life choice seemed to me or the rest of the world, it was his life. His identity.
There was no other life he could live.
He was an alpinist.
This was Marc-Andre Leclerc.
And, his life was a masterpiece.
Like a painting hanging in a museum, millions of people will come to know and see Marc-Andre through this documentary and each viewer will walk away from the life he lived with their own interpretation — judge him and his choices according to their own standards.
I walked away in tears asking myself:
“Why am I applauding this life? How could I be drawn toward it?”
He died at 25 climbing a mountain in Alaska when he and his climbing partner were caught in an avalanche.
I’ve never climbed in my life — in a gym or on a mountain.
He lived in a tent in the woods.
I live in a house in the suburbs with my family and, yes, even a picket fence.
He did not have a “real” job.
I am a corporate lawyer.
Our lives could not be more different.
Mine perfectly attuned to the societal definition of an “acceptable” life and he broke the guitar with his.
And yet, I feel an inner pull towards him.
Like he had discovered a key and unlocked a door hidden from us, and from the other side he beckoned to me, beckoned to us, “Come, follow me.”
No, not to the mountains. Not to free solo. Not to live in a tent in the woods.
But more profoundly, Marc-Andre was calling us to choose a different way.
To look up at the mountain of life before us watching the crowded path of people elbowing each other up the ascent as he whispers to your soul:
“There’s another way. This isn’t your path.”
In the words of Marc-Andre:
Perhaps it is not much of a surprise, but so often people are afraid of their own thoughts, resorting to drowning them out with constant noise and distraction. Is it a fear of learning who we actually are that causes this? Perhaps so many of us are afraid to confront our own personalities that we go on living in a world of falseness, filling the void of true contentment by being actors striving to be perceived by the world around us as something that we are ‘supposed to be’ rather than living as who we are.
He calls us to stop “acting”. To put down the mask. To step outside the definitions of success prescribed to us — break out of the square box of social acceptance that we dissect our lives to conform to— and allow ourselves, to be free.
To be free to be who we are.
To choose for ourselves that our lives will not be measured by the number of breaths we take. To choose not to live for the sake of living — for the extension of life — but for the fulfillment of it.
To define our lives by our own, authentic standards — our own definitions of success.
And yes, that may mean we are condemned by some as unusual, weird, and foolish.
And yes, our lives may not be judged a success or even acceptable by society.
But one day we will have to ask ourselves, and Marc-Andre’s life is asking that question of us now — in this moment:
Wouldn’t you rather be judged for living your life, than applauded for living someone else’s?
The choice is yours. What will you do?
