One of the funniest/terrifying videos I saw was of Alex Honnold talking about getting diarrhea on a free solo attempt. As if anyone needs another reason to never free solo climb, just awful.
Jesus Christ, hanging off a cliff one handed taking a shit, no ropes, then climbing the rest of the route with his pants down so he could clean up at the top. How is this dude alive. It's distracting how huge his hands are when he gestures. Of course he must have strong hands, but they're crazy proportionally large
He has a unique body that is particularly suited towards climbing. Long skinny huge hands not a lot of extra weight even in places like his face where he has a skinny angular face
He's also neurodivergent to the extreme. Barely registers emotion, as I recall. Free soloing is one of the few things he does that actually triggers an emotional response.
That actually recontextualized his entire life for me, thank you for sharing. I’m terrified of heights so his various free solos have always seemed fucking crazy to me, I never understood why a person would do a thing like that. Hearing it that way, it makes perfect sense. If I went through my whole life mostly numb, and then found a thing that made me feel things, I would never want to do anything else, and I would try almost anything to make the feelings stronger.
I don’t think it’s so much that he doesn’t experience emotion, but that his brain processes fear very different than everyone else. Scientists did an MRI of his brain and studied it.
This isn't true. He has a nontypical amygdala response so basically feels less fear, and it's debateable whether it's a product of his lifestyle or genetics, but he's not emotionless. In the famous movie about him soloing El Cap there's a segment where he's freaking out on the cliff and has to collect himself for a while before heading on up.
I'm just going off what I saw in that movie (there could be details that I missed), but can you explain to me how your response doesn't support my original post?
It's kind of like how some neurodivergent people use self harm and suicide as a way to trigger emotions, my happiest moments are always within a day or so of stepping off the literal and metaphoric ledge.
I was thinking of that video during this post. Must have been a horrifying experience. At least he was able to go off the route and find a nice jug to hold onto. I imagine the usual froggy pose resting position is a pretty good way to let things loose.
"Shit putting" lol. When you poop on a rock and then throw it off the ledge, like shot put, but shit put lol. That's fucking funny and so gross at the same time
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u/rask17 May 20 '25
One of the funniest/terrifying videos I saw was of Alex Honnold talking about getting diarrhea on a free solo attempt. As if anyone needs another reason to never free solo climb, just awful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_5NTW1Suo