What is essential? | Allyson Tanzer | TEDxSpokane
Transcriber: gaith Takrity Reviewer: Annet Johnson It’s noon on the day after my 30th birthday and I can’t see the sun. Looking up, I can’t see anything. Looking down, I know if I follow the boot pack in front of me, the outlines of footprints that I can barely see in the snow, in about a thousand vertical feet, I’ll find the summit of Mount St Helens. A whiteout storm had engulfed me and ten friends I brought with me that day - it’s why I couldn’t see. In an act of near reckless love, ten first-time climbers had followed me onto this mountain and into the storm. And alongside me, they faced the cold, the wind, the rain - the freezing rain. And for seven of them, an absolutely viewless summit that on a cloudless day is meant to look like this. (Laughter) You see Mt. Rainier back there? They sure didn’t. (Laughter) Our view wasn’t quite as spectacular. (Laughter) Somehow, though, this arduous and difficult journey approached joyfully, felt more appropriate than a bluebird day. After all, it was a celebration of me and my life and the role of these people in it. Something torturous and glorious felt authentic and real. This photograph shows my brother and I in the conditions on that day. And looking at it now and looking at it then, I still can’t believe it’s not the most difficult thing we’ve been through together, not even close. Between those ten friendships, I had witnessed nearly all of the traumas of living: the loss of parents, relationships, friendships. These people, they walked beside me as I faced abuse - real abuse, the kind that no rain shell can protect you from, the kind that no one can protect you from. (Exhales) I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have a list of people like that. A list of people essential for the purposes and the storms of my life, showing up in an actual storm. I couldn't believe how lucky I was. Turns out it wasn't a coincidence that ten people had joined me that day. Mountaineering has a list just like mine. A list of ten tools you want with you when the things that can go wrong, do go wrong. I started writing the list of people and the list of tools on a page. I started drawing lines, matching each individual to the purpose of these essential objects and every purpose accounted for. I realized ... that what we carry in the mountains and in life, it determines our resilience and survival. The essential tools of mountaineering and of life are the same. And it’s that idea that brings me here today. Let me show you. Sun protection - there is my brother. Over the course of our lives, he’d shield me from the forces that would drain me, forces like the sun. He’d shield my eyes when he could, cover my back. He’d keep at bay the slowly draining forces - the ones that make you feel warm at first, but burn over time. And I can’t imagine the damage I would have sustained without him absorbing so much of what would have hurt me, like an emotional SPF. In a headlamp, I found my partner. A headlamp is a unique and wonderful form of illumination because not only does it light your way, it allows for the free use of your hands and that’s important in an emergency. A lantern or a flashlight, they may go with you on your way, but their illumination comes at the cost of your independence. A headlamp, it’s meant to come with you on your way - to guide, not interfere. Except, it’s absolutely useless without batteries. (Laughter) If I can’t give my partner the energy he needs, he will dim. If I can, he’ll blaze my path - providing me light, inspiration, comfort, all for the price of batteries. No one or thing is truly an unlimited resource. Knives dull when left unsharpened. Batteries drain left uncharged. We survive on reciprocity. So think about the person you’d call today if all of a sudden you lost your job. If the direction in your life all of a sudden became unclear, if the ideas you had about yourself were challenged, who’d you call to reorient your north? The people and things in our life, the realest and truest friends, serve as our maps and compasses. If you are lost, they can give you direction. And if you know where you’re going, these people provide confidence and assurance you’re headed the right way, appropriate routing. It might cost you a waterproof bag, a charge. In my relationships, it just costs me a phone call. For this and every object on the list, there may be someone that you can rely on for that understanding. But there’s also going to be an internal passion that guides you in the same way. The important thing is the thing that drives you is something you can trust. And every object on this list offers us a lesson in connecting with other people, as well as growing in ourselves. Consider a knife - the tool most people consider a weapon is most often used as a tool to solve problems on the side of the mountain. The last time I used my knife actually on a mountain was not ... to hunt for my dinner. It was to cut my toenails. (Laughter) My cousin is the person I consider my knife. And is he a weapon? Absolutely. But in him, I find an ability to think dangerously and creatively. After all, it takes a certain kind of ingenuity to keep a cigarette lit in whiteout conditions. And this man chain-smoked his way up Mount St. Helens, on his way ... to enjoy a summit beer. (Laughter) My job is to harness that ability, to use my creativity alongside his. And in so doing, realized the purpose of a knife - With this external nudge and internal driver, I know I can solve the problems I need to solve. Now, first aid offers us a way through the worst of what we might face in the mountains - that’s blistering skin, nausea, headaches. In the real world it’s a little worse: it’s heartaches. The people in my life who allow for first aid, who allow for healing, are the ones who let me be my most vulnerable. I have to expose my insides and they can give me the tools I need to heal. The most important internal resource I have in realizing this purpose is my self compassion. But, either way, healing takes a lot of different forms. Sometimes you need a bandage. What I’ve most often needed is someone to listen and to have a good cry. Now as we sat huddled in the cabin in the night before our climb, I finally revealed to my friends which object I felt most embodied their personality. And it’s where I found a funny phenomenon in my list. Nobody wanted to be extra food, water, or clothes. (Laughter) Something “extra” seemed counter to their idea of essential. But to these deniers, I explained, how after three soggy-footed days, trekking through the Peruvian Andes, a pair of someone else’s extra socks once made me cry. I had spent three days in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and it was this that ultimately brought me to tears, and a site so beautiful would have made you cry too. I have eaten my way through extra food and my water filter has filled the bottles of ten climbers in one night. Carrying what is extra as essential challenges us to think differently about our needs. That’s why it’s so powerful. What does it mean when your expectation of yourself is that you would never run to depletion, that you would never run dry, that you were operating beyond your minimum expectations? These are the people and things that sustain your very soul. Water quenches, food nourishes, clothes they comfort and renew. So ask yourself who are the people and things in your life that provide the value in that way? What can’t you go more than seven days without? And these people and things you will find they’re not extraneous. The people who have love and joy in such abundance that you could give it to others to share. Now, you can’t carry fire, so you carry the ability to create it. And fire is a lot of things - it’s light, it’s warmth, it’s a signal. Fire is the difference between frozen granola and maple brown sugar oatmeal served steaming from its pack. It’s a big difference. The man who’s my fire, my good friend, he provides that light and warmth. I just got to give him a spark. Now, shelters like this emergency blanket aren't designed to generate heat. Look how thin they are. What these do, is they amplify the heat from your own body. They radiate your energy back at you, such that you can keep yourself warm. These are people and things that are going to get you through the long nights, that are going to cover you for as long as it takes for the heat of your own person to amplify. Now, in this list of ten you have ten tools that will help you sustain your resilience and ensure your survival. So I want you to think about the people and things in your life that carry the value in the way of these essential things. I want you desperately to hold on to what matters. Because in that space, you might find relationships you have to let go of. Mountaineering involves a lot of cost-benefit analysis; it’s the use of an object with the physical cost of carrying it. You have to go a long way to the summit and back again. It’s worth asking what’s worth carrying. Equally, you might find one person who could be a lot of these things in your life at once. You yourself might be these things to multiple people. My shelter has served as first aid and sun protection in the mountain and in life. That’s the beauty of this versatile list. It breaks things down to their essence. It challenges you to think in the terms of what is essential. Mountains, as remote as they are, are one of the only places they’ll send a search & rescue team, if you go missing. Life offers no such service, (Chuckles) unfortunately. We survive through reciprocity and love. We survive by investing in the relationships that invest in us. So on your journey bring what’s essential: truth, connection, and love. Invest in people, invest in yourself, and you'll find that no matter what storm you face, no matter what summit you’re challenged with, if you carry what’s essential, there’s absolutely no mountain you can not climb. (Applause)