"Moonwalk," featuring Dean Potter



I watched The Dark Wizard today. It's an HBO documentary series about the late climber, Dean Potter, who died while BASE jumping in 2015.

On the surface, I have little in common with Dean and people like him. I avoid the outdoors, preferring my boring and sedate grandma hobbies. I've certainly never climbed a mountain or sought out danger. But I actually feel a strange kinship with Dean and those who gravitate toward extreme sports.

Dean was more than a climber. He was an artist, a mystic, a seeker. I challenge you to watch the Moonwalk video above and not be astonished by the beauty of it. He perfectly timed the wire walk to coincide with the full moon.

I know the criticisms of Dean. I am the last person to defend men (I like very few of them and can't tolerate most of them), but to reduce him to the "guys just won't go to therapy" meme is absurd to me. I'd like to do away with therapy-speak online completely. I wish we could stop trying to put people into neat little boxes.

Dean was bold and non-conformist and soulful and spiritual. He was also a jerk who burned a lot of bridges with friends who loved him. He took unnecessary risks. He had a raging ego. He was tormented by a voracious hunger for fame and validation. I don't think all those things are mutually exclusive.

I think the art and the beauty of this man came precisely from his contradictions and his demons. I think that's how it is for all of us. I can disagree with his choices and still recognize how enigmatic and mythic he was.

It's the mythic quality that compels me the most about Dean and others like him. There is a profound poetry about what they do. I'm not idealizing it. I want to make that clear. I know many have died. I know their deaths have caused terrible suffering to those who loved them.

I think there are people who cannot live within the dictates of society. They want to climb mountains, dive into the depths of the ocean, feel their bodies fly through the sky. Nothing can keep them from that dance with death, which is also a dance with life. They know the risks, and they choose the dance anyway.

I think a lot about a lyric from the song "Deeper Well." Emmylou Harris sings it beautifully on her album, Wrecking Ball:

Found I had a thirst that I could not quell
Looking for the water from a deeper well

People like Dean are searching for the deeper well. When they find it, they drink from it. That doesn't mean the water is always safe, but it's what they thirst for. It is also what I thirst for—a deeper experience of life and contact with the transcendent, the cosmic.

While Dean sought out death, it came to me on its own. I have sat by death several times. I have been a witness to its awful destruction. First, through losing my father. Then, through caring for my mother in hospice last year.

As she died, I became obsessed with documentaries about female free divers. I saw my journey as similar to theirs. I had to dive alone into the bowels of darkness. I had to learn how to get out alive, how to make my way back up to the surface. I'm not sure I've made it there yet. I still can't see the light. I am still holding my breath.

You'd expect me to be more critical of Dean. Because I know how precious life is, why would I admire a man who risked his life? Why would I be fascinated by people who seem so cavalier about life, and are willing to throw it away so they can jump from a cliff or break diving records?

Because we share a desire for freedom. Their way of finding that freedom may not be my way, but no one is going to tell them how to live. I wonder if they are dancing with death or defying it? Maybe it's both. Every time they cheat death, they feel untouchable, exceptional, no longer subject to the laws of nature. The tragedy is that none of us escape this flesh. None of us make it out alive.