Make the Climb Without the Rope
This may be a long post and perhaps not even the best place for it (due to the length) but I was inspired and moved by a work of art today, and being a writer, I am compelled to share in the best way I know how. Perhaps it is an odd or fanboyish statement to say one has been inspired by a comic-book movie, but I have been. So, if you are avoiding spoilers for the Dark Knight Rises, then perhaps come back and read this only after you’ve seen the film (which I recommend you do.)
There’s a moment in the movie when Bruce Wayne lies imprisoned at the bottom of a pit, where a long, vertical tunnel lined with precarious handholds and capped by an impossible leap bar the way to the surface – the way to freedom and to the mission Bruce must accomplish. The other prisoners there in the darkness tell Bruce that no one has ever made the climb. All have failed save for one: a child. Twice Bruce makes the climb, and twice he fails to make the leap, only a rope saving him from plummeting to his death. It is in that moment, after Bruce’s second failure, that an old man, a prisoner-mentor, arrives to give Bruce the secret to escape: he must make the climb as the child did, without the rope. Only then, when failure would be absolute, will the true will to live and desire to escape to freedom become strong enough to make the leap.
I missed the next few minutes of the movie as I sat there lost in that fantastic and dangerous analogy to life, especially the creative life that we as writers or artists seek to live. All of us are striving, whether internally or externally, to make that climb to the place where people will read our words or see our pictures and be as moved and inspired by them as strongly as I was affected by this summer, popcorn movie. But to do so, we must make the climb like the child. We must write or create as the child climbed – without a rope. There are so many ropes to tempt us: market trends, fads, pre-fabricated characters and plots that seem sure to sell, or even opportunities that will advance our 9 – 5 sources of income but dry us up of too much of that precious, creative energy. But the stories that we long to tell, and the ones I hope that readers long to find, are the ones for which we ignore all those safety nets and bare our hearts and souls with no rope, no matter the outcome.
Perhaps it’s cheesy or cliché to write or say this, but I’m challenging myself to write, and to share, and to live this way: making my climb and my leap with no rope. I don’t care who sees me, even if I fall – and I suppose the chances of falling are great. But if I do take a tumble, I’ll do so with no regrets and no doubts that I gave that leap my all.
Thank you Mr. Nolan (though I doubt you’ll read this) for being so willing to place such a daring message in what could so easily have been just another, forgettable piece of summer entertainment, and instead turning into a message of hope and challenge for all of us looking to live our life to the fullest, in whatever way that might be.
There’s a moment in the movie when Bruce Wayne lies imprisoned at the bottom of a pit, where a long, vertical tunnel lined with precarious handholds and capped by an impossible leap bar the way to the surface – the way to freedom and to the mission Bruce must accomplish. The other prisoners there in the darkness tell Bruce that no one has ever made the climb. All have failed save for one: a child. Twice Bruce makes the climb, and twice he fails to make the leap, only a rope saving him from plummeting to his death. It is in that moment, after Bruce’s second failure, that an old man, a prisoner-mentor, arrives to give Bruce the secret to escape: he must make the climb as the child did, without the rope. Only then, when failure would be absolute, will the true will to live and desire to escape to freedom become strong enough to make the leap.
I missed the next few minutes of the movie as I sat there lost in that fantastic and dangerous analogy to life, especially the creative life that we as writers or artists seek to live. All of us are striving, whether internally or externally, to make that climb to the place where people will read our words or see our pictures and be as moved and inspired by them as strongly as I was affected by this summer, popcorn movie. But to do so, we must make the climb like the child. We must write or create as the child climbed – without a rope. There are so many ropes to tempt us: market trends, fads, pre-fabricated characters and plots that seem sure to sell, or even opportunities that will advance our 9 – 5 sources of income but dry us up of too much of that precious, creative energy. But the stories that we long to tell, and the ones I hope that readers long to find, are the ones for which we ignore all those safety nets and bare our hearts and souls with no rope, no matter the outcome.
Perhaps it’s cheesy or cliché to write or say this, but I’m challenging myself to write, and to share, and to live this way: making my climb and my leap with no rope. I don’t care who sees me, even if I fall – and I suppose the chances of falling are great. But if I do take a tumble, I’ll do so with no regrets and no doubts that I gave that leap my all.
Thank you Mr. Nolan (though I doubt you’ll read this) for being so willing to place such a daring message in what could so easily have been just another, forgettable piece of summer entertainment, and instead turning into a message of hope and challenge for all of us looking to live our life to the fullest, in whatever way that might be.
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Great blog! It's true that, if we let it, fear can teach us. I, too, was surprised at the depth of this movie.
I wish I could express and write the way you do! I honestly feel like a year ago I had to jump without a rope to get to a place of creativity and purpose. Your blog is just another inspiration on my journey! Ps this is what I do bored late at night social network exploring and happy I came across this :)