128. Ari in the Air and the philosophy of flight - Ari Delashmutt

Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. I'm sure most or all of you have heard that we found Kiwi. And after almost a month and had very little clues, this has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, but fantastic to get some closure. Hugest condolences to Kiwi's family, and his family isn't just his direct family in New Zealand, but his family around the world. His pilot family, his Burning Man family, Kiwi had an impact on so many of us, and I'm grateful for the time that I had.

I'm so grateful for the time I've had with him in the last few years flying, and this year in Texas and Nevada. I was with those guys just the weekend before this whole incident happened, and sharing hot springs under the big Nevada skies with him just the week before. Just an amazing human being, and someone, of course, we'll all miss, but fly free and fly far, buddy. And thanks for your contributions. And for those of you who didn't know Kiwi, wanted to hear more, we had just put up a podcast with him. Some great stories. And his 30 years of free flight, and we put that up back in July, so go back and dig into there, and it'll make you laugh. He's a great storyteller, so we'll miss you, buddy.

And many of you have reached out to me asking for more details, and they will all be forthcoming, I'm sure, but we're, of course, being sensitive to the family.

Crazy amount of learning, and an unbelievable effort by people from around the world. Hundreds and hundreds and, well, thousands of man hours went into this search, not just boots on the ground, which is what we were doing here, but from all over the world. Help came pouring in immediately as soon as the alarm went out, so just humbled to be a part of this community. It was really an amazing thing to watch and effort, and of course, we all wanted a different outcome, but fantastic to get some closure. We're all here to help, and we're all here to help. And I am right now actually working on an article about some of the takeaways and some of the things we learned in this search.

Unfortunately, many of us have been involved in a few of these, and we are learning as we go. And, of course, able to get better and better with each one of these, which we want to be able to pass on to the community. So, again, just thank you all for being a part of this and helping. And we'll see you next time. Really grateful for this incredible community we have. My guest today is Ari Delashment. He's out in Bend, a big-time skier and highliner, and got into paragliding a few years back and has been crushing out some good distance. And he's had me on his show. He has a show called Ari in the Air, and he's had me on his show a couple times, and I wanted to reach out to him.

This just seemed like a... The right time to talk about why we do this. And this is more of a... Ari's really kind of a philosopher, especially in his views and thoughts on undertaking high-risk activities, which is certainly what we're doing here in free flight. So, yeah, we kind of tackle why we do this and what it's all about and go down some pretty fun rabbit holes on risk. And... And the community and the power that our community has and what we're capable of, maybe what we're not capable of. So, a fun talk, really interesting guy that I think you're going to enjoy.

And I think the timing of it in some ways is perfect. So, I hope you enjoy this talk with Ari Delashment. Cheers.

Ari, we are... We're doing this a bit lately, man. This is kind of fun. It's exciting. Yeah. We've been... Yeah.

We've done

a couple with you on your show, and now we're going to do it on The Mayhem. And... But it's good to have you on the show. And we were just chatting there for a bunch of minutes before we started the official recording here. You've had a wild bunch of days. Let's start there. Because we're going to be talking about philosophy. We might as well talk about philosophy.

Man. Yeah. I guess philosophy and intimacy really aren't... They can't be too divided. If you... It's like... If I guard myself, then I can't really be talking about the truth, for sure. Truthfulness is a muscle you have to flex, and it leads you to philosophy. So, yeah. The girlfriend moved out, and moving out of my house, and heading out on a big road trip, filming a TV show for Discovery Channel. So, yeah. I've got a metamorphosis ahead of me.

Yeah. Sounds like it. You're going down to do some stunt stuff with Sketchy. I understand.

Yep. Going down, making a high-lining TV show. We're going to be doing all kinds of different stunts. High-lines, and space nets, and base jumps, and probably some paragliding, maybe some cliff launches, and maybe some soaring. Who knows? Who knows?

Is that going to be a part of the... I don't know what they call it down there, but they always have this fall gathering.

Turkey boogie. The turkey boogie. The turkey boogie is the base jumping one, and GGB.

G-B-Y,

which stands for gobble, gobble, bitches, yeah. That's the high-line festival. That's the high-line fest. No, neither of those are officially happening this year. Okay. I don't know. I guess there's a global pandemic or something I heard about. Yeah, I did hear about that. I

don't pay

attention too much.

Well, let's spend a few minutes. We're going to talk about the philosophy of paragliding, which has been nerve-wracking to me since you pitched this, because I'm pretty much the opposite of a philosopher. Yeah,

you're the

Talbot for this. Yeah, I just do and don't think about it, and I'm mindless in a lot of ways. And so I'm going to let you guide that, and I'm just going to say every once in a while, like, yeah, sweet. But before we get to that, just for those who don't know, because I think a lot of the people in the States, of course, are familiar with your name, but maybe not so much to the listener base, because paragliding is this... one of the things you do, but just one. You do a lot of others. So just briefly, you know, why are we talking, and what's your background that allows us to talk together?

Interesting. Okay. We're talking because I begged you to be on your show for three years now.

Persistence pays off.

But yeah, so I've grown up in Bend, Oregon, which is kind of like adventure Mecca. And yeah. I grew up skiing. I did my first flip on skis when I was 12 and started skipping high school and then college to be on the hill all the time doing freestyle skiing, which for me looked like the biggest jumps I could find or build. And flips, skiing backwards, loved all kinds of switch tricks. And yeah, and then one year it didn't snow very much here, and I learned how to highline. Highlining is a type of slacklining. I had been slacklining since... Since I was in high school. And yeah, I learned how to highline and rig these slacklines up over the void, whether that's from cliffs or over canyons or you name it.

And that has been a crazy six years that's taken me all the way to the world record project that we did last August in Canada, where we did a two kilometer long highline. And somewhere in the middle of that highlining career, I learned how to parallel. I learned how to paraglide. My paragliding kind of started in a crazy way where there was this French base jumper who lives here in town, super Frenchie, and him and Bam Bam came up with this idea to do a rope swing, basically tie a rope to a solo glider and then get the handle to the tandem and have Matthias jump out of the tandem to do a big rope swing in the sky off of the solo glider, let go, fall a thousand feet, pull his parachute. We made a film of that. I've been a filmmaker for a while.

So yeah, man, then paragliding took me around the world. I've flown in, I don't know, a dozen countries in five years and have done all kinds of started chasing acrobatics pretty hard and then have gotten into cross country pretty deep, which I'm pretty grateful for the that series that it went in that order and

learning acro first.

Yeah, that was great. And so now I've started a podcast I've had for a couple of years and a YouTube. channel where I'm kind of talking about philosophy and on the podcast, I've been talking a lot of to a lot of psychologists and philosophers and writers and yeah, I'm kind of like I crave depth in my conversations and my relationships like we were talking about. And so that's kind of what has manifested in my podcast. And so here we are, Gav.

Yeah. And I mean, I really enjoyed you, this last one that you had, you know, don't kill your self paragliding or something. It was, you know, it was real in your face and super fun and kind of funny and also very

self reflective. I don't know if that's not the right word. Uh, you were, you're very open with your own traumas and your past and your life and, you know, stuff that we all deal with. And I think that that vulnerability was, um, wow, it drew me in. It was very. It was very appealing and not something we see a lot these days in our social media bullshit world where we're always just, uh, advertising the latest rad thing that we've done. Um, and then this constant in this age of FOMO that we're all living in because everybody's posting the greatest of the greats. So I, I think, I think you're onto something there and I'm hoping that that's kind of something

that you're going to be able to do.

Some of the stuff we can explore today, but, or is philosophy your background? Is this, or is this just something, I mean, is this something you studied? Is it something you've just been personally interested in? Cause you're, you're quite, um, you're, you're quite good. That's your, your, what am I looking for? You're quite articulate about how you think and talk and live. Thank you.

Yeah. I appreciate all that. I appreciate all that. That, no, I, I never studied philosophy in any formal way. And I think that this kind of started with just growing up, liking to talk, having the gift of gab, being curious. I don't know. That's something about that. You know, it's hard to look back and know exactly where the seeds of that are. But I think in general, it's like mollusks are really hard. They have hard shells and are unresponsive to the environment and mammals are soft in the outside, hard in the inside. So it makes us very responsive. It makes us sensitive to our environment and stimulation. And so I think that cultivating a sense of, uh, or how would I say coming into right relationship with my own vulnerability has definitely been, I think one of the most liberating things that I've ever done.

And so what you notice on that video where I'm talking about my own traumas and the reasons that I paraglide and all the stupid shit that I've. And it's really like, I'm just trying to come into right relationship with the reality that I am not as strong or as hard or as cool or as smart or talented or any of these adjectives that I could come up with that I could maybe paint some kind of picture for people on the outside. And definitely my own personal experience inside of myself is not that of mastery and of confidence and certitude. It's much more. It's much more filled with uncertainty and doubt and self-deprecation and inner critic and fear and all this shit that's like, I don't know, I guess I just, it's kind of like, man, once you go there, once you like start really like connecting with people on a really deep level where you let them in and they let you in, it's like, it's something that sets precedent.

It sets precedent. It's hard to go back. It's hard to go back just to shoot in the shit real shallow with everyone, you know? And philosophy is more just like, um, it's almost just a framework for those things to fit into so that we can look at them so that we can use these tools for introspection and for growth and for connection and to, and to see what is actually real in our worlds. And this, it, it's, it's honestly so beautiful because one of the things that if I look back and I look at these seeds of, of my life that have been, you know, I've been through a lot and flowering into a conversation of philosophy lately, it's like when I started skiing, skiing was that first thing that really set me on fire that there was like this really obvious challenge, this desire to do a certain trick.

And there was a very, there's like a hard limit of reality where like gravity is gravity just is right. And my body just is. So like, what is, what is possible is not completely fixed, but like, it's pretty fixed, man. Like you don't land on your head and stomp it, you know, like you stomping, it means that you land perfectly right on the right spot of the landing. And like, and so there's this path, there's this exercise, this practice that I've been a part of that it's taken me literally more than a decade to realize that I've been in this practice that is coming into right relationship with reality. That is that. That I am a vulnerable, fragile person inside of a vulnerable, fragile body, then taking that and making like the best of it.

And like in skiing, you want to do the trick, you go up to the jump and you're scared and you're like, I want to try it or you want to, I want to try it. Am I going to do it? Am I going to do it? Three, two, one, do it or don't, you know? And it's like, you huck yourself off of the jump, you go into the air and then there's like, there's like, this judgment moment where you come back to earth and it's like, crash or land, right? And it's so obvious. It's so like, like you either did it or you didn't do it. And you can kid yourself all day about how it felt or how good you did it or whatever. But there's like a, there's like an objective, uh, judicial element to reality there. Right. And I kind of got addicted to that. And it was like this addiction to this progression and this growth and also the subjective experience of, of pushing myself, of managing my emotions, of fear, but also of collaboration, of connection with my friends, right?

Like you're on the hill all day with the same six or eight people that you ride with all the time. And it's watching them go off of the jumps that shows you what's possible and inspires you. And then you imagine what you're capable of and you aspire to do that. And then when you do that, you're like, oh, I'm going to do it. And then when you do that, you basically complete the cycle of inspiration that is seeing someone inspire you and then aspiring. And by aspiring, you inspire and the wheel keeps turning. So there's all these different ways that this first sport that I practiced for so long, it really like helped me grow up. It helped me mature. And it really, it put in like metrics for, for how I would be maturing.

Because. Not only is there a metric of like how many tricks you can do, how big of a jump, how cool, how much style, all these things. There's also like the subjective experience of like, what is your attitude like on the chairlift? Like you, when you crash in a competition, do you slam your ski down in frustration or do you laugh and smile and laugh when your buddies laugh at you? You know, like what energy do you bring to your community? What kind of advice do you give the? Up and comers, you know, like I used to coach all kinds of free riders. So like, what kind of presence do you hold to strangers? What kind of presence do you hold to onlookers? How do you respond when someone tells you you did something good or when someone makes fun of you?

Right. So there's like all these metrics that started popping up in my life of like different ways that weren't just whether or not I stomped it, that helped me understand what maturation looked like. And this, when you boil it down, this is like a, a really small, the sport that I'm talking about is like from the time you drop into the jump to the time you land the jump, that's a really small period of time, right? It's like a fear and a anticipation and a progression. And then like a judicial, like did it or didn't do it, crashed or landed. And then I started highlining and highlining took this fear and this emotional management and this progression and it elongated.

Instead of being like a three second time interval from the time you started to go up the jump to the time you landed. Now we're talking about, you know, in the beginning the, the lines were a hundred feet long and so it would take me five minutes or eight minutes and I would have to be in this insanely intense headspace where my body is just like, if you fall, you die, you can't fall. It's like this hyper arousal. It's like you want to like fight, flight and freeze all at the same time. It's like, I like it as a crazy. Thing to do. And, and then it just grew and grew and grew. And now it's like, you know, like I walked across the world record line and you know, an hour and 45 minutes. So to hold that space, to hold that emotional awareness and space and focus and all of those stuff, it's stretched out.

And then I started paragliding, man. And then I started paragliding and now paragliding is like, I had a seven hour, 40 minute flight this year. So it's like, how long can you manage your physiology, your attitude, your emotions, your. Focus, your sharpness, the whole thing. It's like, it just, this whole progression of these different practices is essentially the same practice. And it is like becoming aware of what's happening inside of my mind, my body, like my desires. When I'm on the high line, it's so obvious to me now when pride arises, like that, I'm like, that I'm, that I'm feeling like I'm, I've achieved something or I'm going to achieve something. Or the thought pops into my head of like, who's watching or like, how fast am I going or how impressive is this?

Right. At this point in my life, that's so obvious to me. And the whole practice is to watch that arise and to watch it fall. And it's just up and down, stupid, relatively meaningless in objective reality, um, activity that really can, if you use it right, and this is what the philosophy of paragliding video is about. If you use it right, these sports can be a tool for transformation in your life. And literally where we are in the world right now, I don't know if you've looked around, but we've kind of got a political system that's crumbling, an agricultural system that's crumbling, an education system that's crumbling, a meaning system, like our communities, like just the whole thing is kind of like, it's like, it's time to grow up.

It's time to grow up. I saw this in paragliding, you know, I started doing acrobatics because I wanted to be flashy at it. I wanted to be fast and crazier and more dangerous than people were willing to be. Right. I still love to do acrobatics. I just try to do it for different reasons. Sure. I've done it for every reason. I've done all of this for every single reason. Right. I've done it because I was sad. I've done it because I was mad. I did it because I wanted to show off. I did it because I wanted to brag. I've done it for all the fucking reasons, man. I've done it for all of them. So it, this is not a, this is not a, my, my soapbox is very shabby. It's short here. My soapbox is very short. It's like, and, and that's what you, you reflect on is like, there's a vulnerability here without that vulnerability.

It's just hubris. It's just self-righteousness. Sure. Right. I'm using my own experience and introspection as a way to glean insight into the way that we are.

You brought up a point that you just made me think of something that I haven't thought of in at least 25 years, probably more. You know, I also grew up ski racing. I was, I was more speed and Alpine than the trick side like you did, but, uh, we used to go out to this big downhill at the beginning of the season, a big mountain in Montana every year and things were starting to look pretty good. It was, you know, I was going to make the team and, uh, you know, things were kind of going the right direction and yeah, I'll just say it like it was, there was, it was a training day. Uh, and we didn't go out. We didn't get very good, you know, it was, it was dumping, it was puking snow. So instead of, you know, we were bootpacking the course in the morning and then hucking cliffs in the afternoon and you know, it was, there was this very different, there was this huge disparity between the East coast skiers and the West coast skiers.

And we were all just like, ah, powders go. And, but for some reason, you know, the first day of the, of the down of the race, I just, you know, really, I had trained hard. I wanted to do well. I needed to do well. You know, I had all these. I had all these like, I was playing it way too serious. I wasn't playing at the West coast style. I was, I was, I was deeply into it. And anyway, I, I blew a turn coming into a big jump and, and miss the gates and just, just soared off this thing and landed. And, you know, but in the air, I just started going, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, you know, cause knowing that I'd blown my race and I thought, you know, you're going 60 miles an hour. I thought that no one could hear this. I thought, I thought, I thought, I thought, I thought, I thought, I thought, I thought, I was doing it to myself and came back around, got on the chair, left, came back around.

And my coach was just like, so furious with, with me. He took me aside and he, and all the coaches of all the teams were all standing in this one spot. Cause it was like where you won or lost the race. It was this big jump and a lot of speed and a big corner. And, uh, and he was like, do you know how much of an asshole you just were? And I mean, he just laid into me. And I was horrified and I'm still horrified. And so when you were telling that story, it made me realize how much of a tool these things can be. I mean, I, I'd like to think I haven't done that since now, certainly I've had some moments bombing out in world cups or whatever, where I'll be like, and,

uh, you know, a little kick in the helmet, you know, but I, they can be, they can be really good tools in that regard in terms of, yeah. And it's hard to get. It's

hard to get

that kind of life lesson other ways. Of course we can in many other ways, but you, that was a real good one. Like, Whoa, you know, are you taking this a little too seriously, man, that you need to act like a fricking child?

Yeah. Wow. You were a child. So we'll give you a pass on that one. That's true. I appreciate you sharing the story as like it was, but you know, I think Shapiro on your podcast has said a number of times that we paraglide for an emotional response. And I think this is at the heart of what we're doing. What we have to realize for us to use this sport as a tool for transformation, as powerful of a one as it actually is, you know, that emotional response that you were looking for that day in the race was something that was, is definitely powerful. That's definitely powerful. And it's like, or if we just look at humanity or just like evolution of humanity in general, when we're born, we're just so useless. We're so useless. You know, there's so viscerally now as a father.

Children are just impossible and useless for so long. And we, we have to give them life essentially. And so what this does to our psyches is this instills in us this deep knowing that if we fall out of grace socially with our family, we die. That's it. There's nothing else. There's like, there's like, it's just true. If your parents don't love you and they don't care for you, you die. Right. And so this is something. I don't think we're actually like facing and contextualizing enough in our lives. And I think that this is one of the things that is inside of us, both neurologically and experientially that leads us to need the validation from winning the ski race.

Right. This is one of the things that like, one of the reasons that, that I have paraglided in the first place that I've done flips on skis in the first place. It. Creates in us this identity loop and this identity loop. If you give it a voice, it sounds like, am I doing it right? Do you love me? Am I doing it right? Do you love me? I've told you this before, right? And so it's like, we try so hard to do it right. And we really need to be loved. We need to be cared for. Like that, that is at the bottom of our, of reality is that we only exist relatively to everything else. Like there's no Gavin. There's no Gavin without earth, right? There's no Gavin without mom and dad.

There's no like mom and dad without more people. It's like, we all only exist in relationship to one another. And so this is just a really important thing to contextualize before we launch our paragliders. Because essentially this is something that kind of like in the aftermath of releasing that video, I've wanted to clarify is like the fact that I paraglide. Because I want to be appreciated and acknowledged and validated is not a reason for me not to paraglide. It doesn't mean that I'm, that I'm infantile and immature. No, but if you paraglide for those reasons and you don't know those reasons, it

also doesn't make you some horrible idiot. It just means that it's unseen. It's unconscious. It's immature, right? So mature. Maturity is, we have to define maturity as taking what is unconscious into conscious, like what is unseen into seen, right? And so if we can just see the reasons, then it just kind of makes the whole thing a bit more sustainable. It helps us close our own identity loops of, am I doing it right? Yes, I love myself. I'm doing it right. And I love myself. And also it helps us understand each other. Right. Because there's this horrible thing in paragliding where we can't talk about safety.

We cannot talk about safety in paragliding. This podcast that you have is one of the substrates in which people are willing to listen to it because Gavin is in the studio so far away and he's actually not going to see me fuck up my launch. He's not going to see me. He doesn't know that I only have a hundred hours and just bought a M seven. He, you know, he's not gonna see any of this shit right so i can listen to gavin talk about safety but no no no having someone approach us on launch and be like hey can we talk about safety no no this is to break the identity loop of am i doing it right do you love me this is to say you are doing it wrong and i fucking hate you you suck you're an idiot and you're gonna ruin it for everyone else right this is like the ethos of american paragliding you're gonna ruin it for everyone else you're gonna get our site closed down this is like a reason for safety that should not exist like this is just that's an infantile reason right like someone's personal well-being is so vastly more important so vastly more important than the site being shut down yeah and so in paragliding we're having a hard time talking about safety because we don't know why we're paragliding we can't contextualize this risk right and we've talked about this a lot in the past but we've talked about this a lot in the past and we've talked a lot about in our podcast like justifying the risk but contextualizing why contextualizing the justification or seeing beneath and seeing into our own need for justification is something we haven't gotten down there yet so we're having a hard time supporting one another in a way that acknowledges the things that are actually happening cognitively and in this identity loop so that we can actually address each other in a way that is constructive it's a really it's a huge fucking ask man it's a huge ask it's like i think the vast majority of us who know best practice in paragliding would rather just not deal with the emotional overhead that it takes to approach and address someone who we think is doing something that could harm them it's

a really big thing and if we do we tend to muster up the courage and it it comes to us and it's a really big thing and it's a really big thing and it's a really big thing we muster it up we muster it up it festers inside of us and then we kind of like blurt it out at them we're like hey don't fucking do that instead of hey man like maybe you could tell me what your thoughts are on this or hey do you mind if i ask you a couple of questions about your pre-flight hey do you mind if i give you a piece of advice here and it's like questions before answers typically the way that we do this especially males i mean our sport is vastly

vastly males and so like how we give each other a chance to do something that we don't want to do support like how we support each other this is if we just take paragliding and we just imagine that paragliding is just an analog paragliding is only a metaphor for how we relate to one another it's like the fact that we can't give each other advice it means that we can't as men support one another we have no way to support one another and this is essentially if we take it from paragliding and we expand it all the way out to macroeconomics to uh governance to relationships basically what is happening here is we have ourselves in this headlock like geopolitically we've got ourselves in a headlock right like america can't back down china's gonna take over china can't back down russia can't back like we're geopolitically we got ourselves in a headlock right like we have the macro and macroeconomic multipolar traps where like if you don't pull the whale out of the ocean then the next guy's gonna do it right right so there's all these different ways where we can't back down and we can't back down and we can't back down and we're just kind of like we've trapped ourselves and we can't support each other and

if we're to use paragliding as a tool for transformation as a as of a powerful one as it is we can actually expand this out and we can start to think of how we can use paragliding to change the world okay and this is like something that i've been ruminating on for a long time and i haven't felt like it's congealed all the way so i'll just jump off the diving board here and see what's going on it's like if we can't support each other like if we can't support other pilots in our community if we can't see them for what they are and address them where they are and see the parts of ourselves that motivate us to address them help them protect them educate them inform them correct them

reprimand them right then we're basically just like keeping ourselves in this headlock and the headlock is self-torturing right like the macroeconomic system of like we have to race each other to extract resources at an exponential speed like the race is the headlock and it kills us all yes so like the race towards i don't know what the race is in paragliding but i

think that could be x contest distance numbers you know podium it's an

egoic one it's an egoic one for sure and it's an emotional one it's an emotional one right we're striving for this like we're striving we are racing to extract these emotional resources right and

is it any different i would posit that it's not is it any different than someone in a rat race buying shit that's gonna okay that car is gonna make me happy no that house is gonna make me it's the same there's no end to that stupidity exactly right we all do it but there's no end to that stupidity you're not there there is no self-actualization at the end of that line whatever that line is yeah like if we don't do it for the aesthetic and for the fun and for the beauty and the community if we don't do it for the right reasons we're doing it for the wrong reasons right isn't i mean is that is it is that equation that clear yeah

and i i think it's dangerous to demonize the wrong reasons right sure i i don't want to like demonize the wrong reasons because then i've like i said i've done it for all the reasons i've done it for every reason sure i'm likely to do it for all of the reasons in the future sure right yeah me too like the chance that i'm not going to paraglide in the next three hours because i'm sad is about zero percent you know like i'm going paragliding this afternoon i need a fucking escape all right like yeah it's okay i'm not i don't need to like kill myself i don't need to like hurt myself over that right i don't need to like condemn myself over that but if i i had this i have this uh somehow i've gotten john vervaki on my podcast he's a psychologist from the university of toronto he's like one of the smartest people i've ever interacted with you guys should definitely look him up on youtube or his podcast he

says to me ari what we have to realize is that personhood is an achieved state of being personhood is an achieved state of being a infant is not a person we treat a child as if it's a person because that's how we bring about personhood. But personhood is an achieved state of being, which is to say that manhood is an achieved state of being, right? Just because your nuts drop into your sack and you have some little Tom Selleck starter kit on your chest and your upper lip, that doesn't make you a man, right? Like in the Amazon, they take their late adolescent males and they make them put their hands into those mitts full of bullet ants and let their hands be bit by these ants or these hands be bit by these ants. And like the North American Indian tribes would like make their late adolescent males go on these like big vision quests after fasting for 10 days and make them eat 14 buttons of peyote as like this huge disruptor.

And like, there's like this, like caterpillars don't grow wings, Gavin. Caterpillars fucking dissolve in a cocoon. And there's some transformation that needs to take place as adults, as like for me right now, like I've come to the painful realization that no one is going to write a list of the requisite virtues that I need to embody to become a man. Not only do I have to write the virtues out, like what does it mean to be a man? I have to like facilitate the transformation myself. I have to like tell myself what it is, like how many people are going to be a man. And I have to like tell myself what it is, like how many buttons of peyote, how long do I have to fast and how many coyotes do I have to bring back?

And so I guess my point is that if we really want to like mature, if we want to grow up, if we want to give our gift to the world, we can totally use paragliding as a tool, one of the tools for transformation. It is only up to each and every one of us for us to imagine what the requisite virtues of personhood are, that we want to embody so that we can step into this new level of personhood, right? Because we all know that we look out at the world, we look at all this shit happening, we all know that we need a higher state of being, like the world needs to be in a radically different way than it is, which is to say that I need to be in a radically different state of being than I am.

And the transformation does not take place by rah, rah, rah on social media, pointing fingers outwards. The fingers have to go inwards, like our only agency is within ourselves, right? It's not to say that there's no action you can take to make the world a better place outside of yourself. The reality that if you are not maturing, developing, looking inside of yourself, trying to grow up, the chance that you will take action in the world that actually makes a positive change. It's pretty low. Like you might get lucky and do something good, but realistically, you have to be good so that you can do good. And that's the same thing in paragliding, man.

It's like, it's really such a gift, man. It's really such a fucking gift. It's such a privilege to be able to paraglide at all. And it's even more satisfying to be able to paraglide as a way to develop myself as a person and to grow up. It really is. And it's like, I don't want to do it for the wrong reasons. And I want to stay focused on doing it for the right reasons. And I want to bring my reverence and my gratitude and my highest self. I want to unzip my glider bag with that version of myself every time, right? And I'm convinced that if I do that, I will take small steps towards embodying the person that I can be, becoming the person that I can be.

And by doing that, I'm just creating myself as the node in the network of humanity that strengthening the node strengthens the network, right?

I had an experience last year at the Red Rocks flying, which is coming up. It's an awesome group and it's mostly lower hours pilots. So they brought me in to give a talk and I'd been wanting to go to this thing for years. I'd never been down there. I'd never even flown Monroe. It's an amazing place. A pitch for them right now. It's, it's an awesome event. They are running it this year, which is cool. Um, but you know, there was a guy on launch who was kind of struggling with things and it was kind of windy and kind of cross and people have been blowing some launches and stuff. And, you know, I could just see he wasn't quite in the right frame of mind and, you know, went over and I kind of gave him an out like, Hey, you know, if today doesn't feel right, don't worry about it.

It's going to be epic up here tomorrow. And I could just see him. I could just see him. I'm like, man, so thankful for that. And cause Will brought it up on the podcast I did with him and Jeff and we talked about risk and, you know, there'd been, I think it was right after Cody's accident this year. And I really wanted to do something for the community that was kind of like, you know, from, from two people that know a lot about risk and have seen a lot of accidents and they, they both had fantastic advice, but that was one of them that Will had was that, you know, in his early days, he had a much harder time. You know, he saw stuff that he was like, man, that ain't right. And I should say, but he didn't, you know, for all the reasons you just said. And then now he's like, you know, now I don't care.

Now I'm old enough that, you know, if it needs to be said, it needs to be said and they might not appreciate it, but at least I can live with myself if they huck themselves off and die. And I think that's more of the approach we have to have. And I think, you know, some are more lucky than others. Like when I went through that whole kind of like sketchy time of my flying kind of 300 hours to a thousand hours where I was pushing really hard and I was starting to think about the X-Alps and that kind of thing. I mean, luckily just lucky blind luck. I was in sun Valley and I had people around me who were willing to say something, you know, farmer and Nate and Nick and, you know, these, these mentors of mine. And, I just had to say it was, it was never, I mean, it was never like, I guess I want to encourage everybody to do that because if you don't and something happens, that's something you got to live with

forever. Like you're encouraging people to speak up when they see it.

Yeah. I mean, and there is, there is a balance here and you don't want to be ground suck Joe up on launch and talking about all the bad stuff for sure. We don't want to do that either. But, you know, I, I think that, many of us are pretty good at witnessing and seeing how it shouldn't be done. And, you know, we're all learners at some point and we're all learning at this sport forever. But, you know, I, I guess what I'm saying is those times when those people call me out, what I, what I don't like now is that they're not calling me out on it. Now, now I'm supposed to be some expert, you know, now I'm supposed to go, he's done the X out and all this stuff. No, I still want to be told to, and I'm looking, I look like an asshole. And, and I'm doing something wrong. I mean, I think it's, it's good for our longevity.

So I, this is just a public service announcement, part of this podcast that, you know, I think that we are a community. We do have to look out for each other and we do need to be okay with that and just stepping in. And like you said, I, there, there are more tactful ways to do it than others. And, you know, if you have a moment to think about how you could be tactful about it, you know, do that way. But

yeah, I think that one of the things that, I think you're right. And I appreciate that. And I hear from you encouragement that I should

use discernment to speak up when it's necessary. And when it, when I see it and I agree, that's one of the things I've been talking about, you know, it's like, it's a hard thing to do, man. It's not, I don't have the answer. I don't have the answer as to like, this is how you should talk to people on launch. It's really difficult. It's like, but I think that if we start acknowledging some of the reasons why it's hard to talk to people on launch, why it's hard to receive criticism or constructive or not on launch, then I think that will be leaps and bounds further towards a space and a community that actually self-supports rather than self-regulates because regulation is only needed if you're blowing it.

Right. And support is required when we're like bringing everything together. Everyone up into a new level of personhood regulations, like the idea that we need to hold people back from stupid things, as opposed to the idea of support where we need to like pull people up and out of those.

Yeah. Yeah. I've just, you know, I, I have to handle all the stuff for our site and every year go through their risk assessment thing. And so you have to do this mind bogglingly slow, tedious process of, you know, this launch requires, you know, can handle it. You know, you have to do it. You have to do it. You have to do it. You have to handle this much wind at the low end and the high end and this much cross. And it's just so ridiculous. How many one I'm the only one that's ever going to look at this. No one else will look at this. Even any students, you know, we have to give people ownership to do what they know how to do. It's just, there's no way you're going to read the Bible every single time you go to, before you fly off the mountain and people have to just learn these things kinetically and see other people do it and have mentors and, and all that stuff.

And I, I mean, I think to your point about being on launch and not saying something, I think very often we are so overloaded, especially when we're new at this sport with what's going on and what's happening that you don't even know you're not really that present. It's not a bad thing for, for airy to come up and go like, Hey man, um, I was thinking about grabbing some pizza later on, you know, you could approach it that way, you know, and, and I just wanted to make sure, you know, are you here right now? Or is everything, you know, cause sometimes, we're dehydrated, we're low on energy, whatever. We're thinking about our business, something else. We're not really there. We're not playing by that whole Shapiro thing. This flight you're about to take is the most important flight of your life. Yeah.

That's it's, it's, I think that it's just a call to recognize like the, the size of that ask, right? Yeah. Like it's hard. We're like up against a lot of different things. Like we are just these like such complex creatures and our emotional lives, our spiritual lives, our spiritual lives, our spiritual lives, our spiritual lives, they're so incredibly complex and they compound on the complexity of the other person. And so like, uh, our, it's like, it's like we're trying to watch some kind of eight K I max three D thing. And we've got like some kind of Atari processor that we're trying to like render these images out with, you know, it's like fucking world is big, man. Our heads are small. It's like hard to fit all of this stuff in, not to mention we're like trying to fly through this invisible substrate and not lose our lives.

And now we're, and we're also like have this, am I doing it right? Do you love me thing? And we also have this like decades of like trauma and not being accepted and not being acknowledged and being bullied and picked on and, or bullying and picking on or like fighting with my brothers or like any of the fucking bullshit. It's like, fuck man, I got a lot of baggage. I've got a lot of baggage, man. And so it's like, when you come up to me and you're like, Hey, Harry, your reserves laying on the ground, maybe today's not your day. And I'm like, no, shut up, Gavin. Just give me the pull cord so I can put it back in there. We're going flying. It's like, it's like, it's a big ask. And so I think we just got to like have a bit more reverence. We just got to have a bit more reverence for this whole thing. And how

does this area, how does this community, this sport compare to the other ones you're, you know, you're going to shoot this film with, with folks that do a lot of base jumping, wingsuiting, uh, you know, other kinds of shorter, intensity, but high risk, uh, deals. I mean, obviously high lining for two kilometers is not short. That's a really long one, but, um, how, how do they, how do they compare? How do they sit with you and your being of pursuits?

Hmm. That's a great question. You know, it's funny. It's like paragliding is like, I can, I can definitely get to launch by myself. I can launch by myself. I can fly all day pretty much by myself. When I land, I might need a ride, but it's like, you don't, you cannot rig a high line by yourself. Like if there's not someone on the other side of the thing to pull the rope across and to secure it, like you ain't high lining. So there was a bit more collaboration in that. Generally, I think that the high lining thing also has this stupid, like route establishment thing where we're like, people are drilling bolts and they're placing them permanently. So there's a lot of drama around that.

And, but in general, I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. In general, Gav, I think, I don't, I just don't think they're that different. I think that we're all doing these for similar reasons. It's like the emotional draw is there in all of these and the type of people that do them is pretty similar. It's like you're a climber and you're also a kite boarder and you probably can ride a mountain bike well enough to hurt yourself and all these different things. And it's like, it's like, you know, I just don't think they're that, that much different. I think the circumstances are different, but I think the essence is general. It's like, it still hurts if someone walks up and tells you that you've tied the knot wrong, or like tells you that you've back clipped or, you know, any of these number of things. And it's like, it really, as I say this out loud, I think that we're actually getting closer to the heart of it because I

think that what is true in paragliding is just true interpersonally, right? Like what is true about it being difficult to make constructive criticism on launch, is that it's difficult to support one another in life constructively. It's difficult.

Yeah, sure. It's

difficult and we don't fucking practice it enough. Right? So philosophy, like one of the techniques of philosophy is you take what you think is true and you expound it out to the extremes. And that's essentially what we're doing here. We're like taking the community and then we're distilling it down to like, what is the essence? What is, why is that difficult for us? Why is that difficult for us? What, what is it about? What is it about our being? What is it about my personality? What is it about my wounding, my upbringing, my conditioning, my relationships, my nutrition, my blood sugar that makes it hard for Gavin to say something to me on launch, right? This is a tool. Paragliding is definitely a tool.

We have to grow up. Like we have to fucking grow up, man. Like we're speeding towards the edge of the cliff. If we don't grow up, we all die. And it's like, we're going to have a transformation one way or the other. We're either going to like die. And on the other side of it, we're going to be like, Oh, the white light. Whoa, that was a crazy ride. Or we're like, before we skid off the edge, we'll be like, Whoa, let's turn this thing around. You know, the sixth extinction of earth, maybe we can keep it at 50 % biodiversity loss and not go all the way to 99. You know, it's like,

it's kind of a crazy thing, right? But it, it really, um, it really just makes sense. It makes the journey more meaningful. And I think that we're all looking for meaning in this, whether we acknowledge that or not. Uh, we're all looking to like appreciate beauty and to have surreal experiences and to like kind of be awestruck. And I think that if we know that and we can face that for what it is, I think that the moments that we actually are awestruck, it can hit us a bit deeper. It can stay with us longer. We can realize what is important. The helmet kicking can be limited and the, the criticisms can be more constructive. The community can get stronger.

The support can get deeper. And if that happens in paragliding, like the chance that you become a more vulnerable, authentic, truthful, mature paragliding pilot, and that you go home and you're be the old asshole that you were is zero. Like if you grow up in paragliding, you fucking grow up, man. Right. Like you don't become like a really wise person in one sect of your life and go home and hit your kids. Like, that's not how it goes. So like, if we can, like, I feel like this is just like my chances to like, okay, paragliders, I love you. I am you let's grow up. We can do this together. We can support each other. Like we can do this in a way that like we actually acknowledge the emotional side to our sport, to our nature.

Right. That I am like an emotional, emotional creature. And I feel all this shit. And it like, I have a fucking race car for a mind. And it's like, it's crazy. Right. But like, if we can acknowledge this and support each other in it, we can literally change how we are. And that trickles down into every single thing. That's like trickles down into your business, how you run your business, whether that's

humanely and with equity and all these different things, man, like the maturation that we can, bring forth in paragliding can literally change the world because let's face it. Paragliding is full of doctors. It's full of entrepreneurs. It's full of engineers. It's full of software dudes. It's full of podcasters. It's full of fathers and husbands and brothers. Right. It's full of sons. It's full of families. It's like, man, if we can make transformational change in this small little tiny sect of people, the ripples are like, shouldn't be underestimated. The ripples shouldn't be underestimated. I think I just like every time we talk, I commend you for the cloud-based mayhem because I think you've done a really great thing and in bringing the safety and the technical side of it to light in a really powerful way.

And I think that people have responded in a way that is now supporting you, you know, and, um, and I, I really commend that. And I think that we can keep going and we can keep digging in and like, okay, like there's a technical aspect. There's a technical aspect that we need to address. There's an emotional aspect. There's a nutritional aspect. There's like a sustainability aspect. There's a community aspect. There's a personal development aspect. It's like, there's really no limit to the types of growth that you can have personally using paragliding as an anecdote.

Well, I dig that, man. I mean, it's, uh, I, I keep going back to your idea that it's a tool, for personal development as well. You know, with one of the, one of the things that has come up a few times with, you know, kind of the real expert and world cup pilots, you know, the ones that are consistently on top, an observation of that kind of 10 people in the world. There's a couple of women now that are constantly in that realm as well. They're all like super chill. These are very calm. People about how their approach there, you know, these are not the people that bomb out and kick their helmet ever.

They laugh about it, you know, because they've been at it long enough. They know that you bomb out. It doesn't matter how good you are, you know? And, uh, but their approach is very, it's they're, they're, they're, they're always the ones that are the most chill. And if that's the approach we had with all the problems you just mentioned in the world, we don't. I'll be better off. Wouldn't we, you know, we, we could, we could peacefully protest and be chill about it and, you know, and everybody could understand and walk and, and step into their shoes and yeah. And not get angry. Yeah. So maybe

I'm curious. I'm curious of like the validity of the causality there. Like, you know, I've heard the joke, you know, Nick Greece before I was in my first competition was like, Ari, you just need to calm down. Just calm down. And he says, we joke that Chrigel takes beta blockers. All right. So just pretend you're on beta blockers. And so, but at the same time, it's like, I don't know the chance that you just like that Gavin shows up and he's just like super calm is really low, but the chance that you show up and kick some serious ass is like, it's there, you know, like, you don't have to be calm to kick ass. But, but I think you're right. And like the experience that I have, like around Josh Cohn is relevant there.

He's very, um, he's very calm and soft spoken, but I don't necessarily think that, that I have as good of a window into his psyche to actually make the determination whether or not his mind is as wild as mine. His just faces is more, um, stoic and his voice is a lot calmer and he's an introvert. So I'm not really sure what it is. And I don't necessarily think that I would encourage people to be calm because I am the fucking last thing from calm. Like people have told me to calm down my whole life. I fucking hate that. So I definitely would never tell people to calm down. I think that's why you and I get along so good. It's like, this is definitely not a calm, this is not a calm, safe space.

Gavin, this is the Viking. We are definitely not fueled by daisies and butterflies. We're kind of like kind of on a little bit of powerful, a little bit more powerful fuel. So, um, I don't know what it is. And I, and I think that, I don't know what it is, but I think the interesting question that arises for me there is like, what are the requisite virtues of a good paraglide pilot? Not the requisite behaviors, but the requisite virtues, right? There's a big difference. Behaviors are manifested by virtue.

Virtues are the underlying structure that exudes a behavior that, that behavior. Emerge from. So what are the requisite virtues of a good paraglide pilot? I think a good paraglide pilot, and I'd love to jam on this with you. I think a good paraglide pilot is prudent, right? Prudence is, is one of the cardinal virtues, right? The four cardinal virtues. Prudence is foresight and caution. Then there's temperance. These are just, let's just talk about the four cardinal virtues and maybe we can see if they fit to paragliding. The four cardinal virtues are temperance, which is to be of sound-mindedness. In modernity, we've thought of temperance as sobriety, that you're not fucked up all the time.

That's a pretty good place to start for paragliding because man, there's a lot of beer in paragliding. The next one is prudence. Prudence is, is foresight and caution. Then there's courage. Obviously courage, you don't launch a paraglider without some courage, but also courage is the ability to do things that are difficult. And I think that, you know, we've touched on a couple of those, you know, speaking up when you should, but also having the right tact. And then the fourth one is justice. Justice is knowing what is fair and what is right. And I think, I think that this is a really good place to start. These, this is the four cardinal virtues. This is like more than 2000 years old,

right? So I think that if we started with like, okay, if personhood is a achieved state of being, if manhood is an achieved state of being, then pilot hood is an achieved state of being. And if pilot hood is an achieved state of being, then what are the requisite virtues that we need pilots to embody? Not talk about, not pretend, not virtue signal, embody. What are the things that we need pilots to embody to be a good paragliding pilot? I don't know if I have the answers, but I think that those four is a nice starting point. And I think that the, The process of thinking about who you want to be and what principles you want to write down in your mind that will guide you towards those ends, what metrics do you want to have in your life to judge yourself by is a really, really good place to start.

And I think it's like the beginning. It's like the beginning of the path, right? Before the show, I gave you the matrix, the matrix reference where Neo goes and he sees the Oracle and the Oracle tells him, no, you're not the one. And Neo goes back to Morpheus and says, I don't know, man. She said, I'm not the one. Morpheus says, Neo, there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. And so I don't think we need to try to know the path. We just need to walk the path.

In your experience running with, you know, some pretty high level athletes in a lot of different realms, why is it that very few of them take to aviation? Because I mean, here in Sun Valley, I run with some pretty badass skiers and bikers and they have no interest in flying. None.

Yeah, that's funny. Sage Catabrigo Alosa is a good friend of mine. Perfect example.

I also think it's funny because I think we're just in the infancy of this sport, especially in America, man. It's like we're just in the infancy. And I think that certain things have to be normalized for them to really take hold. And I think we're just in the front. It might be as simple

as that. It might be just that, you know, when you go to the Alps, you can't go to the Alps and not see paragliding everywhere. I mean, it might just be as simple as that. It might just be visibility and gondolas and access and grass covered mountains. It could be as simple as that. You know, maybe it's not as complicated as, oh, well, I keep hearing about the accidents and, you know, but yeah, I've always been surprised by that. Well, I took us away from your, you know, the cardinal virtues. So the – it's interesting because Chrigel recently – there was an article or maybe there was a video where – actually, this is in the book that will be published here shortly. But he talks about, you know, that people – People who are pretty interested in safety, so passive safety, not taking too much risk, they're not very good pilots.

They don't get very good. They're not going to be very good. He talks about, you know, the people that become good at flying drive fast. They risk themselves. They're not so concerned with safety as a whole. I mean, they're – I don't think they're like necessarily adrenaline junkies, which is a term that gets thrown around too much. But, you know, they're – it's not that they have a death wish or something, but – because you're – one of the virtues was, you know, foresight and prudence was, you know, foresight and kind of – Caution. Yes. And I think some of that needs to be thrown to the wind a little bit to get good.

Some of that has to be – you have to be – you're walking a high line to an extent. I'm not a high liner, but you're walking a line there a little bit, aren't you? And this has always been something that's really tricky to pull apart and package together, especially for new pilots because it's hard on the one hand to try to tell somebody that's new, like, here's what you got to do to save your life. But at the same time, we don't learn without making mistakes. We don't get better without screwing up.

Yeah. So what comes up for me there – it's a very interesting point. And I think what comes up for me there is like I don't think that – when we talk about prudence, when we talk about foresight and caution, I don't think that there's an objective measure of what we're trying to protect, right? I think that if we made the objective measure to protect ourselves from – From sickness and injury and death, then we would say, well, the people who aren't prudent get good at paragliding. But I don't think that's actually it. It's more like there's kind of this sliding scale, and there's a sliding scale, and it's also circumstantial every single time.

Every different scenario manifests a different risk, that being prudent to the risk might look different every – Every single roll of the dice, you know? There's a part of me here that just wants to contextualize virtue and let it stand aside from behavior but not disconnected from because I think that what might be prudent for a 19-year-old is probably not prudent for a 43-year-old father of four. What is prudent for one person might not. What might not be prudent for another. What might be within – and this is like – comes down to risk tolerance and all this stuff.

But it's very difficult to derive an ought, like how ought you fly your paraglider. Like it's very difficult to do that. This is more like building up a framework in yourself so that you can try to tell yourself, you know? Like it's hard for me to tell you. It's really hard for you to tell me. But it's like if we can support each other in building up each other's structure. Of like our sense making and our risk assessment and our prudence. Like that's really like at the – like that's really at the heart of what we're trying to do here. It's not so much like telling each other how much risk you can take. It's not like no twisted infinities like an out.

We're barring the trick from paragliding. No one can do twisted infinities anymore. It's like – I mean in general I think that we have such a ass backwards relationship with death. So I think there's something in that that makes us kind of averse to risk in a way that we – that in France it doesn't seem like they are. It's like there's no amount of paragliding deaths that will close down the tram from paragliders. Although we did see that with wingsuiters a couple of years ago, shutting down wingsuiting for a week or something. And they're like, all right, you get back at it, you guys. And we know you love it. You get back out there, all right. I guess death isn't the worst thing. Go live, boys.

Go live. People are like, woo! But I don't know, man. This is like the questions before answers thing. And honestly the questions have to start inside yourself and what is prudent and why am I doing this and what am I trying to get out of it and can I temper my results? Can I get that from myself whether or not I bomb out or not? Yeah.

Let me ask you something. Why – so my business was kite surfing. It still is in a sense. It's totally shut down with COVID. But I spent a good portion of my life, way more than I ever planned, sailing around the world and doing kite surfing expeditions and taking people kite surfing. And when I got into kite surfing, it was like, yeah, this is kind of neat. This is cool. And using the wind, which I had done a lot in sailing. And so I picked it up pretty quickly. But I also got bored of it pretty quickly. You're not going to die kite surfing. It would be very unusual. And I did it back in the days when the kites were quite a bit more dangerous. Now it would be really hard to die kite surfing.

You've got to splatter yourself on a cliff or ledge or something. But you've got to really screw up. So having that lack of intensity I think is – basically I love kiting waves because – you know, I love kiting waves. It turns a pretty crappy surf day, which I've always just liked surf more because it's more simple. It's just that it's more pure. But kite surfing can turn a pretty lousy day of surfing, you know, when it's on shore or something into a really fun day. So I'm not saying that – well, some of my best days have been while kiting, especially kiting waves. But it has none of the – that paragliding does. And I think that's just risk. And I think that's just – Hmm.

Because aviation, you know, it's gravity. I mean you're playing in a realm that – I mean you're playing with gravity and kite surfing, that kind of thing too. But you're coming down on the water and – anyway, I just wonder what the – what you think. I don't know. I mean highlining obviously if you're

not –

I think that you love risk.

That's what I think.

Well, yeah, and I guess – let me refine my question. I'm just going on and on. But the question is why are some people more attracted to – Why are some people more attracted to that kind of risk, that specific kind of risk? So not golf.

I think that my – I'll just speak for myself here. I think that my affinity for risk is to appear like I'm strong, like I can temper myself, like I can control my emotions, that I can do things that other people are just too fucking afraid to do. I think that that's most of my relationship with risk. Also, it's not just external, right? Right. That – so what I just explained is – I think that's most of my relationship with risk is how I want to be perceived by other people, but there's a big internal part of it too that I'm trying to prove to myself my own strength, my own ability to regulate my emotions, to overcome, yada, yada, right? Because all of these things that we're talking about, like you want to show off outside, but you're also trying to show off inside. You're also trying to prove to yourself that you have achieved this level of personhood, okay?

I think that's so fucking important to remember here because when we talk about all these different reasons why we paraglide, it's so important to remember that I'm – I'm paragliding to tell myself that I'm doing it right, that I am fucking worth it. I'm good enough. I'm worth it. I'm capable. I'm competent. I'm brave. I'm fucking out here risking my life. I'm brave, right? Come on, right? Like the chance that if you fucking were an accountant your whole life, that you didn't just totally feel like a miserable piece of shit at this point is like pretty – it's pretty low, man. Like you've proven to yourself that you are the person that you are. Like you've made yourself by trying and by banging your head up against some of the stupidest ideas like paragliding across the Alaska range.

You know? And it's like at the end of the day, you go to sleep with the feeling that you tried and your identity is secure in the way that you've shaped it. And we shape our identities both internally and externally, and risk is a big part of that. I also want to speak to the reason why paragliding is so much better than kite surfing. Okay. I just want to say. Yes. Let's have it. Let's have it. It's the reason that – it's the same reason that – and this is – I'm speculating and I'm also – this is my own anecdote. I ski raced for one season as a freshman in high school. I was pretty good at it. I was a great skier. They tried to disqualify me for doing a backflip off the corners with my bib on, which I was like, yeah, whatever.

Like you disqualify me. And I also blew out my binding by – Doing a 180 and ski and switch on my race skis, which then caught the tail and blew the heel piece out. Ski racing, like you've got to slip the course, right? You've got to ski down the course sideways and take all of the snow off of it. And what you do to that course is you make it two-dimensional. The course might undulate, but it's two-dimensional. You can't go into the course. But man, if you've ever skied a three-foot powder day, now you have introduced a third dimension. You have introduced a third dimension. And the experience is now exponentially richer.

It is exponentially richer. And when you kite surf, which I imagine – I've kite boarded a couple of times. It's kind of like you can catch some pretty good air. But for the most part, it's like you're on the surface of the water. If you could kite surf and then like plunge down like a submarine and hold your breath, you would be able to do that. Hold your breath and then come popping up like a dolphin. I think it would get a lot more exciting for you, Gavin.

I think it would get a lot more exciting for you because there's this dimensionality. There's this dimensionality. And this is – we're coming full circle here because when we unlock another dimension, we allow ourselves to grow on an exponential plane. And this is with – in relationship, the dimension is depth because you could have a relationship. And that's the existence. The existence plane and then the duration plane. But now you introduce the plane of depth and it kind of reinvents the thing. Oh, God, how deep are we going to go? How deep into me will I let you, right? Like into my psyche, into my heart, into my mind, into my life. So I had never experienced anything like paragliding.

When I started paragliding and I started getting sled rides, I was like, yeah, cool. This is another thrill. Yeah. Yeah. When I made a full continuous turn in a thermal that was taking me up and I saw the parallax effect of the place where I launched off of go below me, that was it. That was it. And honestly, still to this day, I think my favorite part of paragliding is climbs. My favorite part of paragliding is climbs because it's just an exercise in the dimensionality of the sport. It just shows you that you can just – You can just fucking go from 150 feet off the deck to being in a six-meter-a-second climb to totally spec the fuck out in no time, right?

And there's this dimensionality to it. And I think that that's what I'm kind of like getting addicted to right now and I think that there's a part of me that needs to paraglide less because I'm diving into the depth of myself and into the depth of my relationships with other people. And I feel like I'm being called to encourage other people to do that. And then I'm not – I would never tell anyone to not paraglide but I'm like, okay, there's like a depth that you can bring into your paragliding that will fulfill you in ways that you might have never imagined before just in the same way that paragliding exhilarates you in ways that you had never felt before.

I think – I like your two-dimensional versus three-dimensional analogy because where my mind went when you were describing that is yesterday I went over. Okay. King Mountain hadn't been there in a couple of years because our road washed out a couple of years ago and it's now back. And anyway, King is just like the pucker factor at King is – the sky is the limit over there. I mean it is – it always kicks our ass no matter what, even on the mellow days. It's just – it's big. It's big air. And I had a little flight there. It bombed out early. It was pretty windy. But my mind went there because it wouldn't matter how many times I flew King. It could be thousands and thousands and thousands and no – I will never repeat the same experience there ever in this sport.

The launch that I used in training right down the hill here at Sun Peak is – I have been up that thing way more times than I can count. I have no idea how many times I've been up that mountain and I've never had the same experience twice. And kite surfing is like – you can tweak your board and get a little better fancy footwork and you can do – you know. All kinds of little stuff but basically you're riding back and forth. Basically you're just in the same plane going back and forth. So I like that. I think that's pretty compelling. Harry, let's end on the big one. I was just out with a bunch of people looking for kiwi in the desert and one day, very beautiful night.

I kind of look at this like kiwi brought us on his last big adventure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the initial kind of search crew, a bunch of us from Sun Valley went down and I had this really beautiful night with Belcourt, with Bill up on a ridge where we were kind of exploring different ideas to maybe where he could have gotten to. And we started talking about the ex-Alps and we started talking about some of the big days he's had. He's been chasing it really hard this year and had some beautiful flights. And then we were talking about ascetics and lines and all this. And at one point I just said, you know, why, Bill? Why do we do this? And his answer was the easiest and the most simple I've ever heard, because this is something I think many of us get challenged with.

Because you said, you know, we have we have all these ways to justify the risks, but we also have the we have to have the answer. Like Will said, we have to have the answer to this question. And it's an important one. And Bill's answer was that we need to. We need to do this. We need to do this. And if you feel that. If you feel that need to do it, then you have to do it. And if you don't, then that's when you have to stop. I kind of like that because it was simple and I have felt that need. And there have been times where I haven't felt that need. And so I think those are the times where you got to be really wary of stepping off the hill when you don't have that need.

Yeah, I think that I would start by just commending you and all of the people that went out there looking for Kiwi. It's like such a it's an honorable thing. And it really. It really just shows what the paragliding community is capable of. Yeah. And when we talk about how we can change the world through paragliding, this is exactly what we mean. This is like this is one of the virtues. This is like you don't fucking leave your friends out there. This is like loyalty and courage. These are like the these are some of the virtues that we're talking about, you know. So thanks for going out there to look for him. I know that, you know, like Irish Mike, one of my friends from band here, he went he drove to Nevada immediately. And I was. I was like, fucking good on you, Mike. I know you'd come looking for me.

Yeah, just just briefly there. The the the community response was was, man, it's amazing. Like you said, we've got the engineers and the doctors and the teachers and, you know, we've got people from all over the world that are full on on this, you know, and they're just pulling in with the resources we have in our community are are absolutely astounding. And, you know, people came from Hawaii and I mean, all over the world, but also just all the people. But, you know, we're just at home doing really, really integral and important and very needed work on helping. And it's yeah, it was it was awesome to see, you know, that there's, of course, the tragedy side of it. But there's also all the learning and the crazy adventure that he brought us on.

And

I love that perspective that he had brought you on that adventure and that he had brought so many people together. You met new people. You really like everybody, like embodied their highest selves and were selfless and working. And collaborative and cooperative. And I think that if anything, I would love to just iterate as this perspective that that event, this undertaking is exactly the kind of incredible impact that the paragliding community can have on the world. This is just one small thing. But, man, that's like we expand that out onto like what we could do every day of our lives. And that's pretty profound. That's pretty profound potential that we have together.

But what Belcourt said that we have to when I used to ski like I did, I don't I still will go off a big jump and do tricks, but not 150 days a year. I used to I used to say that I thought that the world would be a better place if people allowed themselves to be burdened by the things that they really knew they wanted to do and that they knew they could do. Yeah. Yeah. There's like this there's this weird thing that's like, you know, I would do one trick and there's some variation of it that's scary and scarier and you want to do it. You know, you can do one backflip, but can you do two backflips? You know, you can. You know, it's possible. You're inspired. You want it so bad.

At that point, you should let yourself be burdened by that desire. Like the fact that you're being called to the sky, you're being called to fly these certain lines. You think it's. It's possible. You really believe and you know you can do it. Goddamn, man. Let yourself be burdened by that. Let that be like a driving force for you. It's crazy right now because we're in the midst of like bringing like public health into our awareness in a way that is kind of ridiculous amongst all the GMOs and herbicides and all the ways that we have never given a shit about public health. And now all of a sudden we pretend to. But the idea that the things that you really want to do that, you know, are possible, that you could actually be giving a very beautiful gift to the world by chasing like, man, if you don't, if you don't like genuinely believe that, then what does that do for like Kiwi's disappearance?

Like, what does that how does that contextualize one of us losing our lives? Like if it's only responsible for us to like stay home, save lives and not. Go paragliding, then like, what does it mean when one of us dies? Right. Like if we can't give a beautiful gift to the world by risking our lives paragliding, then man, like that's a fucked up worldview that I don't even know how to like contend with. But I genuinely think that what Belcourt is saying there that we have to is like from a meta perspective, from like a perspective of humanity. Yes. Like you are that. That guy. You're that guy, man. Like no one's going to go bushwhack through the Alaska range.

Like it's something that you want to do that you're being called to do. It's on your path. You have to walk the path. I love that fucking Belcourt Yoda, man. He's always got those good. He's got good one line. Well, I

mean, I think I think that, you know, we can it's good to be analytical and it's good to think about all this and it's good. Like, well, Gad said, we each have to have a reason for this. And what I love about Bill is he makes it all very simple. I mean, that guy is analytical. He's figuring it out. He's given a lot of thought to all of this. You know, he's not blindly doing anything. But at the same time, he's just like, why do you have to go paragliding? Because you have to go paragliding. You know, like, let's keep it simple. Stop fucking overthinking this. You know, you love it and you're good at it. Yeah. And we're having a really good time doing it. Go do it.

Yeah. The time in humanity where we had to trade our physical labor to control the outside world is over. We did it. Yeah. We mastered the environment. Now we need to like people need to like embody their bliss. Like we need to like live in our joy and we need to like be better to each other and like mature and grow up and learn how to talk to each other and support each other's development. And and fucking raise our kids. And we need to raise our kids in a peaceful and nutritious, wholesome way. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

You're awesome, man. I appreciate it. What a blast. As always. I really dig talking to you. You make me think sometimes too much, which is good. And people

have been writing me that actually on my YouTube channel. They're like, dude, we're paragliding the other day. I was on launch. Couldn't stop thinking. What the fuck? Sorry, dude. I'm sorry.

No, but that's good. But I appreciate it. I appreciate your perspective and your concern for us in the world and what we're doing to it. And we need more voices like that. So thanks, man. I appreciate it. And I hope you have a good flight this afternoon. There's still some time for you. So get out there and enjoy it.

Thanks, Gavin. Talk soon, bro. See you, bud. Cheers. Later.

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