This post was written by Starly Pratt, a Humanities Center student fellow.
In the sport of bouldering, one has to be a little insane. Or, at least, it appears that way. I’ve often heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. This coincides with the dictionary’s definition of insanity being extreme foolishness of irrationality. While seemingly easy to acknowledge that repeating previous behaviors and expecting different outcomes is indeed foolish and irrational, putting it into practice is another story. Difficult problems require unique solutions, whether those problems are physical, emotional, or spiritual.
Bouldering is a type of rock climbing that’s done on short walls or boulders without employing the use of a rope or harness. Because of the shorter climb, the routes are usually much more difficult and require a significant amount of balance, strength, and technique. Beta is the specific sequence of moves and body positionings that leads to the climber getting to the top. When a route is set, there is usually a specific beta in mind, but that doesn’t mean that beta is the only way to top the boulder. When athletes compete in bouldering competitions around the world, they come out one by one, assess the boulder, and employ their personal beta to attempt the boulder as many times as it takes to try to get to the top in the four minutes allotted.
However, when an athlete comes across a difficult series of holds, they have to make a crucial decision. Do they keep using the beta that hasn’t been working for them, or do they try new beta? Choosing to put a left hand on a hold instead of a right hand, using static movements instead of dynamic movements, or heel hooking is sometimes all that is needed to unlock the route to the top.
Writers and readers are presented with the same beta problem.
In an ever-changing world, readers and writers are presented with different kinds of boulders to overcome. Pandemics, world wars, and technology change the way humanity develops and, with it, the way society writes, reads, and interprets literature. I used to read mostly hardcover and paperback books. Now I spend my time reading out of my Kindle, listening to audiobooks, or even watching TikToks and reels of people reading their poetry out loud. These adaptations are the result of using new beta to access literature. Just as we read with different routes more than ever, our writing as a practice has also had to employ new beta.
Recently, I was writing a story and felt stuck, much like on the wall last week when I was giving a difficult route my best shot. What gave me pause in my story was the beginning. I had the inciting incident as the first scene and a few chapters later I felt like the reader would be struggling to connect with the character. Last semester I encountered a similar situation with one of my final papers. I was a few days from the due date and struggling to connect my ideas—eight pages in (ah! the horror). In both of these situations I was employing the same beta over and over again every time I sat down to write. No wonder I felt like banging my head against a wall, I was going insane! That’s when I knew I needed to switch up the beta. For my story, I was missing a beginning chapter before the inciting incident. For my paper, I needed to reorder the way I presented my ideas. That was when I unlocked the route to the top.
Literary figures have also had to use new beta. In order to adapt poetry to reflect the ever-expanding American landscape and culture, Walt Whitman wrote long poems of free verse in irregularly shaped lines. He employed slang, colloquialisms, and unique literary devices that allowed him to get closer to what American poetry was. Virginia Woolf entered a new modern landscape of life post WWI and changed the beta she employed to write her novels. She adapted to use stream of consciousness, free-indirect speech, and fragmented narratives to portray the reality she found herself in. These are just two out of countless figures you have avoided the madness of trying the same techniques over and over again.
So, ditch the insanity and try new beta. Move your feet, switch the location you read, and employ different diction in your writing. Whether a big adjustment or a small one, sometimes that is all that’s needed to get to the next hold. When you feel stuck, jump off the wall for a moment and think about the beta you are using. Luckily, we have more than four minutes to get to the top.
