New HBO Max Documentary, A dark wizardcreative adventure tells about the adult life of Dean Potter. In addressing its extreme personalityit addresses life’s extremes, extreme reactions, and extreme decisions. And he looks at the extreme emotions of his wonderful subject. Dean suffered from extreme ups and downs, experienced frequent attacks depressionit seemed at least partly due to his failures.
Dean was obsessive and perfectionist. Arguably, he had to be in his own world, because mistakes are fatal when free soloing. But his obsession went beyond survival; like any other perfectionist, he had to be the best. In his youth, his competitiveness served him well because there wasn’t much competition. He routinely broke records, leaving a legacy years before his passing, or so it seemed. As Alexander the Great did, Dean stood literally and figuratively on a mountaintop and wept for Dean at a point in his life when he really had no world left to conquer. As time went on, as he got older, the younger, faster and more agile Alex Honnold, who had once amazed Dean, chased and broke every one of Dean’s records. Alex had even accomplished a few firsts, climbed the heights Dean only dreamed of, and even planned some. In a few years, Alex didn’t destroy Dean’s legacy, but he greatly diminished it.
Dean has spent his life controlling the world, mastering it along with other people’s perceptions of him, only for it to change quickly. He used the external skill as a means to control his highs, lows, jealousies, hatreds. angerand fear. Like Alexander, he perceived the world as an extension of himself, apparently created only to make himself feel better; as if life was for him. In a way, he was her master, until he wasn’t. There are many great lessons in this series about flexibility and adaptability, as well as the consequences of too much pride. The key question is: What does life look like when success comes first? Perhaps more importantly: what will it look like when you’re no longer number one?
In Episode 3, a close friend said, “If you put yourself in Dean’s heart as someone who hangs your ego on one or two little things, you’re going to hang yourself. self-esteem on several fragile little hooks; it doesn’t get easier as you get older. The blows only hurt more.” Implied is the inevitability of a degraded legacy. To become the greatest, you must die young while still number one, or somehow travel back in time to an older age. Dean, like many other perfectionists, needed constant excitement and emotional security to prove himself worthy; the sight of anyone else on his throne was intolerable. Thus, his chronic envy. Perhaps he was afraid of being forgotten. Perhaps he was afraid of losing his records after his retirement. Perhaps he was afraid that new ways of climbing the mountains would appear. Perhaps all of these and more.
He even wondered if Dean wanted to be immortal. What if there wasn’t a world where he could sail off into the sunset, regardless of his age? What if her emotional highs and, more importantly, the obstacles in her emotional lows were all about competition and, perhaps, perfectionism? Another close friend of mine remarked: “‘Deen didn’t know how to share.'” This concept is fundamental to our understanding of perfectionism. One of its main characteristics is the extreme fear of losing one’s position, reputation, and inheritance; it is essentially a climb to the top, based on the illusion that no one loses anything. Sharing implies loss and the same fearful equality. what does it mean to not be?
The most heartbreaking part of the series is watching Dean’s values play out. He was a wonderful friend and colleague who felt safe in his prime and was sorely lacking in his later years. Although he developed innovative ways to cope with himself and Honnold, such as new ways to climb steep rock faces and FreeBASEing (the sport of free-soloing with a BASE parachute for survival if necessary), finding ways to overcome jealousy and anger, both emotions consumed him.
Dean has lost many friends and similar causes. His values were clear: greatness was all or nothing—he was great or miserable, or better, he was the best or miserable. Owning most of it neurotic Features, I and I hope this is true, I don’t want to continue to overestimate the glory or the heritage, because the truth is that the light shines on their paths to darkness. Dean’s inability to be the center of attention is, to an outsider, absurd, especially since the friend who expressed this opinion did not and could not compete with Dean; he stayed in his lane. But such is perfection—it absorbs everything as an ineffectual comforting stand-in for what is most desired. I seriously doubt that Dean would be happy to be considered as his friend, because in the end, he still couldn’t get over Alex.
It is the epitome of perfection: a greed that wants and needs no end in sight. Because what is most desired, perfection cannot be achieved. We can safely conclude that Alex was a stand-in for this; because there would be another Alex and another frontier, somewhere to collide.
