Can my life be defined by a sport?
“Climbing is a rich enough experience that it can be a valid focus for your life…. you can say I’m a rock climber and that, if anybody understands it, has as much value as anything else you can spend a day doing.”-Todd Skinner.
Project Object and Aims
The object I have chosen for my project is the way in which I centre my life around rock climbing.
In contemporary society, life tends to be primarily focused on one’s job. Activities such as climbing are defined as pastimes. My project aims to ascertain whether I can, in contemporary society, define myself by my sport. This is relevant to a wide audience, since, in my conclusions, climbing can be replaced with whatever one wishes to orient oneself towards.
Philosophy
The key thinkers I will investigate in my work are:
Manuel Castells who writes explicitly on the idea of “resistance” and “project” identities as a means of constructing real identity
Michel Foucault who formulates a theory of power which affects choosing an identity in contemporary society.
Gianni Vattimo advances the position of weak nihilism as a means of viewing a society which has a plurality of worldviews.