What is progress? Can you go backwards? Is it always going forward? Or is it turning around when you hit a cliff and taking a step forward?
I recently watched the movie 180° South, an documentary by Jeff Johnson, a climber/surfer who sets off to retrace the trip of Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins (Chouinard founded the clothing empire Patagonia) to Patagonia (the actual place, in Chile, not the store, [just want to be sure there isn’t any confusion]).
I am not a person who watches many movies, but I’m sure you can all understand why this sounded interesting to me. While I was mostly unimpressed with the documentary (the description is misleading – the documentary is more about “sweeping landscape views” and “pushing environmentalism” than climbing), there was one quote at the end which really spoke to me.
In keeping with my love for fantastic photos paired with quotes, I made this (thanks Dominic Kamp Photography):
Here’s the quote again:
“In response to people saying “you can’t go back,” I say, “Well what happens if you get to the cliff and you take one step forward? Or, do you do a 180° turn and take one step forward?” Which way are you going? Which way is progress? The solution to many of the world’s problems is to turn around and take a step forward. You can’t keep going trying to make a flawed system work.”
-Doug Tompkins
A perspective worth remembering, for sure.
Want more quotes? Here’s the shortest blog I’ve ever written, but it includes a nice quote.
