Book Analysis: the Push by Tommy Caldwell

Being born into the world, you quickly become accustomed to the ways your family thinks and does everyday things. These ways become normal, and you wouldn't second guess them until after you go out into the world yourself, and become influenced by the public eye and their opinions. Up until then, you have an ideal of the world. This idea may or may not change after you are on your own and have the chance to absorb the world around you. In the novel, The Push, Tommy Caldwell is brought up in a family with a peculiar view of the world, influencing him and encouraging him to follow in their footsteps, which he ultimately does. Tommy had the same ideal throughout his life, and it took him going through traumatic experiences and living in the world himself to figure out what he did believe, which is that everybody should do what they want and if they are determined enough, they can do anything.

From a young age, Tommy was introduced to dangerous activities like rock climbing, mountain biking, and mountaineering; activities you would not normally see a young kid doing, but Tommy did them well. His mother and father were both mountain guides, but his father was also a bodybuilder and rock climber. This created the perfect environment to raise an outdoor loving person, especially since they lived in the woods, away from the city and their influence. Tommy has always wanted to pursue rock climbing, the one sport that stuck with him, and he was good at. He had once said, “More than anything, I wanted to be good, really good, exceptionally good at climbing.”  Growing in this environment caused him to see things in the world similarly to his parents, to respect nature and give back, leaving no trace. This idea of living has been with Tommy since he was born, and it never left him even after leaving home and living in the world himself.

Things changed when he was invited on a climbing trip with Beth Rodden and other climbers to Kyrgyzstan. This trip was intended to test their climbing skills and required them to camp for a period of time in the area. The climbing trip quickly turned into a moment in their lives where they had to fight to stay alive. The climbers were taken hostage by armed persons at war with the Kyrgyzstan government. They had to fight for their lives for a period of six days, after which they were able to escape after Tommy himself pushed the man guarding them off a cliff, saving their lives. After this trip, Tommy and Beth stayed together and went through some aftermath hardships together. This put a hold on his climbing ambitions and stalled his progress. Over a year later, he had an accident with a table saw that resulted in the loss of his pointer finger, a very important finger in the climbing world. These two events in a short time put a great amount of stress on Tommy, especially since he was an established climber and was not ready to give up his dream. These traumatic experiences caused him to overthink his life, values, and the choices he had.

With the loss of his finger, Tommy’s doctor suggested that he rethink his career, but Tommy was not ready to give it up. After some time off, and some rehab, Tommy was ready to get back on the rock and try climbing again, with one less finger. As you can imagine, it was much more difficult to complete the climbs he's done easily before, it was like relearning to climb. With perseverance and will power, Tommy was able to get back to the level of climbing he was at previously, and even surpasses it. It was not an easy process by any means, and some other normal person would have most likely given up and listened to the doctor, but he did not survive captivity to let the loss of a finger hold him back. Going through these two traumatic events so early in his adult life put a toll on Tommy and his family, as climbing was the constant in his life, the activity he's always done and was good at. He used it as an escape and a way to stay grounded, it was a way of life for him. With the possibility of him losing it at his fingertips, he decided to ignore it and continue his work. He relearned and even became better than he was before.

Tommy had ideals about the world and nature from a very young age, and these ideals did not change as he got older, they intensified. He knows how much nature and the world itself mean to him, and these ideals he had growing up, they were applied to his life, not just believed. He did the impossible; he survived, he climbed, he persevered and did great things even after everyone told him he wouldn't be able to anymore. Tommy’s ideals of the world were tested, and he stuck with them. Even though he went through hell and back, he took these negative experiences and turned them into positive ones and learned from them. He proved that with enough dedication and hard work, you can accomplish anything.