C R

“But when a comp climber arrives on the mat and can't solve the problem, we don't say, 'Oh, well, they couldn't do it.' We say, 'They didn't train hard enough.' So do you say of that person, who arrives at the darkest hour of their life without the courage to face it down, 'Oh, well, we could never expect more of a person,' or do you say that they had a thousand chances, it is not something that just happened to them. Day in and day out, they have been ungenerous assholes, they have not asked enough of themselves, they have not held their temper against the hundred thousand small provocations any toddler will give you over the course of an afternoon, they had six thousand days to be more than they are, and they let each day pass them by, snapping at their children, not doing the dishes, not making the bed, not folding the laundry, not being kind and patient with those around them, never asking more from themselves than the bare minimum; a thousand small acts of cowardice have culminated, finally, in a life-ruining act of cowardice, for which we can hold them responsible, and so do we say, 'Fuck them, fuck the weak?' Like, the weak have allowed themselves to be weak.”
― Gabriel Tallent, Crux