I don't have a lot of pressure on myself to be successful. I'm more of an artist. I just try to make myself more a part of the most beautiful painting as possible. And enjoy it.

The most beautiful experiences I've had climbing are when everything is simplified. Free soloing is the simplest thing, until you learn to fly or to walk on air - which I feel is all possible.

Each time I saw a cliff, I wondered whether I could free solo it. My life shaped itself around the understanding that falling means I die. To break the paradigm I had to empty out my essence, rummaging for fundamentals I thought were gone forever.

I was taking my advance freefall course, doing my level 1 jump. My heart was racing. Like I said, I have a lot of fear with falling, so I panicked. Then I let go of the door of the airplane and kind of panicked the entire way. But after a few jumps I grew more calm, realized what was going on, and I think that was the key. The more calm I got, the more relaxed I was.

It's one of the most fundamental desires of man, of being free and flying unhindered, and it really seems to go a lot with our founding fathers' principles of freedom.

I think everybody has a dream of flying at least once in their life. For me, it's been over and over a recurring dream. It's mostly that. That desire to be as free as the birds, to be unhindered. I started off as - and am still - a free solo climber. So being in the air is a huge fear of mine. So there's a combination of going toward my fear as well as being fascinated with the air.

We who walk the narrow line have stood for free thinking for thousands of years. Let us continue balancing within the world as we try to understand the space between.