"Even Dean Potter, an openly spiritual man who describes free-soloing as part of a personal art form that includes base jumping, finds Honnold difficult to understand. “Alex is like Spock,” Potter told me. “I freak out at the top of solos and scream — like, super emotional. Then I’m wasted emotionally for months. Alex just does it and walks away and does another.” Honnold doesn’t like this kind of talk; he insists that he worked hard to develop his self-control, and he grows prickly at any suggestion that he is unlike other people. “Before Dean solos something, he has to, like, slaughter a goat and fly with the ravens,” Honnold joked, as if Potter drew on magical aid to see him through danger. “I don’t want to slaughter a goat and fly with the ravens. I just want to climb.”" - rønin