THROW ME A LIFESAVER. I MEAN A SKYSCRAPER.

When you hear the word “skyscraper” what comes to mind? A tall building? A crowded skyline? Towering buildings that literally scrape the sky? Cities like New York, Chicago, Hong Kong or Tokyo which have the highest number of buildings over 150 metres? Small (tall) fact: Toronto is on this list too and Tridel’s 10 York ranks #22 on the list of Canada’s tallest buildings, standing proud at?224 metres (735 feet) and 68 storeys.

Skyscrapers aka high-rises are used for office, commercial and residential purposes. ?The tall building trend only seems to be getting taller as cities continue to grow “up”. Not only because compact density and “building up” are a more sustainable approach, but due to factors like affordability, smaller-sized families and the discovery (and research finding) that we tend to only use 68% of the space in larger homes.

But skyscrapers are not just used for living and working. They're also used for climbing.

I know that sounds crazy, dangerous and for lack of a better word...stupid. But would you describe it that way if you understood that that scaling a building isn’t always about cheap thrills and gaining social media fame? Sometimes, it’s about saving a life.

That is the case with Isaac Wright, a 25-year-old U.S. Army veteran. Although his climbing has gotten him arrested on multiple occasions for burglary and trespassing, he does it because it gives him access to buildings and landmarks where he takes incredible cityscape photographs. It's also a way for him to cope with depression and PTSD after being injured and discharged from the army after six years.

Unfortunately, Wright has been charged with multiple felonies and arrested and retained without bond in a 23-hour lockdown for over two months. A similar situation would typically result in a misdemeanor charge, but he was considered armed and dangerous due to his?military training. This is despite the fact that he owned no guns at the time of his arrest and had no criminal record. He could potentially face a sentence of up to 25 years in prison. We face conflicting opinions of who Wright is, as a person.

“The pictures are beautiful, I’m not going to deny that, but he leaves a wake of destruction.” - Cincinnati police Capt. Doug Wiesman

A friend who served with Wright described him as “a super squared-away guy [who] once talked a soldier who was suicidal off a fifth-story ledge at midnight. And that’s who he was, always there for everyone.”

Wright is categorized as an “urban explorer.” Someone who ventures into places that are off limits, like a skyscraper rooftop, a bridge or a crane, often to take photographs. It was the roof-topping in Wright’s repertoire, that got my attention and concern…for obvious reasons.?

Full disclosure—I’m a climber at heart—so much so that my nickname growing up was “monkey” as my parents would find me climbing various things. Like the perimeter of a 20 foot high ledge which I got to by climbing over the second floor railing in our home.?I haven’t outgrown my love of climbing and was recently re-certified for “Working from Heights.” Granted, this is something I did for work-related reasons…so that if I climb a crane and plummet 200 feet into a well, I can say I did it right, and legally.?

You could argue that what Isaac Wright does is for “work.” In pursuit of a career in photography. And for treating his PTSD since COVID-19 made access to in-person psychotherapy challenging, and he found virtual therapy ineffective.

He discovered that climbing gives him beautiful scenes to photograph earning him almost 24,000 Instagram followers. It also provides a sense of calm, inspiration and happiness. And it gives him a rush only matched by the adrenaline surge he experienced daily in the Army Special Forces. Wright shared that “it was better than any therapy he had ever tried” and that raising the camera saved his life.

In a recent interview with The New York Times he said, “You could put me through years of therapy, give me all the meds in the world, and it would not help me the way that my art helps me” as he explained his refusal to agree to therapy in order to avoid prison. He was trying to once again find solace. The reason being, that he was chasing a feeling.

Research shows that veterans often return from deployment with an addiction to adrenaline. There is increasing evidence that intense physical activities, called “recreational therapy”—like rock climbing, wake-boarding or skydiving—are helpful in treating depression and PTSD.?Both the army and the marines have incorporated it into their programming.

But some people aren’t willing or able to dig deep in order to see the whole picture. They take shortcuts, painting an entire group with the stroke of one brush, labeling them “adrenaline junkies” who seek out high-risk or intense activities just for the rush. Yet it's more than that. They are seeking sensation. In fact, they are seeking a chemical cocktail of dopamine, adrenaline and endorphins which the brain’s amygdala releases in risky situations. What follows is a heightened state of relaxation. And it’s addictive.

Psychologist Marvin Zuckerman explains that sensation seekers trace back to the early hunter-gatherer days. He compares activities like high-altitude climbing to fighting a woolly mammoth in 15,000 B.C., in terms of the sensation that is felt in the brain. ?He identified four types of sensation seekers: Adventure seekers; New experience seekers; Disinhibitions seekers and those that are susceptible to Boredom.??People don’t tend to fall neatly into one category.

In Canada, we have our own roof-toppers, in big cities like Toronto. Coming from a real estate background, I sympathize with the concern of developers, asset managers, and building owners. From their perspective, major concerns about roof-topping are that a) it’s illegal and b) it’s trespassing. But it also poses a variety of risks, particularly to the individual who is climbing and the property owner who may face legal action which in turn can result in reputational damage.

Additionally, in the event of an emergency, roof-topping would not only disrupt business operations but, experts believe it could potentially result in a criminal or terrorist act since anonymous access to building images and details can reveal a its vulnerabilities.

As with most things, there is risk and reward. Isaac has found the latter. But his climbing is problematic for many people and for many reasons. Despite this, I try to be openminded, and see perspectives other than my own. I look for the positive and hope for the best possible outcome.

So, to those who have helped sprinkle our skyline, I hope this allows you to see your work in another light: the buildings you created serve those who work and live inside them, and also serve those on the outside.?While we’ve always recognized a skyscraper’s allure to those who walk by or gaze up at them, we might also consider those who are driven to climb them. And while you may not have wanted to have spider-man make a playground out of your property, maybe it will help to remember that you may have saved a life.

And here’s a confession to help use this as an opportunity to demonstrate empathy and understanding. I connected with a Toronto roof-topper a couple of years ago, after admiring his images on social media. We exchanged messages for a short while and then I tried to encourage him to pursue a career in construction, so he could fulfill his passion in a safer (and legal) way. I also happened to ask him the price of one of his photos (under an alias, of course.)

I hope the following post from Isaac's Instagram (@driftershoots) will show you why I’m not just taken in by the imagery he captures in his photographs but also the beautiful words that accompany them. ?And while Isaac admits that what he does is dangerous and he doesn’t encourage others to do the same, his goal is to have his art impact anyone who comes across it. Whether it makes someone feel dizzy or inspired, his hope is to move people in some way.?He has certainly moved me.

“From The First To The Last” ( for?@nytimes )

Tez stopped cutting my hair and with his enormous arms set the clippers down on the upside down trash can to our left. I lamented how I never wanted any of this, how tired I was and how my work was always in pursuit of something I loved. He looked me dead in the eyes and said “I’m gonna stop you right there brother, it don’t matter what you want, the world don’t work that way and God put you here for a reason. Everybody here can see it. You’re different, you ain’t like anybody in here, you’ve got something special man. Now you go and you tell that story everywhere and to everyone and when you get the chance you speak for all of us, cause some of us will never have your voice.”

He finished cutting my hair and off I went back to my cell. J.R. Was praying salah and I joined him for strength for the next morning’s court date. I told that story. I told it to everyone I met, In handcuffs and over chess, sleeping on dirty prison floors and eating bag lunches. I told it chained to a hospital bed, I told it under fluorescent lights at god-forsaken hours in the morning and again when the sun rose. I told it on days I had no strength and when I couldn’t speak anymore I wrote. I wrote until my heart bled unfathomably onto sheets of paper. I wrote for me and thousands of voices silenced in the system. I wrote for NO’s smile when he saw his baby girl, I wrote for the way Tim’s eyes lit up when he talked about his son playing basketball. I wrote for Cell 48 and that darkness I thought would kill me that Wednesday afternoon. I wrote for my art, for my name tagged in every secret corner, for every climb, for every picture that embodied the pinnacle of love. I wrote for something I’d die for and still would. I’m lucky to have that. I wrote for Isaac Wright, for everything he was and is and will be, for every time he picked himself up off his cell floor, for the smile that still forms from his eyes despite every tear falling. Love knows nothing of surrender, in the end it conquers all, through immeasurable hardships it overcomes.