The new HBO Max documentary series, The Dark Wizard, chronicles the adult life of the creative adventurer Dean Potter. In addressing his extreme personality, it addresses life’s extremes, extreme reactions, and extreme decisions. And it peers into the extreme emotions of its admirable subject. Dean was plagued by extreme highs and lows, experiencing frequent bouts of depression, which seemed to coincide, at least in part, with his failures.

Dean was obsessive and perfectionistic. Arguably, he had to be in his world since mistakes while free soloing tend to imply death. But his obsessiveness stretched beyond survival; as any other perfectionist, he needed to be the best. In his youth, his competitiveness served him, since there wasn’t much competition. He routinely shattered records, creating a legacy years before his passing, or so it seemed. As Alexander the Great did, Dean stood, figuratively and literally, on the mountaintop and wept, for Dean, at a stage in his life when he truly had no worlds left to conquer. As time went on, as he aged, a younger, faster, and more agile Alex Honnold, who once admired Dean, chased and broke each of Dean’s records. Alex even went on to complete several firsts, climbs Dean dreamed of, and some he even planned for. In the span of a few years, Alex didn’t shatter Dean’s legacy, but he greatly diminished it.

Dean spent his life controlling the world, mastering it along with others’ perceptions of him, all to have it change so quickly. He used external mastery as a means of managing his highs, lows, envy, resentment, rage, and fear. Like Alexander, he perceived the world as an extension of himself, apparently created for the sole purpose of making him feel better; it really was as though life was for him. In some sense, he was its master, until he wasn’t. There are so many great lessons in this series, on flexibility and adaptation, as well as on the consequences of excessive pride. The fundamental question of it is: What does life look like when success is at the forefront? Maybe, even more important: What does it look like when you’re no longer number one?

In episode 3, a close friend remarked, “If you put yourself in Dean’s heart, as someone who hangs your ego on one or two little things, you hang your self-esteem on a few fragile little hooks; it doesn’t get any easier as you get older. The blows only hurt more.” Implied is the inevitability of a degraded legacy. To leave as the best, you either have to die young, while still number one, or somehow push back the hands of time in older age. Dean, like many other perfectionists, needed the constant thrill and emotional security of proving himself worthy; seeing someone else on his throne was intolerable. Thus, his chronic jealousy. Maybe he feared being forgotten. Maybe he feared losing his records eventually after he retired. Maybe he feared the arrival of new ways of climbing mountain faces. Maybe it was all of it and more.

One even wondered if Dean, at bottom, just wanted immortality. What if, regardless of age, there was no world where he was able to sail off into the sunset? What if his emotional highs and, more importantly, the barriers to his emotional lows, were only ever going to be associated with competition and, possibly even, perfection? Another close friend maintained, “‘Dean didn’t know how to share’ is basically what it comes down to. He did not know how to be gracious with another person’s light.” This insight is fundamental to our understanding of perfectionism. One of its core features is an extreme fear of loss—of one’s standing, reputation, and legacy; it’s essentially a climb to the top, which is based on the delusion that no one loses anything up there. Sharing implies loss and, just as frightening, equality. What does it mean to no longer be special?

The most heartbreaking aspect of the series is watching Dean’s values play out. He was a great friend and partner while on top, feeling secure, and much less so in his later years. While he created innovative ways to challenge himself and Honnold, such as new ways to climb steep rock faces and FreeBASEing (a sport combining free soloing with a BASE parachute for survival, if needed), finding ways to sublimate envy and rage, both emotions consumed him, nonetheless.

Dean lost a multitude of friends and each for a similar reason. His values were clear: greatness was all-or-nothing—he was either great or miserable, or better yet, he was either the best or miserable. Possessing many of his neurotic traits, I, and I hope so much that this is true, don’t want to continue overvaluing greatness or some legacy, as reality evidently shines a light on their paths to darkness. Dean’s inability to share the spotlight, from an outsider’s view, is nonsensical, especially because the friend who made that comment was not competing with Dean nor could; he stayed in his own lane. But that’s how perfectionism is—it absorbs everything it can as an ineffective consolation stand-in for the thing desired most. I sincerely doubt Dean would have been happy being spotlighted like his friend because, in the end, he still wouldn’t have overtaken Alex.

This is the epitome of perfectionism: a greed that wants and needs with no end in sight. Because the thing desired most, perfection, can’t be had. We can safely conclude that Alex was little more than a stand-in for it; for there would’ve been another Alex, and another limit, to confront somewhere down the line.