It’s been a while since I wrote a post on my blog. A long while. It’s not like nothing has happened, I just haven’t sat down to write about it. The stories have stayed personal. I’m not an over-sharer.
Recently I decided to live in Colombia, a country I knew nothing about, but am falling in love with. It’s the sort of fairytale love where everything is good and I don’t have any problems because I’m a gringo who earns a US salary and flies above the day to day of what it is like to be from here. I see the beauty in it, the squandered potential, the simplicity of what matters in life.
Last month I celebrated my 40th birthday. It’s a recognized life milestone, not for the individual (it’s just another birthday and nothing that much changes), but for the perception that you have entered a different stage of life. When you say you are 40 the perception of yourself to others changes. You are at the stage where you are supposed to be settled, have a spouse, be a parent, be consistent. I diverged from this path quite a while ago, but the divergence is becoming more apparent as I get further in time and waypoints from the norm.
It is however a point of reflection. Living in a new country and not speaking the language and spending most of my time on my own I’ve had some time to do this. (It’s not as if I’m zen and enlightened – I spend most of my time on Instagram and engaged in internet content. I’m rarely fully present with nothing than my own anxieties, and stuttering thought cycles to occupy my mind).
A few days ago I started reading a book that had been given to me 5 years ago by a client Byron and I had met at Beaver Creek when I visited their house in Los Angeles. They said I would like it, but honestly as much as I like the idea of being a reader, I very rarely read a book. Like once every few years.
The Boys in the Boat is about the US Olympic rowing VIII that won the gold in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. It’s a true story, starting with the boys’ lives growing up in Washington during the Great Depression.
I know I’m privileged because I get upset if I’m served prosecco instead of champagne, but reading how life was like for so many reiterates how soft we are as a generation in the present day. This got a fresh reminder with the pandemic that hit the world. It renewed my thoughts that I had when I was living in Russia in 2015-16 at just how good and stoic the Russians are at suffering, and why that lead them to defeat the Nazis in WWII. I even wrote about it in my diary at the time. This sounds like an obscure tangent, but I’m going to link it all together!
I was 18 when I chose to study History as my major in university. It was nothing that I wanted to pursue as a career, but I found it interesting. It unleased the mind’s imagination, as well as understanding the big picture of human psyche.
To understand history, you need to understand people, because they are the ones that write it and it’s always framed by beliefs, norms, biases. For the rational scientific mind, the current world is a difficult one to navigate. Widespread denial of human caused climate change, people who support Donald Trump (a thinly veiled white supremist, lying, narcissistic sociopath), anti-science, anti-vaccine, toilet paper hoarders, the collapse of Afghanistan in days. It doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you start to self-analyze your own idiosyncrasies. Some of humanity have high levels of intelligence, but almost all are afflicted with logic defying self-beliefs. It’s why I love history, psychology, and science. And it’s why I love rowing and this book.
Rowing is an obscure sport, generally considered elitist, because it’s often only esteemed schools and universities where it is most practiced. In reality though you could walk into any rowing club with a desire to row and you would be welcomed no matter your background. The reason is that when rowing everything else is removed. No social class, no ethnicity. It comes down to your commitment to your crewmates, what your mind extracts from your body, and your ability to endure suffering.
For those of you whom have rowed there is an understanding of the pain one endures when at the limit, or past, what your body can deliver. A lot of rowing is just in a state of discomfort, it’s not all insane. But the areas you go to when in a meaningful race with crewmates you love and would never let down, or when you battle your own daemons to push yourself into Dante’s hell on an erg test – you know the suffering.
The book got me thinking a lot about my own rowing days at Sydney High’, and the University of North Carolina. I was never a particularly physically gifted athlete, but when pushed I would sustain intense periods of suffering. A lot of people just can’t or don’t want to do that and so it thins the ranks. What is crazy though is how much this book brought back memories of those times, and what I realize now had a significant impact on my life.
On the surface it sounds stupid to draw out life lessons from sitting in a boat and pulling on an oar. I mean what can be that nuanced about 6 minutes of exertion in a rowing race? What you don’t see when you watched the Olympic rowing in Tokyo is the thousands of pieces that have to be perfectly aligned to make a boat go fast, let alone the fastest against others who are trying to do the same thing. It takes thousands of hours of practice to master the biomechanical synchronies between 8 individuals to perfectly align, at the exact moment, at the limits of exhaustion. It takes a special mental state to not give up even when you would give anything to do so. And it takes a deep mental and physical connection with your crewmates to never ever want to let them down, but know if you had to carry a little extra for one who couldn’t make it you would.
For all of us whom have lived in the real world and know what it is like trying to get a group of people to do something in perfect harmony you know how difficult this can be. It just takes one person’s mind to be slightly out of alignment and it spreads like contagion to others.
Funnily enough you see that in the society we live in now.
The feeling of love and synchrony when you do sometimes get it is incredible. It doesn’t happen often when rowing, but when it does it’s magic. What I’ve seen later is that this feeling also happens in other areas of life. In business, in relationships. Rarely is it sustained, but the moments when the flow is happening – it’s so good.
What underlines these moments though is a good bit of hardship and suffering to get there. Nature flows in a sine wave, just as everything we experience as humans. To have highs you have to have lows. Be it rowing training, failed relationships, or a struggle through a working career.
So when I reflect on my 40 years, while living in Colombia through long periods of loneliness, reading The Boys in the Boat and thinking back on that burned-in experience rowing, I realize how much it impressed on me. Knowing that you can always go a little bit further than you think you can. Persistence and endurance. Understanding the natures of the human-centric world we live in.
It’s a good book. You should read it.