Any fool can do something cool and look cool, but it takes skill to make something uncool cool again.
I climbed on the rowing ergometer, and started to pull - losing myself in the rhythm of sweat and pain.
That morning each of us found a breaking point. Not only a physical barrier, but a point where determination, stamina and duty clashed and were overcome not so much by pain but by absurdity.
As a competitor, winner or loser, one crosses the line into limbo. The adrenaline is gone, the anticipation is gone. The verdict is either comforting or devestating but it neithers returns the exhilaration of the race nor helps directly to win the next. Maybe all that matters is that there is a next.
For two months after Christmas vacation we limped around campus with muscles too tigh and sore to walk properly, yet we had no good idea of our goal. Without knowing what a real race was like, I couldn't judge whether it was worth all the preparation, but having put in so much time already, how could we back out? Quite a few Freshman did manage to back out. After Christmas several, when freed from faily practice, decided that they liked not feeling tired all the time. Most of them vanished without a word.
Once one is beyond a certain level of commitment to the sport, life begins to seem an allegory of rowing rather than rowing an allegory of life.
Being in shape was not my goal. My body was a tool to test the capabilities of my will.
It would be as easy for the United States to build a tower to remove the sun, as to remove polygamy, or the Church and Kingdom of God.
I shall, of course, die with nonviolence on my lips.
I don't know who will overcome losses, some losses aren't meant to be overcome, but all losses make for good stories and good character development and all the jazz that makes a show compelling and watchable.
I've tried to help a lot of young artists get started.