Big blows
When you step into the ring of life, you implicitly consent to getting hit hard and often. This, of course, doesn’t mean you have to like it when you lose. You’ll get in your fair share of punches, too, but it’s a lot easier to count the bruises you incur than the bruises you inflict. And if you’re like me, it’s not always easy to handle the big blows.
The big blows are the ones that, even when they seem like they happen in slow motion, hurt at the deepest level, one that transcends physiology. The skin you think is so tough, etched with years’ worth of battle scars, withers like the paper of a forsaken letter you throw in the fire. In an instant, the floor is pulled from beneath you, your breath in a hurry to escape you. And you lie on the ground wondering whether you’ll ever get up.
That’s the critical moment that separates the winners from the losers. The fact is that everyone gets knocked to the ground sometimes. When the glove is inches away from your jaw, you’re not going to dodge it. So the people that I admire aren’t the ones whose faces never graze the mat. To me, the strongest are the ones who, while on the ground, think only about getting back up.
———
When I was growing up, I used to compete in taekwondo. While it’s true that no nine-year-old is particularly good at fighting, it’s also true that I was particularly bad. Cursed with a complete lack of any sort of motor skills, I was usually the least athletic person in my weight class. In other words, I lost a lot.
Nonetheless, I somehow found myself in the medal matches of the Junior Olympics. It was an unprecedented opportunity for me to fight in front of hundreds of people, which seemed incredible until I realized that I, in fact, was a terrible fighter. This fact was confirmed when I was floored about thirty seconds into the match. It was a roundhouse kick to the chest, a veritable big blow. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life.
But as I writhed in agony, I realized that the real pain wasn’t about the sting in my stomach or the lack of oxygen in my lungs. It was the sheer humiliation of failing so horribly; it was the brazen epiphany that if I stood back up, I would just end up on my face again, reconciling the same humiliation but twice over. Even though I knew I could get up, I considered staying on the ground so that I could make a swift escape from the menacing gaze of the crowd.
Ultimately, I ended up getting back on my feet. It took some aggressive self-rationalizing, but I also remembered something my coach had told me.
You should hate failure, he told me. You should hate it so much that it makes you mad, that it sends you into a blind rage. And then, you should stand back up and channel your fury into your opponent. You shouldn’t give up. You should just win.
———
In retrospect, I realize his advice isn’t totally reasonable. There are definitely times when I’ve stood back up only to fall right back down on my ass. Thus I’ve learned that the rational person will utilize logic to induct the value of standing back up to continue the fight. If the probabilities seem unforgiving, then one should accept those terms and give up.
With that said, I think there’s a reason (or a few) why we romanticize the stubborn hero who, coincidentally enough, usually isn’t that bright. For starters, probability is simply an assessment of belief; while there is much empirical evidence that suggests that a fair coin will land heads half the time, the probability of fifty percent that I assign to a flip of heads is still just a statement of what I believe. In other words, the odds for a fight can seem slim only if I let them. It’s a matter I take into my own hands.
Yet the more important matter pertains to the consequences of failing repeatedly, of standing up to the big blows only to be dealt yet another one. For example, when your struggle involves the lives of other people, there can be clear negative externalities to continuing to fight. At the very least, people may jeer and wonder why your determination is so misplaced. After all, there are always people watching in the important moments. But whether my failures are public, they’re embarrassing all the same.
There are a lot of potential consequences, but I don’t think we need to enumerate them fully. Ultimately, they are menial parts of the calculation because if I give up on the things that matter, I will have to wear that mantle of shame for the rest of my life. There will be an asterisk next to my name in the record books to remind people that I didn’t give the important things my all, that I didn’t truly treat them like they were important. At the bare minimum, it’s an asterisk that will hang at the brow of my conscience into every fight I enter thereafter.
So when the big blows bring people to their knees, I hope that’s the train of thought that races through their minds, as opposed to some arbitrary probability distribution. In fact, I think any spectator would be disappointed by the fighter who gives up before he physically must throw in the towel. I think winners are consumed by the hunger for victory. They are starved, and they will flail their arms wildly in front of them until they get it. I respect those people because even when it’s ugly, they do usually win.
Hungry
Conventional wisdom cautions us against going to bed hungry, as if it’s some sort of maxim for healthy living. So here I am.
In contemplating the rumbling in my stomach, I realize I didn’t eat dinner today. There are certainly those days that are so jam-packed that dinner just isn’t a feasible option. But I admit that today was not one of those days. In truth, I just forgot. The sounds of the world are deafening sometimes, to the point where I can’t hear what is unmistakably the faint but nagging ring of an alarm clock in my stomach. Sometimes, I’m just hungrier for things other than actual food.
Such things could include love, knowledge, ability, opportunity. I shouldn’t say that they “could” include those things because I’m relatively confident they do. But I imagine that I’m hungry for a lot of other things as well. My instincts lack the requisite sophistication and precision to be hungry for a particular thing I can name. In short, I’m just voraciously hungry. I feel like most people are. We crave things every once in a while, but for the most part, we’re inexplicably but undeniably hungry. It’s tough wanting things without knowing how to get them because you’re not quite sure what they are.
I should think about what exactly it is that I’m hungry for. Such a critical intuition may go a long way in satiating my appetite. Now isn’t that food for thought? Maybe I won’t be going to bed on an empty stomach, after all.
