The Crucible
I'm currently reading David Brook's book, The Road To Character. An excerpt from the book was posted on the New York Times, and both my wife and Dan Empfield sent it my way, which took me by surprise. In the many years that I've known both of them, I've never known something to resonate with them both enough that they said, "you need to read this." The excerpt was published in Brooks' Op-Ed column, and it gives a pretty fair summary of the book, though the book itself is worth reading (at least based on what I've read so far) because this is a topic worth delving into in depth. But this isn't a book report or a rehashing of the book. It's about a particular sentence in the book that I read last night.
In this passage, Brooks' is talking about the "U-curve" of certain people's lives. They reach a high point – or what they think is a high point – and then they are laid low by life, either by their own doing or by happenstance or some combination of both. Brooks refers to this low point as the crucible (which matches up nicely with the visual image of a "U"). This is where you face your demons and find out what you're made of. It's a bit cliched, but nevertheless there's a truth to it. Brooks then describes how people pull themselves up out of this crucible, move forward with their lives, and eventually reach a point where they find themselves remarkably removed from that low point and are often astounded by how far they have come. "Such people," Brooks says, "don't come out healed; they come out different."
I read this line over. And over. And over. This line struck home with me as perhaps the most accurate way to describe my own journey – now over five years long – since my near-fatal accident in 2010. Most days, I don't think much about it. But, after reading Herbert Krabel's heartbreaking and also uplifting article on Sjaan Gerth, it was once again on the forefront of my mind. I wrote a comment on that article that got a lot of positive feedback. One comment in particular came from Travis McKenzie, whom I connected with after Travis' own bad accident not that long ago. A friend of Travis' wrote to me while he was in the hospital and asked if I would put together some thoughts that he said he'd read to Travis.
I hold true ambivalence about what happened to me. Ambivalent is sometimes used to mean that someone doesn't really care. But the true meaning of the word is that someone has multiple opposed opinions. I hate what I went through. But I also wouldn't erase it. I've never really healed. I'm just… different. And I feel incredibly privileged that I can support people like Travis. And Sjaan. And, unfortunately, more people than I wish. It seems like bike riding is getting more dangerous (statistics show that, sadly, it actually is, at least in the USA). As with a lot of things these days, a certain amount of this is awareness. Before the internet, and Facebook, and Twitter, no one would probably know about my wreck, and even if they did, they'd have no way to contact me. And I wouldn't have a way to share either.
My message is generally pretty much the same – be glad you are alive; don't discount the mental aspect of recovery; even as much as you are glad you are alive, you are also allowed and right to be angry and sad and all sorts of negative emotions; there will be steps forward and steps back; time is the biggest healer. Nothing magic. Nor particularly insightful. But when I read Brooks' comment – about not healing, but changing – it struck a deep chord. And I wanted to share it with all my fellow celebrators of what, borrowing from the military, I've come to call my "Alive Day" – March 23. 3/23 is how I think of it, after Lance Armstrong's references to his own date – 10/2.
I don't know anyone who's been in a bad wreck who hasn't been changed by it. I'd love to think, like Brooks' book argues, that it's a change for the better. But sadly, I know people who have lost things that they can never recover. Things that they shouldn't have lost. The crucible took from them more than it gave back. And nothing can change that. Though, remarkably, even those folks who lost something remarkable – John Carson, Jan De Visser, and Matt Long all come to mind; in many cases, they still seem to have come out stronger. I admire them even more for their ability to have come so far and climbed so high in spite of the fact that they lost more than anyone should lose.
In thinking about sharing this message, I came across another powerful quote, on the image sharing site IMGUR. It was a repost from a Facebook motivation site, and it's an artistic rendering of the Carl Jung quote, "I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become." And that seemed to bookend the Brooks' quote perfectly. If Brooks' quote opens the door eloquently – presenting the idea of change as opposed to healing, Jung closes it well by giving us a guide to effecting that change – by choice.
Stay safe out there everyone. I don't want to write any more letters to cyclists and triathletes who have been hit by cars (though of course I will if ever I am asked). To those of you seeking your way back towards normalcy – or a new normal – after a bad wreck, Brooks' book is a worthwhile read during that time that – for now anyway – you won't spend training. I'm sorry you found yourself in the crucible. I hope that something positive can come from it.
