“If You Never Go, You’ll Never Know”

It appears that no one was much inspired by my version of The Matrix – Truth Part 2. Not even Luke, which is surprising. It either means that I was speaking Chinese to people who only know English or that I had know idea what I was talking about. Unless of course no one read it, and then it means that no one read it. But it’s time to quit waiting and get on with another entry.

Scott Tinley is one of the original Ironmen. The first official Ironman race was in Kona, Hawaii, in 1978. Tinley won both the 1982 and the 1985 Kona Ironman World Championship races. He is well known for a sprint to the finish with Dave Scott in 1983, one which he lost by 33 seconds. He now, among other things, writes a philosophical final page column for Triathlete Magazine, and his July 2009 entry is tremendous. The title line is his quote from that column and gets to the heart of what he is saying.

“Our overarching achievements in sport must be contextually bound by how we perceive their value. One person’s M-dot tattoo is another’s skin cancer. Lest we forget, the races we run bring with them their own kind of bearing, their own signature and stamp on our lives. And we won’t really know what that will be until we wake up from the dream. You might feel younger for the rest or you might finally realize that rust never sleeps and that you were caught red-handed with desires exceeding assets.

Either way, the burden and the blessing of excess is a way of being in the world. And if you never go, you’ll never know.”

I like what he is saying here, and it is applicable across life rather than just the endurance sport arena. I have been known to say that when I get to the end of my life, I want to be about used up. I don’t want to get to the end and wish I had attempted more. Wish I had risked more. Wish I had asked bolder questions. Wish I had gone more places. Wish I had known more people. Wish I had wandered out in the wild instead of hiding within the fences. That’s partly what my spiritual quest (which is found more on FSRT) is about I think. It’s partly why I do triathlons I think.

When Tinley uses the word “excess” he is not talking about money. He is talking about experiences. He is talking about “desires exceeding assets” (he himself has completed over 50 ultra-distance triathlons) and the pursuit of those desires. Stepping out of your comfort zone without the disease of fear (Apocalypto reference – check out this old post if you care to discover more) and pursuing those dreams. What a great way to live, stepping out into the unkown, not knowing what the end result is, but wanting to see where it will take you. “If you never go, you’ll never know.”