Human Endeavor

“There are a few areas of human endeavor that reach down into our deepest souls. Love. War. Art. Athletics.”

That's from the book by Hal Ackerman, Write Screenplays That Sell: The Ackerman Way. It's so very true. The book of Proverbs in the Bible has a really cool verse: Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

Another more approachable version is: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens the wits of another.” The presupposes you've got another “iron” person available of course.

The capital T truth that permeates that verse is easy to decipher: it is the challenge that strengthens, the harder the challenge, the better the outcome. Even if you fail, you'll be stronger, and I'm thinking of the famous dictum by Nietzsche when I say that.

Take for example the first in Ackerman's list , war. There's something deeply stirring and engaging about heroic acts in battle. Paradoxically, it is when we are at war, a low if not the lowest point in human relations that we see the very best of humanity. C. S. Lewis talks about this very fact in The Screwtape Letters, and of course he's right. As an aside, I believe this is one possible reason those who pursue peace at all costs, at whatever price know this about themselves: deep down in their psyches where they don't like spending too much time. Down there in the dark basements of their souls, they realize they're cowards. Not understanding that strife, warfare, suffering: these are the default situations we flawed humans are most comfortable with, it's home base. It's been home base since that first Australopithecus left Africa.

With Love of course, count a person lucky if they truly find this flitting butterfly. When one truly has it, like a mother does for her ugly baby, that's truly transcendental and rare. Rarer even, the sacrifice of one person for a good and worth cause, or a good and worthy person and even rarer, for a bad and unworthy person. That is wholly sublime.

With athletics, very few of us can aspire to greatness in that field. I can tell you that when I ran the 100 and 200 meters in High School, on the few occasions I came in first, that indefinable joy that suffused every cell was awesome. Crossing that line inches ahead of your fiercest competitor, a silent explosion of elation in your medulla is unapproachable. I won!

I was watching a recap of the 2004 Olympic games on HBO. Hicham El Guerrouj is at the starting blocks of the race he holds a world record in, but one for which he's never won an Olympic gold medal, the 1500 meters. With his two-month-old baby and wife in the stands, he hunkers down at the starting blocks, heart a-pounding, muscles tense. How will this end?

Twice before, in 1996 and again in 2000, El Guerrouj had missed the gold and in 1996 with a fall on the track, coming in dead last. Would that happen again, would he choke? Would someone trip him? After all that sacrifice of training, pushing his light frame to the limit, what would happen.

And then, with a courage and almighty effort, El Guerrouj pulls ahead in the last 100 meters and crosses the line in golden first! Ecstasy, wonder. Can man get any closer to the divine at moments like these?

Alas, only a small and lucky group can ever feel this exact kind of euphoria although we can strive for it. Which is why I encourage every young person, boy or girl, to play a sport. It contains advantages much more important that the prosaic one of health, which is just joyless in itself as a goal.

Next comes a field which is like that sea of the Indian proverb about chess (chess is a sea in which a mosquito can bathe and an elephant can drown): art. The value of art is to enrich human existence. I came to this realization a bit late, focused as I was on the applied sciences. If it didn't make sense numerically, it didn't make sense, period. I have since then changed my mind, obviously.

Art can be practiced by almost anyone with no real risk of injury; furthermore, it is no respecter of persons. You could be a prince or a pauper and still either produce great or shit art. It's up to you. Of course, this kind of nebulous standard of judgment leads to the inevitable, no standards. And because humans excel in yet another desultory by-product of pride, self-delusion, there are too many who think what they produce can't be judged. At all, by anyone. This isn't bad, per se, if the art is never meant to be shown, never meant to be appreciated, but that's not art, I believe. Where the self-delusion comes in to play is when they insist what they produce is the highest art, metaphorical torpedoes be damned!

Anyway, my point is that this is one area of human endeavor in which we can all partake and attempt to reach out and touch the face of God. Art.