Magnificent (if also ridiculous)

Bright sunshine.  Skin-scraping cold wind. Whitecaps on the Charles. Flags stiff as an outstretched arm of accusation. A crowd of nervy, young male rowers in red and black elastic togs milling around the Union Boat Club. "We're supposed to race." Easily foreseeable risks: lee shore wreckings, capsizings. At very least, soakings and extreme physical discomfort. Still the contestants are there. The marshals hesitate to cancel; meanwhile, thinking, waiting, they furl and unfurl red starting flags and waggle them in the air.

This was a day of fierce wind so strong that, later on, even heavy people reported feeling nervous about their stability in the teeth of it. So putting the shells in the water on the windward side of the dock could be a challenge. Still these were young, resourceful, dedicated guys; it could be done.

Why do we overcome obstacles just to put ourselves into situations of danger or discomfort? What do we meet out there on the water, for instance, with the wind shoving us off course and into the shore, the waves breaking across the bow, the spray from the dripping oars blown against our faces, the sharp wind lashing us as do birch twigs in a sauna? "Are we crazy?" we ask ourselves, and answer with wild glee: "Of course, what else?"

We're in for it now. The time of decision is past. No way out but ahead. Afterwards, bragging to ourselves, and perhaps others. Now, here in the midst, high on the geyser of energy, emboldened by our audacity, exhilarated by our disdain of pain and fear, we enter the heroic space of sheer magnificent (if also ridiculous) deed. The race itself an excuse for storming transcendence.

There are sensible voices enough, usually, to deflate our swelling ambitions of glory before we launch. But I wonder: what do we meet out there beyond the point of no return? Something within us that we need regularly to encounter? Something beyond?