What’s Behind The Curtain?

It was the constriction in my chest and the pounding of my heart that first told me there was something beyond the veil. Yet, it would be another decade before I connected that visceral sensation to the concept of fitness.

My first encounter was on Christmas Day in the early nineties. I was ten or eleven, trying to paddle out to catch a wave. The break was rough, chaotic. A few surfers came in holding broken boards, but for whatever reason, I felt the intense urge to test myself. Swell this big was rare for this flat stretch of beach in Oxnard, California, and a crowd gathered on the edge of the beach to witness the drama.

I tried for longer than I care to admit, but I could never get past the churning white water. The attempt lasted maybe fifteen minutes, but the struggle felt like an eternity. In a moment of time dilation I became aware of what “hard” meant.

I understood nothing about fitness, but I could see that my limit was not the same as the others who made it out. I couldn’t understand why. I was giving everything I had and going nowhere. Yet, in the struggle to move, in becoming aware of my own sheer effort, I may have inadvertently plotted the course for the next thirty years—chasing a sensation that still captivates me today.

Many have circled this idea of effort, joining us from afar, wanting to know more, to experience the depth of it. But when they inevitably quit, I can’t help but feel that we are not experiencing the same thing. I have seen what effort truly offers, and it has little to do with material goals or accomplishments.

Effort is one of the last bastions of truth. It reveals the self to the part of you that can witness who you are at the core. Every time I push up against that wall I am still that young boy, looking out at the break, wondering what it will take and if I have it in me.