Yesterday's post on quitting was something unusual. The back story is, I'm working on this big profile that's running Sunday, one of those rare collaborative efforts that requires conversations and team meetings and careful calibration and fuss. There wasn't any gas in the tank for a post, so I grabbed this one I really intended to run should the day come when I decided to scale back the blog, made it less final, and put it up.
It drew a good amount of reaction, and one line from regular reader Chris Wood resonated:
"You're no quitter," he said.
And I thought, "Yeah, damn, he's right. I'm not." Which is a good thing, generally, I suppose. The unstated assumption that by not quitting you therefore go on to win. Pretty to think so. Growing up during the Vietnam War has to put a different spin on quitting—sometimes it's the smart thing to do, lest you end up Ahab and his crew on the bottom of the sea. Sometimes quitting saves you from something worse.
In that famous line of Churchill's—"Never give in, never, never, never–never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty" people tend to overlook the next few words, "never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.” But when is giving up sensible? That's the sticking point.
I'm the one who used to say, "You can never fail as a writer: you either quit or succeed." And I suppose the success is in the doing of the thing, which is certainly true in my case. You can still win without ever standing on a podium; in fact, many people are pulled down by the weight of their accolades. I've seen it happen.
Thinking about this, I remembered a moment related to my older boy. We were in Indian Guides—the last year they used the name, speaking of quitting. So Ross was about 7. We were at a summer camp, with cabins and a dining hall. There was a climbing tower, a mammoth assemblage of lashed together telephone poles, 47 feet tall. They had rigged up two stations, to move the crowd along, and the boys would climb at each, belayed by a rope. What happened is the kid would get five or 10 feet, if that, then give up, tap out and be belayed back down to the ground.
Not my boy. He would climb a few feet, cling there like a monkey, gather himself, then push onward. For, oh, half an hour. Meanwhile generations of kids at the other station—I hesitate to put a number on it—5, 10, 15—attempted the climb, gave up after a minute or less, and were returned to Earth.
My kid, like me not gifted athletically, had something that can be even more useful.
"There's no quit in that boy," I said, marveling, head tipped back, squinting up at him with the other dads. It seemed to take forever, and at times I wish he would quit. There was almost something unseemly in this outsized determination. Eventually he attained the summit—I'm tempted to say he was the only kid to do so, but I don't recall that as a fact. I only remember that he did while most kids didn't.
He must have gotten that from somewhere. It is true that one of my favorite quotes from the Great Cham of Literature, Samuel Johnson, is: "I will be conquered; I will not capitulate." That sounds like a plan though, now that I think of it, whether the end comes by defeat or surrender, the end result is still the same.
I'm the one who used to say, "You can never fail as a writer: you either quit or succeed." And I suppose the success is in the doing of the thing, which is certainly true in my case. You can still win without ever standing on a podium; in fact, many people are pulled down by the weight of their accolades. I've seen it happen.
Thinking about this, I remembered a moment related to my older boy. We were in Indian Guides—the last year they used the name, speaking of quitting. So Ross was about 7. We were at a summer camp, with cabins and a dining hall. There was a climbing tower, a mammoth assemblage of lashed together telephone poles, 47 feet tall. They had rigged up two stations, to move the crowd along, and the boys would climb at each, belayed by a rope. What happened is the kid would get five or 10 feet, if that, then give up, tap out and be belayed back down to the ground.
Not my boy. He would climb a few feet, cling there like a monkey, gather himself, then push onward. For, oh, half an hour. Meanwhile generations of kids at the other station—I hesitate to put a number on it—5, 10, 15—attempted the climb, gave up after a minute or less, and were returned to Earth.
My kid, like me not gifted athletically, had something that can be even more useful.
"There's no quit in that boy," I said, marveling, head tipped back, squinting up at him with the other dads. It seemed to take forever, and at times I wish he would quit. There was almost something unseemly in this outsized determination. Eventually he attained the summit—I'm tempted to say he was the only kid to do so, but I don't recall that as a fact. I only remember that he did while most kids didn't.
He must have gotten that from somewhere. It is true that one of my favorite quotes from the Great Cham of Literature, Samuel Johnson, is: "I will be conquered; I will not capitulate." That sounds like a plan though, now that I think of it, whether the end comes by defeat or surrender, the end result is still the same.
