The summer crowds have departed and there is only one woman on the beach as I go down for my last day of roll practice. I got a new kayak seat, hoping to alleviate my chronic proximal hamstring tendinopathy (it helps) and, as a corollary, found that suddenly I could easily CtoC roll after trying off and on for a couple of years. Sometimes a small tweak like sitting higher in kayak (I have a short stubby torso) makes a huge difference. The weird thing is, CtoC rolls are so much easier than sweep rolls, by the time you set up you are part way up, then a pull with a flick and in a few seconds you are right side up. My off side still needs work.
On Tuesday, Nick B came out of a year long hibernation for an upwind-downwind run. It was like old times except none of us were in shape for such shenanigans but we did the seven or so kilometres back from North Head in about 40 minutes which isn’t too bad. I neglected to take water and, despite only being out for two hours, I was parched as a bird cage on a summer day by the time we got home and was even thinking about swilling some sea water around in my mouth. It’s amazing how Nick, who has been neck deep in a house renovation for several years, can still pull ahead both upwind and downwind. Every paddle stroke is just about perfect.
Sunday was probably windier than Tuesday but the paddle was a short one out to Tollgate Islands to remember a dear friend. It was a happy/sad time. So many people in so many different communities touched by one gentle but strong willed woman. Loss is sad but friends gathering together to remember is happy.
In the middle of the North American summer climbing season in 2024, Will Gadd wrote about the “normalisation of deviance” in Explore magazine, over three years after I wrote about my own experience with the phenomenon. It’s not deliberate, people are just unaware as our society has become more industrialised, more convenient, less connected to the natural world. Our politicians don’t help, pandering to the most anxious among us in the mistaken apprehension that this builds resilience. Resilience is built on doing difficult things and there are no government policies that prioritise doing hard things. Policy is always about making things easier. Building resilience in the modern world requires an initial step of defiance which is deciding to swim upstream against all modern dictums. Eat meat, lift heavy objects, engage in risky behaviours, be the only person on the trails with an analogue mountain bike, learn to relax into challenges, and on and on.
The Democrats are realising the fruits of anti-resilience now. For years, the far left has pilloried toxic masculinity while promoting micro-aggressions, hurty feelings and toxic empathy. Virtue signalling took the place of actual action and “skin in the game” became a forgotten concept. Now, as Trump rages through the Deep State like a scythe through a cane field, the far left is struggling to motivate its base to fight back, but, there is no fight among a group of people who have founded their identities as perpetual victims who demand safe spaces from ideas and words that might cause discomfit. Petulant over-emotionalism will never win against people who understand that feelings are transient and that no-one can make you a victim without your consent.
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