Two Generations Removed From War Heroes and We’re Too Soft For a Cold Shower?
Grit, so hot right now, Grit.
This “grit” topic is so hot right now.
Resilience is so in vogue, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang briefly mentions the word in a 50 minute technical economic policy talk, and his “pain and suffering” soundbite ripples through our cultural consciousness. Clearly there’s thirst for the topic.
The book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth just spent over 160-weeks as a NYT bestseller.
Are we that collectively weak, lazy, and decadent? The answer, is a loud, resounding:
When I hear “decadent” I think big, scrumptious slice of chocolate cake. The other definition is kinda like that, but way more depressing. Oxford defines Decadence as
moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury.
Holy shit we’re in the Age of Decadence.
Why is this happening?
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.“
In his post-apocalyptic thriller “New World” series, Author G. Michael Hopf elegantly describes those 4-steps via a pattern of macro human behavior called “Strauss-Howe Generational Theory;” a now obvious observation that we share mental models with people born around the same time, or “generation” (e.g. baby boomer, millennial).
Generational patterns are so prolific, the Romans had a name for them: Saeculums. To avoid cinematically catastrophic political transitions, they’d create succession plans as the saeculum’s neared the 4th “turning” (the ”weak men, hard times” phase).
Are we at the 4th turning of this saeculum?
The “Greatest Generation” of WWII birthed the Baby Boomers and ever since we’ve grown increasingly soft. According to Hopf, “there has never been a generation which doesn't look at the younger generations and believe they were weaker.”
lol true.
America’s hegemony created so much abundance that we stopped having to work so hard to survive. We’ve become conditioned consumers, “advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need” (Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk). The soul-sucking job affords enough comfort food and distracting entertainment to numb oneself over a lifetime.
Meanwhile, we still find reason to complain. Victor Frankl elegantly captures this phenomena called “First world problems”:
“a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative.”
-Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Enduring pain, overcoming fear, requires experience in hardship. Those experiences come from a vitally important process of human development called “rites of passage”; a wounding and healing that opens the possibility to doing hard things (and be better off for having done it!). Our ancestors have been doing it for a minute now, but we kinda forgot how its done.
Philosopher James Hollis argues that men in particular have gone soft because we’re generations deep into a pattern of fathers being too busy (in factories and offices) to guide their sons into manhood.
“Our society has long treated men as machines, as bodies expendable in the name of progress or profit… Such an estrangement wounds very deeply; it has gone on so long and is so taken for granted that healing individuals, let alone a whole gender, is a dubious undertaking.”
-James Hollis, Under Saturn’s Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men
So many children without the courage to face fear, and the symptoms are painfully clear, we (mistakenly) avoid:
Disagreeing with colleagues and bosses for job security
Saying “no” or asking for our needs to appease a relationship
Quitting a soulless job and going for our passion
Making eye contact, smiling and initiating conversation with a stranger
I’ve personally experienced all of these, until I didn’t. Such fear made me vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, until now. How did I get gritty? Luck, mostly. Most rites happen by chance, but others can be done by choice (stage-left, the cold shower).
My own playbook to adulthood:
Grow up in the soul-hardening climate in one of the snowiest non-mountainous regions on Earth (upstate NY). Work Burger King double shifts (wanted to pivot the video game addiction to PC). Pledge a fraternity, inadvertently cold-turkey the addiction. Marathon studying sessions at the library fueled by peer pressure.
SpaceX was next level though. Every SpaceXer has endured that moment: taking a moment of precious solitude on the toilet, quietly contemplating the impossibility of your workload, when suddenly, tears release and a light sob accompanies the continuous torrent of email pings vibrating your phone.
I learned first hand that grit is a practicable skill, because after SpaceX it atrophied. I took laughably easy corporate jobs, moved to the beach, and sunbathed with locals for hours, daily. Years of this ridiculous leisurely lifestyle and my body felt the pain of stagnation. Inevitably, growth began again.
It started with morning swims in the summer. Then winter. Then an operatic mermaid took me on long-distance swims. A mohawked, tattooed merman opened me up to standup paddleboarding. I soon began diving underwater caves, surfing, and nocturnal swimming (which is how I met my partner). Adventures with nature accompanied by daily meditation, yoga, and journaling practices have dramatically deepened my mental strength, leading me to now.
Today, I can sit still for extended hours to read, write and work. I can patiently sit in traffic, play with my kids, or listen to socially unaware people overexplain trivial things. I can eat a salad and avoid sugar. I can step into the discomfort of new behaviors, and leave behind the pain of old beliefs that no longer serve me.
Despite all this growth, I still must take a cold shower daily, and it’s always uncomfortable. Practicing something “scary” every day breaks down the walls of my mind. It helps acclimate to the surrealness of my constantly changing life. Grit is evolution, the constant struggle adapt to a changing world. Behind grit are values fueling the whole thing. I’ll go deep on the incredible topic of values-driven Embodiment next week!
Thanks for tuning in!
“When you keep searching for ways to change your situation for the better, you stand a chance of finding them. When you stop searching, assuming they can’t be found, you guarantee they won”
-Angela Duckworth, Grit