Resilience may be one of the most underrated of characteristics; as human beings it seems that the world is increasingly asking us to up our resilience game. As human beings who also happen to be writers, resilience isn’t simply a nicety, it’s obligatory. Being a writer who lacks resilience is like being a car that lacks wheels.
As the years went on, I thought that the vicissitudes of my own life would teach me how to persevere with expertise. This was especially true since I am a writer who also happens to be a psychologist, and few arenas are better at providing lessons about resilience than a therapy room, regardless in which chair you’re sitting. But in fact, the most important of my lessons in resilience stemmed from a moment in 7th grade on a blinding hot track that encircled an inconspicuous football field, when my middle school track coach, Mr. McCarthy, glared at me from eyes above a twitching mustache, and with an authority that seemed to come from on high growled “I think you’d be good at the 330 hurdles.”
I’m 5’7’’ as a full-grown man. When I was 12, I was 4’9’’. The 330-yard hurdles, for those of you who may have wisely avoided track as a youngster, is an event devilishly devised by some mad person in which the runner must wildly sprint almost completely around a full track and periodically, let’s say every 30 yards, leap over a hurdle (far too high for anyone 4’9’’, of course) and commence running.
By any measure of challenges, the 330 hurdles is a grueling endeavor, and it demands intermittent speed, risk, even flight for mere seconds, and most importantly, daring resilience. It is not unlike what we writers must do as we dive into our work day after day. Winston Churchill once said “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Hurdling for 330 yards and writing may sometimes feel like hell, but they are in the end, sweet agonies.
We should keep going.
Because to not, I fear, is to become like many creatives I have known in my professional and personal life, and I am ashamed to admit, myself at times. These are people who like the “idea” of writing, or creating, but who don’t much have the resilience for the work itself. They believe that if they just drank like Hemingway, isolated like J.D. Salinger, struggled like Ta-Nehsi Coates, or traveled like Barbara Kingsolver, they too would write like them. But in the end, this only makes you a person who drinks, isolates, struggles, or travels—it does not make you a writer. As one of my barbers and aspiring musicians once said to me, “creating is just really blue collar.” It’s true, to write is to dig ditches.
There is one characteristic all successful writers have in common. It’s quite simple, really.
They write.
And there is one characteristic all successful and known writers have in common. They, or someone on their behalf, has shared their work to be read by other people.
Now, there are a multitude of reasons that get in the way of any one person writing and sharing it with others, far too many for this short blog post to allow to be listed. They are as diverse and numerous as there are different variations of personality or lived experiences. We all have our “I’m 4’9” damn it! I can’t run hurdles!” exclamation that we hope might absolve us from our failures to write. But a writer can’t hide from being a writer, any more than a runner can hide from being a runner. You may not want to face it, but it will come and get you. It has, so to speak, your number.
So let it. In fact, go get it. Don’t wait for it to make you struggle with all the bad feelings that come with not writing and sharing your work. Tap into your resilience and take to the track.
When I had finished my first meet attempting the 330 hurdles, skinned knees and all, Mr. McCarthy looked at me, clucked his tongue, and offered this fine assessment:
“You’re tough, kid. But you ain’t no hurdler.”
That’s okay. I would find other events on the track to help me hone my resilience.
And one day, I would find a computer and open it.
And learn to keep going.
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Rick Ginsberg is a writer and psychologist who lives in Denver. He is a member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and a board member of The Mile High Writers Workshop. Rick is a past Colorado Voices columnist for the Denver Post and frequent Post opinion contributor, and his most recent short story will appear in the RMFW 2024 Anthology, Without Brakes, to be published in September, 2024. Contact information and links to his work can be found at www.rickginsbergwriting.com.
Love this.