like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
like a heavy load.
-Langston Hughes
The face of defeat is not an easy one to look directly at too closely. When one observes the exact contours of a dream defunct - the jagged, unnatural angles of its broken pieces sticking out through someone's eyes - people look away, uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with the reality of philosophical gravity - the always-present possibility of failure.
There's something unsettling about the way American culture views losses. I always feel like people aren't understanding a basic calculus going on here. It goes something like this:
RULE ONE. You're not supposed to lose, American culture teaches you. Losing is for...well, losers. You don't want to be a loser, right? Don't ever fail. Win - don't lose.
RULE TWO. GO FOR IT. YOLO. Jump on in there and take a risk. Make something of yourself. Only doers go and get things done, so go do. Don't be afraid and don't look back, just do it.
We are raised by our teachers and parents to believe all of these things. But few will bother to tell you how much these two basic ideas actually conflict with each other.
Doesn't jumping in there and taking a risk necessarily involve some inevitable failures? And if so, isn't it true that the more risks we take the more failures we guarantee ourselves? So the more we follow Rule 2 the more we will ultimately violate Rule 1. And if losing makes us losers, and if we aren't supposed to ever be losers, then isn't the inevitable conclusion that we shouldn't ever take a risk? But then, aren't we violating Rule 2 in order to follow Rule 1?? How on Earth do you follow both?? How do you "go for it" without losing?
The answer is simple; the rules are flawed. The conclusion is sound but the premises are BS. You can't follow both. It's the biggest steaming pile that anyone has ever sold you. It's not probable. It's not possible. Forget it. The sooner you do, the better.
If we know all of these things, why do we still shame people for losing when they gave everything they had? Why do we judge them for it? Why can't we see that both the man who has an impressive stack of losses - in addition to the rare undefeated champions- has lived far more than the man with none?
The first time I saw one of the fighters from my camp lose, I expected the coaches to be angry or upset or disappointed. But the coaches were none of those things. The team was none of those things. Instead, the focus was on what could be learned. How to improve. What to do differently to avoid making the same mistake.
Why doesn't the rest of the world work like this? I thought of how different my Western education was growing up. Mistakes in academia were always deemed unacceptable. Coming in second instead of first was a thing to be mourned, ashamed of, and angry about. God help you if you submit a memo to a judge that has a grammatical error in it. Misread part of a question on a law school final? You're sunk. You're done. Never speak of it to anyone.
In the fight world, each and every mistake gets broadcast for the audience to see. There is no hiding behind anonymity. Academia had taught me that this would probably invite nothing but chastising and mockery. But you know what? For all the punches I've not thrown right - for any losses - for any mistake - I've never known a teammate or coach to provide anything other than constructive criticism. I've been lucky to be around great people. But, more than that, losses are viewed differently in the fight world. The people who let their dreams die with a single loss don't survive long enough to come back and do any of the chastising or shaming - those get filtered out right away. The ones who stick around don't see losses as a destruction of their dream to fight or as a fracture to their identity as a fighter. Instead, a loss is a misstep to be learned from to become a better fighter. It makes for a sweeter comeback. It fuels more fire. The mourning of a loss is always bittersweet because of the knowledge that the current sting makes the future savoring of a win all the more powerful.
The morning before I left Bangkok to head back home, I sat at a cafe down the street, contemplating and digesting the details of the journey thus far. I was more physically drained and yet spiritually full than I had ever known.
Water danced in the sparkling sun from a fountain just outside the cafe. It shot straight up, working endlessly against gravity. Each drop would rise to the apex of the arc only to fall to the bottom yet again; the pumps and machines would work in perpetuity to keep this silly maneuver going. They would suck power from the wall, power someone somewhere had to buy from someone who had to convert it to electricity from oil deep in the Earth. All this work so that water would never stay where it's going. All this work for what? For nothing?
All-this-work-for-what was, of course, the wrong question. The beauty was not in the completion of a loop or the specific getting of somewhere; it was not in the win, or the destination, or the ending. Life everywhere was exactly as this water; what defined this water, and everything living, was the fight. Pushing back. Pushing up, over and over again. Pushing out and against opposing forces was as basic as a seed breaking through the soil and reaching a new leaf into the sun. Pushing out and against opposing forces is life-force in its most elemental of forms. It is the difference between living and dead. Perhaps this is why fighters so often describe a fight as when they feel most alive.
We fear looking into the eyes of the defeated man because we see a parable of death; we see the moment when pushing out and against opposing forces might actually cease. Maybe today is the day that mystical energy that fuels us runs out. From what unnamed, blackened well in the human soul will I dig out the courage and will to keep pushing back?
So what, then, gives fighters staying power? What keeps them coming back? Perhaps what fighters know is that failure does not break a dream. Perhaps fighters just never stop dreaming.
Whatever the reason or the explanation, we continue to watch them and wait, waiting for them to peel up off the canvas and inspire us to get back up again and again and again for all the times we inevitably have yet to fall.
 |
| A Kaewsamrit fighter after losing a title bout |
RULE ONE. You're not supposed to lose, American culture teaches you. Losing is for...well, losers. You don't want to be a loser, right? Don't ever fail. Win - don't lose.
RULE TWO. GO FOR IT. YOLO. Jump on in there and take a risk. Make something of yourself. Only doers go and get things done, so go do. Don't be afraid and don't look back, just do it.
We are raised by our teachers and parents to believe all of these things. But few will bother to tell you how much these two basic ideas actually conflict with each other.
Doesn't jumping in there and taking a risk necessarily involve some inevitable failures? And if so, isn't it true that the more risks we take the more failures we guarantee ourselves? So the more we follow Rule 2 the more we will ultimately violate Rule 1. And if losing makes us losers, and if we aren't supposed to ever be losers, then isn't the inevitable conclusion that we shouldn't ever take a risk? But then, aren't we violating Rule 2 in order to follow Rule 1?? How on Earth do you follow both?? How do you "go for it" without losing?
The answer is simple; the rules are flawed. The conclusion is sound but the premises are BS. You can't follow both. It's the biggest steaming pile that anyone has ever sold you. It's not probable. It's not possible. Forget it. The sooner you do, the better.
If we know all of these things, why do we still shame people for losing when they gave everything they had? Why do we judge them for it? Why can't we see that both the man who has an impressive stack of losses - in addition to the rare undefeated champions- has lived far more than the man with none?
The first time I saw one of the fighters from my camp lose, I expected the coaches to be angry or upset or disappointed. But the coaches were none of those things. The team was none of those things. Instead, the focus was on what could be learned. How to improve. What to do differently to avoid making the same mistake.
Why doesn't the rest of the world work like this? I thought of how different my Western education was growing up. Mistakes in academia were always deemed unacceptable. Coming in second instead of first was a thing to be mourned, ashamed of, and angry about. God help you if you submit a memo to a judge that has a grammatical error in it. Misread part of a question on a law school final? You're sunk. You're done. Never speak of it to anyone.
In the fight world, each and every mistake gets broadcast for the audience to see. There is no hiding behind anonymity. Academia had taught me that this would probably invite nothing but chastising and mockery. But you know what? For all the punches I've not thrown right - for any losses - for any mistake - I've never known a teammate or coach to provide anything other than constructive criticism. I've been lucky to be around great people. But, more than that, losses are viewed differently in the fight world. The people who let their dreams die with a single loss don't survive long enough to come back and do any of the chastising or shaming - those get filtered out right away. The ones who stick around don't see losses as a destruction of their dream to fight or as a fracture to their identity as a fighter. Instead, a loss is a misstep to be learned from to become a better fighter. It makes for a sweeter comeback. It fuels more fire. The mourning of a loss is always bittersweet because of the knowledge that the current sting makes the future savoring of a win all the more powerful.
The morning before I left Bangkok to head back home, I sat at a cafe down the street, contemplating and digesting the details of the journey thus far. I was more physically drained and yet spiritually full than I had ever known.
Water danced in the sparkling sun from a fountain just outside the cafe. It shot straight up, working endlessly against gravity. Each drop would rise to the apex of the arc only to fall to the bottom yet again; the pumps and machines would work in perpetuity to keep this silly maneuver going. They would suck power from the wall, power someone somewhere had to buy from someone who had to convert it to electricity from oil deep in the Earth. All this work so that water would never stay where it's going. All this work for what? For nothing?
All-this-work-for-what was, of course, the wrong question. The beauty was not in the completion of a loop or the specific getting of somewhere; it was not in the win, or the destination, or the ending. Life everywhere was exactly as this water; what defined this water, and everything living, was the fight. Pushing back. Pushing up, over and over again. Pushing out and against opposing forces was as basic as a seed breaking through the soil and reaching a new leaf into the sun. Pushing out and against opposing forces is life-force in its most elemental of forms. It is the difference between living and dead. Perhaps this is why fighters so often describe a fight as when they feel most alive.
We fear looking into the eyes of the defeated man because we see a parable of death; we see the moment when pushing out and against opposing forces might actually cease. Maybe today is the day that mystical energy that fuels us runs out. From what unnamed, blackened well in the human soul will I dig out the courage and will to keep pushing back?
So what, then, gives fighters staying power? What keeps them coming back? Perhaps what fighters know is that failure does not break a dream. Perhaps fighters just never stop dreaming.
The dream deferred for a fighter does indeed explode; it fires off in a million ecstatic directions, boundless in its measure of ferocity, stretching out past the rational calm self and its facade of reason - funneled into a punch or a kick or a submission, into the moment when nothing else matters but the resounding "no" to the universe's idea that "you can't."
Whatever the reason or the explanation, we continue to watch them and wait, waiting for them to peel up off the canvas and inspire us to get back up again and again and again for all the times we inevitably have yet to fall.
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