Creating problems for ourselves
The Hubble Space Telescope cost $16 billion in 2021 dollars. But look at that picture! (NASA photo)
With the number of lobster buoys dotting Penobscot Bay like sprinkles on an ice cream cone, it was inevitable at some point.
This weekend, we ran right over one in our sailboat.
We had guests on board, and we had been looking for dolphins. When we finally spotted some, we “hove to,” which is a way of immediately stopping a sailboat in motion. And unfortunately, while we were doing that, we didn’t see the buoy in time. It slipped right under the boat and attached itself to the rudder.
The dolphins went on their way, and we were left with the problem of how to free the boat and the buoy from each other.
My husband, thinking quickly, tied a lifeline around his chest with the stern line and jumped into the water. After swimming around a bit to diagnose the problem, he cinematically dove underwater with a utility knife and cut the rudder free. Shortly thereafter, we were on our way.
But while he was under there, it felt like forever. I had plenty of time to contemplate our predicament and its moral and metaphorical implications.
An afternoon sail is a gratuitous thing. It’s not the eighteenth century in which the sailboat is vital for industry, military maneuvers, or transportation. It’s just a pleasure craft.
But every sail brings problems to solve — sometimes significant ones. Sometimes, life or death ones.
Many hobbies and sports are like this. Many business ventures and artistic pursuits are like this. We humans are constantly challenging ourselves physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. We seek growth, and growth means encountering difficulties.
We could have been home sitting around. But no, we were out on the open ocean, inconveniencing ourselves and impairing a fisherman’s livelihood.
Is this logical? No. Nevertheless, we feel compelled get out on the water, just as humans around the world did millennia ago, each civilization independently developing boats. We can’t help ourselves — we make our lives interesting and complicated.
This is why I don’t try to figure out why I want to do a thing — or why my family, friends, colleagues, or clients want to do a thing. Why did I want to learn to knit? Why does my friend Ryan want to move to a new city (again)? Why does my nephew want to run track? Why does my client Amelia want to start a second business?
While sometimes we can tease out nuances that can help us prioritize or heal, I think digging too deep into where a creative impulse comes from can be counterproductive. Why do we want to do the thing, whatever it is? Because. Because we want to see what happens. Because we can. Because we feel like it. Why did Mallory want to climb Everest? “Because it is there,” he said, shortly before his life ended on that mountain. Talk about inconvenience.
The results of our ventures need not be so dire, though for some, cheating death is the thrill. For me, I just like to solve problems and make things. So does my husband. Though he didn’t enjoy getting wet that day (“I hate ocean swimming!” he said, right before he got into the water), he relished the opportunity to do something new — to push his capabilities to the limit. To figure out something tricky under stress.
Without the misadventure, there’s no stress. There’s also no growth. We create problems for ourselves, from jigsaw puzzles to sending a manned vessel to the moon, because we want to expand our capacity and experience novelty. There are healthy and unhealthy ways to do this, but it’s inevitable that we’re going to do it. It’s just a question of which activities we will choose.
If you’re wrestling with a desire that seems to come from nowhere, what would happen if you allowed yourself to pursue it? What problems might it cause for you? On the other hand, what growth opportunities might it yield? And how might you creatively mitigate any problems you create for others?
