Solo adventurer takes on the Pacific Ocean and shares all on-line

The other day, surfing through Leo Laporte's popular This Week in Technology site, I stumbled across his archive of weekly web conversations with Roz Savage. Who is Roz Savage? As I discovered, she is a remarkable woman who is rowing solo across the Pacific Ocean. (Think about that for a minute: the Pacific Ocean, alone!)

Her story is one of self discovery. In the year 200o she decided to change her life and embrace one based on adventure and discovery. She left her home and job in England and gradually shed her possessions, keeping only the things that had real value to her. She adopted a new philosophy and later decided she wanted to try something very unusual: row across the Atlantic. Despite her lack of experience, she overcame many obstacles and accomplished that feat. And now she's taking on an even greater challenge, attempting to row from the United States to Australia.

Roz is baring her soul, her ups and downs (literally and metaphorically), daily on the Internet. Roz's boat bobbing out there in the Pacific is equipped with devices that permit her to send e-mails and write a blog. The entries are startling for their honesty and for what they reveal of a psyche experiencing this type of physical and mental test. You can read her comments and see her photos at her site here.

One of Roz's objectives is to raise awareness about environmental issues like plastic pollution, climate change and the destruction of wildlife habitats. She has inspired many with her courageous spirit. She's also become a motivational writer and speaker. Here are some of her life lessons, as she explains on her site:

[Sunday Times, 23 April 2006]

• Don’t waste mental energy asking yourself if you CAN do something. Just do it. You’ll surprise yourself. I did.
• Be clear about your objectives. Ignore others, stay true to yourself and measure success only against your own criteria. I was last to finish the race – big deal. I went out there to learn about myself, and I did.
• The only constant in life is change. So don’t get depressed by the bad times, and don’t get over-excited by good ones. Accept that things are exactly as they are, and even bad times have something to teach us.
• Life can be magical, but magic only gets you so far. Then you need discipline, determination and dedication to see it through.
• Hope can hurt. The danger is that you hope for too much and set yourself up for disappointment. Be optimistic but realistic. Nothing is ever as good or as bad as you expect it to be.
• Be mindful of the link between present action and desired future outcome. Ask yourself: if I repeat today’s actions 365 times, will I be where I want to be in a year?
• Decision-making: act in faith, not fear, and don’t worry about making a ‘wrong’ decision – the way you implement it is more important than the decision itself.
• Be your own best friend. The more you rely on other people, the less control you have over your destiny.
• Be proud of your own obituary: a few years ago I wrote two versions of my obituary, the one I wanted and the one I was heading for. They were very different. I realized I needed to make some big changes if I was going to look back and be proud of my life. I am making those changes, and now I have a life worth living.

Notes:

Photo of Roz arriving off Hawaii is made available by her and is used with permission.

If you'd like to listen to her weekly conversations with Leo Laporte, you can find them at Leo's site here.

Castles in the air

It's always great to move beyond barriers we perceive to be holding us back. As a new week begins, let us consider these words from Henry David Thoreau:

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them."

Teddy Roosevelt still inspires

If you're ever feeling down, you should read some of the speeches and phrases of Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States and one of the most energetic figures in history.

Here's a quotation I ran across the other day, courtesy of my friends at 602 Communications. It's from a speech he gave in Paris in 1910 at the Sorbonne University. I find it stirring and inspirational. I hope you do, too:

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better . The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."


Notes:
Photos are courtesy of the United States Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons
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A story about people who never stop trying

If you have ever tried to master a creative skill, whether it be woodworking or photography, writing or painting, usually you know fairly soon in the process if you're comfortable with it. Most of us find that it takes some time before we become proficient at a creative endeavour.

Now what about creative geniuses? Do they take a long time to develop their skills or are they born with them?

The popular image we have is that geniuses show their unique talents quite early in life. In the field of science, for example, Albert Einstein conducted his thought experiments and wrote his Theory of Relativity as a very young man. In music, we remember child prodigies like Mozart. In the visual arts, Picasso did some of his best work in his twenties.

But history also offers examples of artistic "geniuses" whose talents emerged much later in life after a long and sometimes painful gestation period. Two such people were Mark Twain and the French painter, Paul Cézanne.

In a delightful article in the New Yorker recently, Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink and The Tipping Point), writes about these late bloomers and compares the mental make-up of people with precocious talents to those who struggle for a long time before they become successful.

It's a moving story about the special relationship between late bloomers and whose who encourage them to keep trying.

See "Late Bloomers -- Why do we equate genius with precocity?"

Notes:

1. More about Malcolm Gladwell in this profile, "The Gladwell Effect."

2. Gladwell's web site is here.

3. If you'd like to learn more about Paul Cézanne, see the WebMuseum Paris page.

4. The photo showing a close-up of brush strokes is courtesy of Asifth Akbar.

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