Bob sledding and the Mona Lisa- the pursuit of perfection

Having been raised in Florida, winter sports have never figured very much in my life. Skiing always involved water and big horsepower since it's hard to find a lake with any kind of slope. I was 26 before I ever strapped on a pair of snow skis. Even so, every four years I have found myself cheering on the likes of Dorothy Hamill and Eddie the Eagle during the winter Olympics.

 

This year, I was fascinated by the bob sledders, lugers, and skeleton drivers. I considered the latter two a death wish on runners. Having watched run after run I became aware of the artistry inherent in this sport. The driver of the bob sled, luge, or skeleton tries to carry a perfect line for over a mile while careening down a wildly curving course over a mile long at speeds up to 90 miles per hour with a margin of error measured in inches.  The driver must enter each curve not too high and not too low, must carry that line through the curve, and come out of it, resuming a straight line without over or under compensating, all in milliseconds. The difference between a record setting, gold medal run and finishing out of the medals altogether can be one almost imperceptible touch of the bob sled against the side of the run or a few milliseconds slowing of a luge or skeleton due to a tiny misstep of the operator.   

This is high art at its most ephemeral. All the years of training and perfecting one’s technique comes down to piece of performance art that will last less than 60 seconds. Several years ago my wife and I made a long overdue anniversary pilgrimage to Paris. On one warm summer afternoon, we found ourselves in a large room looking at a surprisingly small portrait that, arguably eclipsed all the other art treasures in the Louvre in popularity, fame, and value. The Mona Lisa is considered to be the most valuable painting, not just in the Louvre, but in the entire world.  

 

Imagine, if you can that a renaissance version of ‘Snapchat’ existed in the 1500’s. Leonardo da Vinci has spent several years of his life painting his masterpiece and it is finished at last. He schedules a showing which is well attended. Amidst the “oohs” and “aahs” of the attendees, the picture begins to fade and, in moments, it is gone, like a medieval Etch-a-Sketch, never to be duplicated exactly. Try as he might, da Vinci just can’t re-create his masterpiece perfectly.   

 This raises some interesting questions. Does the fleeting nature of our hypothetical Mona Lisa invalidate its iconic stature as a work of art? Is da Vinci’s accomplishment any less if his work did not last but a few moments? How about this question: Is da Vinci, as an artist, really any different than Steven Holcomb, the driver of the U.S. Men’s Bobsleigh team, carrying a near perfect line down a mountain, other than the fact that da Vinci’s art has endured for hundreds of years while Holcomb’s lasted less than 60 seconds?

 

My professor, and plastic surgery mentor, D. Ralph Millard, Jr., often quoted St. Francis of Assisi: “He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.  He who works with his hands, his head, and his heart is an artist.”

 

Even something as simple as handwriting can be done as art. It is known as calligraphy. A family friend on my mother’s side in Brazil had the most beautiful handwriting I have ever seen. Friends and acquaintances used to ask him to write out such things as wedding invitations for them. He did this without charge. I would wager that the overwhelming majority of his work eventually ended up in the trash. He didn’t care. He produced the art; what happened to it after it left his hands was not his concern.

 

Plastic surgery naturally lends itself as a form of artistic expression. Of all the medical specialties it most requires an artistic sensibility. It endures somewhere between the bob sledder’s run and the Mona Lisa. I believe, however, that any human endeavor can be done artistically. I have seen art on an athletic playing field as well as in a concert hall or museum. I have known people who go about their day doing the mundane things of life with such care and deliberation…..and heart, that they raise daily living to an art form. Even human relations can be done artistically. My grandfather, a physician in Rio de Janeiro, used to take me on walks when I was a boy. We would always be stopped multiple times as neighbors would invite him in for a chat and a “cafezinho” (literally, “little cup of coffee”). Once he told me he as taking me to meet a “very distinguished” gentleman. This individual turned out to be the neighborhood street sweeper, a former patient who he introduced me to as though he was a celebrity. This was done without a hint of irony. I didn’t appreciate it then, but this was high art too.

Evolution versus creation "science"

It seems to happen every few years. A school board somewhere deals with the question of whether to teach Evolution as a theory and Creationism as science. This brings out every possible type of respondent, from Bible quoting, well intentioned Christians who see the Bible as a science book to die hard atheists for whom Darwin is practically a God. It shouldn’t be that way.

My father, Carl, was raised in a home in which science held sway. Religious practice and belief, such as it was, was primarily humanistic, with a dollop of theism thrown. Their church, appropriately enough, was Unitarian, which pretty much accepts just about everything. He was ruled by logic and facts. He saw the shortcomings of evolution in explaining origins and adopted Creationism as world view later in life. I always respected his thoughtful approach to the big questions of life and have tried to apply it to my life.

The controversy about evolution has always driven me crazy. The arguments inevitably miss the point and are specious. Evolution clearly occurs. The peppered moths in England and the finches in the Galapagos clearly demonstrate evolution and its corollary, survival of the fittest. What they do not show, nor is there any example in nature, is the change from one species into an entirely different species- an amphibian into a fish, or a lizard into a mammal. Neither is there any plausible explanation for how a wing might evolve into a hand, how the human eye came to be, or even how it is that we have such a sophisticated and effective clotting system. In these situations, evolution fails miserably. It can show changes in the gene pool but is silent on how the gene pool came to be in the first place.

Evolution is not about origins. Even Darwin himself, in his book, for those who actually take time to look at what it says, declared that his theory could not explain the human eye. Michael Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity in nature has been dismissed by many but I have not seen it plausibly refuted.

I think that a very strong argument can be made that there are only two opposing beliefs about how the universe we live in came to be; I have never heard another. Either it is the product of undirected time and energy working on physical matter, without any plan or purpose or it is the product of an intelligent designer, a “first cause” if you will, that is not constrained by time or space as we know them. If anyone can come up with an alternative to these, please let me know.

Science cannot answer some of the most momentous questions that men have asked since time immemorial. How did the universe begin? What came before that? Does the universe have a limit? If so, what lies beyond? More and more, science seems to be trending to the idea of a “big bang”, also known as the “singularity” for the origins of the universe, but what started that? To answer that things have always been, going back infinitely, simply does not satisfy logic, at least not to me. Science clearly points to a moment when the universe will experience a “heat death” as it winds down and the Law (not theory) of Entropy, one of the inviolable truths of science, wins. This obviously presupposes a moment when the universe began, just like a clock that is winding down must, at some time, have been wound up. To argue that everything has simply “been there” all the time is a bit like the discussion between two people about what supports the earth:

“The earth is supported on the back of an elephant”, says the first.

“What is the elephant standing on?” asks the second.

“Why, the elephant is standing on a turtle”, answers the first.

“Well, what is the turtle standing on?” queries the second.

“My dear fellow”, the first responds, “it’s turtles all the way down…..”

True science takes all the alternate views, or theories, about an observation in nature, follows the data and draws conclusions based on what theory best fits the available data. As such, Creationism should be considered dispassionately and scientifically, just as evolution is. Teach our students good science and let them draw their own conclusions. What could be simpler?

Back in the saddle again

  3 months and 5 days. That’s how long it took me to get back on the bike. It is amazing, and not a little disconcerting, how easily we fall out of good habits, even habits that we enjoy. It is surprisingly easy for a period of vegetating, deserved though it may be, and intended to be brief, to become gradually stretched for a few weeks, then a couple of months longer until it becomes the status quo. The inertia of inactivity can be a mountain to overcome.

 

  I can speak from personal experience that the same thing can occur in areas outside of athletic endeavors. It seems to me these days that everyone either wants to write a book, is writing a book, or has written a book. Where this desire comes from I can’t say. At least, I can’t generalize as I am sure the reasons behind this are as varied as individuals themselves. Perhaps it is a natural desire to have a voice in a world of cacophony and confusion that often does not seem to make sense. In an existence where our mortality confronts us at every turn, perhaps it is our stab at a small piece of immortality- leaving something behind that will outlast our physical presence on the planet. At least for me, it is a welling desire to express myself in print that seems to come from somewhere deep inside that I can no more suppress than I can suppress my need to breathe for more than a few moments.

My love affair with the written word dates back to my earliest memories, poring over books about Curious George, the Hardy Boys, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ jungle tales of Tarzan (even though he never visited the dark continent), and Ian Fleming’s iconic novels of 007, the deadly spy whose martinis were always shaken, not stirred. Even as an adult, I latch on to certain authors who, in time, become more like old friends that I visit and re-visit, over and over: Alistair MacLean, James Clavell, J. R. R. Tolkiien, Tom Clancy, John D. MacDonald, and Robert B. Parker. The protagonists of their works sometimes seem as real to me as anyone I know in my daily life.

At the risk of being labeled extreme, my son was named in honor of Travis McGee, the loose jointed, bemused, white knight on the, as MacDonald decribed, “spavined steed with a rusty lance”, whose unusual adventures made up MacDonald’s multi-hued series.

 

 

 

Without a doubt, my desire to write is an outgrowth of my love of reading. This was confirmed to me by none other than Mr. Prolific Writer himself, Stephen King. No, I didn’t hear this from him personally. He wrote a book, On Writing , and in it he states, several times if I recall accurately, that to be a writer, you must first be a reader. I have never been a big fan of Stephen King- horror has never been my preferred genre- but over the years I have read several of his works that I really enjoyed and to read him expound on his writing career and feelings about writing made me feel like we are kindred spirits in that regard.

 

Well, to make a very long story short, I have been working on “my book” for about ten years. I have no real idea because it has been so long. One manuscript was completed and sent to a developmental editor who, as expected, provided some encouragement but otherwise tore it apart, and rightly so. Now, I am looking at re-writing something I put years, and my heart and soul into. With Ironman Florida behind me, I need a new challenge and this will be it. 2014, will be the year of the re-write, in hopes of producing something publishable.

Whereas the Ironman was daunting as a physical challenge, this will be more of a mental challenge. I was able to overcome distractions throughout last year, and some mental obstacles, to get through a year of training for the Ironman. Now I have to overcome my demons of distraction, disorganization, and a persistent stream of doubt that I am qualified to join the ranks of successful, published writers. In addition, at this moment, I am dealing with a serious case of writer’s block. The story is there; I just have to find a way to get it out and on the page.

Ah, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Here goes……………..