Life Is Waterskiing
Life is waterskiing. Let me tell you why I think that.
In waterskiing, there are two equilibria1: being in the water and being on top of the water. The challenge of this sport is to move from the first equilibrium to the second.
It’s hard! When you are in the water, it seems like the universe is conspiring to keep you there. Your first attempts to get up onto the surface will likely fail and you’ll feel a little disappointed, even frustrated. But by using the forward velocity of the boat that is towing you - and by using some skill and positioning your skis and arms and legs just right - you eventually figure out how move to that second equilibrium.
It’s exhilarating when you do it. When you are on top of the water, you are laughing, and it seems like the universe is laughing with you. It’s not that easy to stay there - and yet not too hard! You are intensely aware of every moment that you are up on top - precisely because staying on top of the water is sufficiently challenging that it forces you to be aware, but not so challenging as to create an anxiety that consumes your attention. The overarching experience is one of flow2: of something that is continually challenging and continually rewarding. (Well, at least when waterskiing is at its best.)
No one stays on top of the water forever. Eventually - whether because the boat slows or you let go or you make some mistake - you descend back to that state of being in the water.
So it is in life. There are times when we are in the water and everything we do can feel like a struggle. Movement forward is slow and sluggish. And then we get up on top - and suddenly the movement forward is easy, fluid, and exhilarating.
It may seem like the meaning of life is to get up on top of the water. After all, that state in which everything is easy and fluid is a state of power. Economists would say you possess capital when you’re up there. (If you prefer a physics perspective: you have potential energy when on top of the water.) Who wouldn’t want to have that - and have it all of the time?
But I don’t think life is about that. Let’s take a step back and look at the whole waterskiing experience. If you had a video of it from start to finish, what would it look like? You would see some moments of exhilaration on top of the water and some moments of sluggishness in the water. You would observe some exciting moments in which you are surprised to find yourself suddenly surfing the waves - and other surprising moments in which you wipe out and find yourself suddenly submerged. What makes a waterskiing experience is having all those moments. If you spliced any of them out of the video, something would be missing.
Similarly, life is about getting up and falling down, about being thrilled to be on top of the world and being somewhat less thrilled to be stuck down in the froth. The experience of all these things - of moving from one to the next and on from there - is the video, or narrative, of your life.
If you’re not familiar with the concept of equilibrium: what I mean is a state that is stable and, for that reason, tends to persist over time.
See Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row.