Movember is Personal

Day: 48 — Position: N19 39’ W173 14’
Odometer since Waikiki: about 1,657M
Distance to Northern Marianas: 1,604M
Sea surface temperature: 81.9F - 27.7C

OCEAN ROWING RECORDS AS RUNNING TOTALS
Solo career total in days by Waikiki: 925 now 973 (New World Record)
Overall career total in days by Waikiki: 1,009 now 1,057 (New World Record)
Solo career total in miles by Waikiki: 22,173M now about 23,803M (New World Record)

———oOo———

Please grab yourself a cup of coffee as this is a long post. I am writing this blog update to say that I am thankful for still being alive. It is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. after all.

In my November 3rd blog update, I introduced the annual Movember charitable campaign where Mo-Bros take action to raise awareness of men's health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer and men's suicide. They grow a mustache in solidarity during the month of November to create a conversation piece to spread the word. Mo-Sisters encourage and “tolerate” these mustaches while helping raise funds. The Movember Foundation runs the international Movember charity event, housed at Movember.com — you can still share the cause, promote it, and plan a more active round next November. I promised that I would write about mental health and suicide this month, something I know a little bit about.

I grew up in a military family that uprooted and relocated to a new assignment every couple years. As a result, I learned to make friends quickly, but my childhood friendships were short lived and life felt transient, without roots. I attended a boarding school for three years in middle school which finally gave me a sense of stability for the first time. Then my father was assigned to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. During my formative freshman through junior years, I attended the Brussels American High School, which was a unique nurturing environment. I excelled in this multicultural, multiracial, multilingual setting with excellent grades while advancing to become a varsity regular on cross country, wrestling and track & field teams. Those stints back-to-back over three-years provided a foundation; friendships from those years still warm my heart, after all these years. At the same time, the three years in Belgium were especially demanding on a Turkish teenager trying to develop his identity. I became a “third culture kid” belonging neither here nor there. I didn’t quite fit socially and remained a bit awkward, a misfit perhaps, often fearful under my own skin, while trying always to hide it. I learned that I had more control over the outcome when I applied myself to my studies and to sports. My GPA improved with more study, quickly leading to advanced placement classes. Likewise, dedication and training delivered medals in sports. It felt easier to pursue performance in academics and sports as a path to gain social acceptance. A letter jacket decorated with well-earned pins and badges, acknowledgment in banquets and encouragement for academic achievement while in Brussels, served to establish the direct link between performance and reward. 

I spent my senior year back at the same school in Turkey that I had left: Bornova Anadolu Lisesi in İzmir studying hard for the college entrance exams, and eventually placing 77th out of some 400k entrants in 1979. My high school did not have a wrestling team so I was commuting three times a week to an off-campus stadium for practices. The celebration of performance, the cheerleading squad on the sidelines, award ceremonies and the push to excel in sports and academics, were replaced with the not so subtle threat of being a nobody unless I got into a good department at a select university. Athleticism by then was a big part of my identity. I remained the only wrestler during my senior year at high school then surprisingly also during my undergraduate years at Boğaziçi University in İstanbul.

Commuting four hours to off campus practices resumed three days a week while completing a bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering. I took second place in my senior year in the Turkish national intercollegiate wrestling championships. This was a good result considering I was up against full time wrestlers representing sports academies from around the nation. To be able to take leave to represent my university in the nationals earlier during my sophomore year, I was told to present a doctor’s report to be granted a makeup exam in physics. Only if one were sick on the day of the exam, could one ask for a makeup. I carried my objection first to the dean, then all the way up to the university president, arguing that I was to compete in the nationals to prove that I was the healthiest and the strongest in the nation, yet I was being asked to find a willing doctor to provide false testimony in print in order to perpetuate a deliberate lie. Such was the “encouragement” — I stood up against a misguided system preferring to remain an outcast, and spending a significant amount of time on sports and club activities. That lowered my GPA some, but made me whole, earning me the “sportsman of the 1983 class” award. This preference carried on into my graduate studies in the United States and later into my professional life as an engineer.

In 1997, I began tracing my finger across a world map hanging on the wall in our software development lab in Silver Spring, Maryland. Could I go around the Northern Hemisphere by human power? It was never the corner office that colored my daydreams. That idea later evolved into a proper circumnavigation of the world where one has to (a) start and end at the same location, (b) travel generally in the same direction around the globe and most importantly (c) pass through at least one pair of antipodes along the way. The last requirement acknowledges that the Earth is a sphere and to go around such a geometric shape, requires traveling comparable distances in opposing hemispheres, ideally averaging a great circle. British adventurer Jason Lewis (http://jasonexplorer.com) became the first person in 2007 to accomplish a circumnavigation by human power with varying partners on his ocean crossings. It would take him 13 years to complete it, working to save money between each phase of his journey to fund the same. His commitment was inspiring.

By 1999, I had a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, another in Engineering Mechanics and also an MBA. All these degrees did not prove useful when the dot-com industry crash hit the Seattle market in 2000. I was laid off during a company takeover, so pursued temp jobs while looking for work elsewhere. I had multiple interviews with two major international consulting companies to the point of expecting offer letters. Then hiring freezes following the 9/11 attacks killed all prospects. Market events had conspired to push me off the cart. Like many others, I lost faith in the system and began reevaluating my “career.”  Something physical would suit me well, I thought, so I entered the Seattle Fire Department exams. About  the same time I committed to start the certification process with the American Mountain Guides Association. A week after I took the required Wilderness First Responder course, the climbing accident which claimed the life of Göran Kropp in September 2002 changed everything. I was his belayer.

With the blessings of Nancy, I cashed out my savings and retirement funds to pursue plans for a circumnavigation by human power. Göran had encouraged me on the day we first met in 2001. My new plan was to reach the highest summit on six different continents in his memory after reaching their respective foothills by human power. Göran had reached Everest this way in 1996 (You should read my Nov 11 update now if you haven’t already).  

My circumnavigation by human power began at Bodega Bay on July 10 in 2007. The truth is that pure defiance really brought me across the finish line in 2012. I was not getting media coverage or significant sponsorship, two beasts which feed on each other. I became obsessed with making sure that I finished what I started. “Either help or get out of the way” became my mantra; I was determined to finish despite everything, including Nancy’s doubts about losing meaning. She began questioning me. “Where’s the joy that I saw in you at the beginning?” These concerns were turning into huge challenges for her as she painfully watched my defiance play out. I wasn’t even sure if she would be there when this all ended. It was a huge risk.

When I finally returned home in the late summer of 2012, once the circumnavigation was completed, the magic of the journey was gone. I was exhausted. I felt broken inside. There was a boatload of emotion, resentment, anger, and frustration all now pouring out of me, needing to be released. While on the move around the world, strangers wanted to know more, offered to help, found a way to uplift my journey. Once back home though, I became just another face in the crowd; I had to figuratively wave my hand to see whether anyone was interested in hearing about what I had just achieved, earning 15 Guinness World Records. Seattle news outlets were unresponsive and speaking gigs were not materializing. I had racked up a huge budget deficit which needed to be paid back by speaking engagements or sponsorships, but there were no takers. What felt natural on the journey now felt more like a sales job once back home. So, the message that I internalized as a result of this disinterest was that I did not matter. Unfortunately, this feeling was becoming my new reality. I became despondent, I caved. In order to counteract this, I thought: “I must get back out there and demonstrate mastery.” I wasn’t going to stay locked down in a place where I felt I did not matter. Money of course was an issue, and we already were stretched financially and emotionally to be where we were. Realizing that I could not budge, the feeling of entrapment descended upon me like a dark cloud. 

Imagine yourself with three graduate degrees, various professional certifications and 15 Guinness World Records. You have spent your entire life gathering the social currency which should result in a nice career. Failing that, you are then denied the rightful celebration after a massive five-year physical accomplishment during and after which recognition or sponsorships don’t materialize to the extent that you need. Neither the nonprofit for education nor the dedication to a friend’s memory seem to mean much to society at large, and your grief becomes yours to shoulder alone. That is a heavy yoke and a solemn realization to carry around the world. In the end, it all seems for naught and the final traces of that tenuous link in your mind between hard work and reward finally evaporates.

That’s the mental state in which I wallowed for a full 18 months after I completed my circumnavigation in July 2012. I could not savor my accomplishments, nor could I see the full half of the glass. For 5 years, the journey was my rudder and my compass, I the engine channeling all of my resources toward the finish line. Then I was abruptly thrown into neutral, and I lost my bearings. I wandered without meaning or purpose. I was a breathing, walking shell of my old self unable to engage with the world around me. Tragically I couldn’t function as the president of our non-profit with the goal to educate and inspire children, either. The youthful excitement of children used to feed my soul when they lit up after realizing the possibilities. Now if I stood in front of them, I felt like an imposter, lying that if they gave it their best shot, everything would be alright. Call it PESD for post expedition stress disorder, I kept spiraling into a darker and deeper place. My load of mental anguish without an outlet was turning on myself. It is a miracle I survived that episode before I took the last step across the threshold. Paradoxically it seemed at the time as if that were the only remaining act to take back the reins over my life.

As an athlete, I had long mastered the skills of visualization. I could picture in my mind a wrestling move, a judo throw, my fingertips straining while my feet pushed against the starting blocks until the gun, crossing the finish line, pulling a contrived climbing move on Yosemite granite, or walking a summit ridge. I could close my eyes and see the infinite loop perfecting the imagery with each repetition, wiring my synapses in the process prior to execution. That same visualization skill began incessantly dry running the suicidal ideation, working the details, place, manner, time of day, that there should be no mess to clean up after me or a body to bury... To say that I came close, is an understatement. Nancy obviously observed this inner turmoil and pleaded with me on many occasions to seek professional help. She feared the worst, and she knew my state of mind was worsening with each passing day. Without her unwavering support and presence by my side, the outcome may have been different. I finally managed to get the help I needed and turned the corner towards living again.

Eventually I reconnected with my physical self, slowly began taking gradual steps back to fitness and started the process of shedding expectations. For my own sanity, I had to learn to let go, to moderate my defiance and to remember that I was not in this alone. There are not too many of us in the world who venture out to face nature on her rawest terms, who test the limits of what’s possible then push that further back. We demonstrate that such limits primarily exist in our own minds and that only by facing them would we know for certain. 

On that note, I will leave you with one of my all-time favorite quotes. John Fairfax, who was one of the pioneers in ocean rowing (first man to row an ocean single-handed, Canary Islands to Florida in 1969 then, with Sylvia Cook, first to row across the Pacific, San Francisco to Australia, 1971-72), said at a press conference in Las Vegas:

“I don’t think that those of us who have felt the need to climb a mountain or row an ocean have done it, or will do it, “because it’s there” but “because we are here.” Without us mountains and oceans have no meaning by themselves: they “are there” and always will be but, for a very, very few, their presence inspires a dream of pitting our puny strength against their might, and to conquer not them, but ourselves. The quest to prove worthy of an almost inconceivable challenge is our greatest reward. To us it is not the final result that matters, but how we measure up to our self-imposed task to confront and do battle with Nature at its rawest. And those who die in the attempt, do not die in defeat; quite the opposite, their death is, in many ways, a triumph, the symbol of that indomitable human spirit that will break before it bends. To test what we are made of, that is our pursuit. “

Of course, I cannot resist sharing this popular passage from Theodore Roosevelt’s much longer 23 April 1910 speech at the Sorbonne in Paris:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them 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, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high 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 neither know victory nor defeat.”

So, as I sign off today, please be well. Take care of your emotional self. Then ask your family and friends regularly how they really are doing. Make it your mission to tell them that they are not alone in this world. Do that not just during the annual Movember.com campaign, but year-round, because you truly care.

Happy Thanksgiving.