Just finished “Shadow Divers,” by Robert Kurson, about the discovery and eventual identification of a World War II German U-boat wreck off the coast of New Jersey. The true story centers on two divers who take insane risks, and sacrifice much, to solve a mystery and conquer a challenge.
It’s a fantastic book, lent to me by a friend who understands why people, especially men, gravitate to these kinds of stories.
Near the end, diver John Chatterton reflects on what drives him to repeatedly risk diving deep shipwrecks. It’s not about recovering souvenirs, or identifying a long-lost sub.
“When things are easy a person doesn’t really learn about himself,” he says. “It’s what a person does at the moment of his greatest struggle that shows him who he really is. Some people never get that moment.”
Chatteron’s moment just happened to involve scuba tanks, a drysuit and a fantastic discovery. For others, it’s running marathons. Climbing Everest. Hiking the Appalachian Trail. Or even, quitting your job because you know you were made for more than this.
In a culture that places supreme value on safety and comfort, men find a need to test themselves. I’m convinced that God wired us for adventure and that most of the time we settle for far less. If we can’t find adventure in our careers, we look for it in our leisure time. What we find can be temporarily thrilling … but it’s usually not about the hike, or the climb, or the run. There’s something much deeper going on, and it’s worth taking a risk to find it.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” That’s often attributed to Henry David Thoreau. It’s actually a mashup of a Thoreau passage and a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes … but it doesn’t make the thought any less powerful.
May we break free of that quiet desperation, dive deep and discover a story worth telling.
The Overflow Room 