ENDURANCE

A few years ago, I was obsessed with reading survivor memoirs and stories - people lost at sea or in the desert or jungle or up a mountain at 22000 feet.  After a while I began to see certain traits and actions survivors have in common and when I read Laurence Gonzales' wonderful book, Deep Survival, about the psychology of survival, it confirmed what I had thought.
      Survivors stay calm. They have an ability to come quickly into the moment, to take stock of where they and what they have and to begin to act. They may think it would be great if someone came to save me, but that idea goes quickly into the background. They are responsible, look to no one but themselves. Their senses sharpen and even in the midst of crisis many survivors talk about looking out at the natural world, its beauty, with a sense of wonder. 
     A survivor doesn't say, "I have to crawl three miles down the mountain - how can I do it with a broken leg?" She says, "I only have to make it to that rock over there." Coming into the moment and not looking beyond it, breaking things down into small possible goals - along with some luck, of course - don't guarantee survival, but they do increase the odds.
     Of course, I asked myself why I was so obsessed with these stories. I realized that what most amazed me was how survivors keep going, even when they're perfectly aware the odds are against them. Some of the survivors I read about talked about the body taking over; if for instance they had to crawl down that mountain, the repetitive motion of step after step put them in a kind of trance in which pain seemed beside the point. There was no thought except to take the next step.
     I couldn't help but ask how I would do in that situation. Once I asked that question, I saw what I was after in these stories. I wanted to know about endurance, the ability to keep on taking step after step. Most people, I think, imagine themselves as the hero, as the one who will come out alive. But I wanted to know because I wasn't at all sure I could do it, not at all sure I had the right stuff. I remembered the many times I'd given up trying, sometimes small things that didn't have much consequence, but also some big things as well. I  was looking for inspiration, for hope that it might turn out that in a crisis I might be able to survive. 
     Evidently, you can't predict beforehand who will survive. There are many surprises. But now I have those stories in my head and I know some of the things that help people endure. It isn't hard to see that those qualities aren't about only physical survival; they're as much a help to emotional and spiritual survival as well. They're a kind of blueprint deep inside me. Now I can at least imagine that I wouldn't give up trying to survive.