Failure is perception.
Endurance. Why humans explore the edges of comfort knowing very well that suffering and sacrifice are bound to follow.
The other day I read somewhere that the Arctic continent wasn’t discovered until 1820. That’s only 202 years ago. For context, around this time Florida had just been annexed into the United States, Napoleon Bonaparte died, and the Missouri Compromise had just gotten passed. Oh, and tomatoes were proved to be non-poisonous in 1820 as well. (Unless you, like me, are still skeptical and haven’t acquired a taste for them).
Almost a hundred years later, in 1914, a ship named “Endurance” sailed from London on the exact day World War I started. It embarked on a mission to carry its crew to the Arctic continent so they could be the first in known humanity to cross it by foot. The expedition was led by a man and legend, Ernest Shackleton. The expedition failed, but what the crew endured, their valor, their grit, and their love for living to the brink demonstrated the lengths people can go and still keep their spirits high. The expedition failed, but what happened next you could say was more successful in exposing human courage, leadership, and love.
Endurance [noun]: the ability or strength to continue or last, especially despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions.
Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Picture yourself alone. Everything around you is white. A blinding whiteness above you, below you, around you. As far as the eye can see.
You’re also wet. Dripping, like you jumped into a pool. Your hair is wet, your shoes and socks feel heavy and soaked. And everything around you is desolate and white.
And now you start shivering. You’re cold and wet and everything around you is white and bright. Your head feels cold because your hair is frozen. Your eyes begin watering from the cold and as the tears stream down your cheek, they freeze.
The frozen tears stick to your face and you have to scrape them off, leaving a raw patch of bloody skin. Your fingertips and toes are so frozen that the pain isn’t even there anymore.
You feel weak because you’re hungry. The last thing in your stomach was dog pemmican. A paste of dried meat from your own dogs you had to shoot the previous day mixed with fat from the blubber of a seal. You are thirsty because the only water around you is salty and you’re running low on fuel from blubber so you can’t melt ice water. You’re weak, you’re hungry, you’re thirsty, you’re wet and frozen, and everything around you is white and bright.
You suddenly hear a deafening crack sound. The ground tore apart like a wound oozing under your feet. You hear shouting and want to move to safety but your feet are frozen from frostbite and gangrene.
You are surrounded by about 25 other men inside a rickety wooden boat that looks silly and hopeless compared to the massive ice floes around you. You are still hungry and thirsty and wet and frozen and everything around you is white.
You only have one pair of clothes, the ones on your back that are filthy with oil accumulated since the day you left London. Two years ago.
Your main ship, Endurance, had gotten stuck in the ice like an almond inside a chocolate bar. You had to abandon it as it got crushed by ice and now are at the mercy of good luck, tiny wooden spare boats, and your leader, Shackleton.
You are not alone in your suffering. One man suffering a heart attack, another with saltwater boils, another getting a tooth polled without medication, another who got a foot amputated without any anesthesia. It would be no use spending energy complaining. You all signed up for this anyway. All 26 of you are hungry and thirsty and wet and cold and the only thing you’ve seen for months on end is whiteness. Just ice.
You keep an eye out for sea lions and penguins who might offer a meal. You are busy burying the bodies of dogs you had to kill and bury them in the ice so that their meat can remain frozen to be eaten later. You are wet while escaping an ice floe you fell into the water. Your wet clothes freeze on your skin and turn hard. You can’t change out of them because there is nothing to change into.
In all the world there is no desolation more complete than a polar night trapped in an ice age with no warmth, no life, no movement. Going without sunlight day after day, week after week, during the peak of winter. And then going without darkness day after day, week after week, during the peak of summer.
And keep shivering, keep being hungry, keep being wet, keep being weak, keep being frozen, keep being alert for cracking ice, keep being sleepless. Hold that all in your body for two long years.
It’s a chaotic confusing nightmare. In the end, all 26 men survive. But how they endured what they endured is what’s important.
Shackleton’s Endurance expedition is a testament to human will, courage, unwavering determination, persistence, attitude, camaraderie, trust, and love of life. Seeking discomfort as proof of what humans are capable of enduring. Sure, their original mission of traversing Antarctica failed, but their survival and odyssey pale the original mission in comparison.
It's an exemplification of humans always wanting to explore their limits and explore the edges of comfort knowing very well that there will be suffering and sacrifice.
Several times I had to remind myself I was reading a non-fiction book. The events that unfold and what the crew goes through are unimaginable. But above all, it was their attitude, laughter, and happiness that helped them rise above it all. Joy, despite the incredible suffering and chaos.
“Here was a patched and battered 22-foot boat, daring sail alone across the world's most tempestuous sea, her rigging festooned with a threadbare collection of clothing and half-rotten sleeping bags. Her crew consisted of six men whose faces were black with caked soot and half-ridden by matted beards, whose bodies were dead white from constant soaking in saltwater. In addition, their faces were marked with ugly round patches of missing skin where frost bites had eaten into their flesh. Their legs from knees down were chafed and raw…And all of them were afflicted with saltwater boils on their wrists, ankles, and buttocks. But had someone unexpectedly come upon this bizarre scene, undoubtedly the most striking thing would have been the attitude of the men…relaxed, even faintly jovial--almost as if they were on an outing of some sort."
”After a while, they even began to sing. It occurred to Shackleton that they could easily have been mistaken for a picnic party out for a lark--except perhaps for their woebegone appearance."
If you want a reminder that we humans can endure more than we think, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Endurance by Alfred Lansing. While the ship may not have excelled at endurance, its crew certainly did.
Editor’s update: The Endurance shipwreck was discovered on March 5th, 2022, 107 years after it sank and just shy of a month since I wrote this piece. It just so happened to also be Ernest Shackleton’s 100th anniversary of his funeral. Wow, just wow.
Shout out to Benji who gifted it to me in a book exchange. You know me too well ;)
UPDATE: I was watching a TV show today and they pulled out a bottle of "The Shackleton Whiskey" and the character made a joke: "the kind of whiskey a man would freeze to death for." And I almost choked! I looked it up and Shackleton had requested a specific malt whiskey for the expedition and that whiskey was later renamed in his honor.