I am reading David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, and I’ve just reached the place where he quotes Conrad’s Youth. Now, I have always loved that story. I memorized my then favorite quote when I was twenty, making my way about Europe on a rail pass:
“I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last forever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon, too soon—before life itself.”
At twenty, I felt those lines so fiercely, an anticipated nostalgia along with the angst of missing out, of somewhere choosing the wrong path because I simply did not have time to take all paths.
Mitchell does not mention those particular lines. He chose the final two paragraphs of the story; I have them marked in my copy too. The ones that caught my attention today, for their truth—
“… tell me, wasn’t that the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young and had nothing, on the sea that gives nothing, except hard knocks—and sometimes a chance to feel your strength—that only—what you all regret?”
A chance to feel your strength.
So hard to come by, so difficult to earn. Because before you can feel your strength, you’ve got to build it, and that takes time, pressure, pain, and courage… and opportunity. Most things most young people do these days do not take any particular physical strength or courage. Those that could do (such as most sports) tend to purposefully avoid any potential danger, de-emphasize loss (everyone’s a winner, everyone gets a trophy) and make it as easy as possible (special equipment, water breaks every time you turn around. I don’t know how I survived without the regulation bottle of water when I was a child). And that’s just physical challenge and strength. Where do you find moral challenge, not the quotidian moral challenges we all face (don’t cheat, don’t shoplift, don’t be spiteful and a bad loser), but big ones where an error on your part can mean the destruction of the team. Where the Enemy is obvious and right and wrong can pretend to be black and white, and it’s the little choices where things are grey and murky and potentially dangerous.
I believe though, that it’s the physical test of strength, the fight, the danger, and the ultimate victory where the strength of youth (and perhaps beyond) is most purely felt. Physical challenges simplify life and allow you to focus entirely on the moment. The feat of strength becomes moral in and of itself, through the discipline that brought you to the moment of strength.
There are activities that bring you to that physical test that allows you to feel your strength, but not many. I imagine even sailors, nowadays, find it rare… at least, the sailors on the giant merchant ships and military carriers. Perhaps the military, at times. Martial arts. Certainly riding race horses. Other sports. But most people will never get the chance.
It’s part of the attraction of militancy, war, ISIS… well that is a theme for another blog. But certainly part of what makes people turn to ISIS is the search for the opportunity to test their strength. That and the allure of the story. Somehow ISIS manages to tell a better story, and part of that story is the promised opportunity to feel your strength.
What else does Mitchell quote? The final lines:
“And we all nodded at him: the man of finance, the man of accounts, the man of law, we all nodded at him over the polished table that like a still sheet of brown water reflected our faces, lined, wrinkled; our faces marked by toil, by deceptions, by success, by love; our weary eyes looking still, looking always, looking anxiously for something out of life, that while it is expected is already gone—has passed unseen, in a sigh, in a flash—together with the youth, with the strength, with the romance of illusions.”