Take a moment and look up at the night sky; from here, the universe looks peaceful and orderly. Unfortunately, it’s anything but peaceful and orderly.
Delusion and Illusion
We inhabit a quiet corner of a mostly unremarkable galaxy supercluster that’s just one in trillions in the observable universe. The universe could be a million times bigger; we’ll never know.
Within our small corner of the universe, a stable balance has emerged. You and I don’t step outside in the morning peering upwards in anticipation of a new age of planetary bombardment, nor do we seriously consider the possibility that a star not bound by static formations could come careening towards us and eject Earth from the Milky Way at any point, real though these possibilities be.1
On a human level, we don’t even really fear terrestrial threats anymore. The Doomsday clock stands, in December 2021, at 100 seconds to midnight; it’s been edging closer to midnight since the turn of the century. Despite this, I certainly don’t lose much sleep over Denmark’s public perception of WHO efficacy. Neither do I drop my morning coffee as I’m reminded that both the US and Russia have withdrawn from several landmark nuclear treaties. These things just don’t concern us day-to-day. Sure, climate change is a pressing issue, and I try to do my part, but I’m yet to stop eating and allow myself to waste away to give mother nature one less mouth to feed.
What I, and I’m reassured most others fear most of the time, is ourselves. We ping-pong from one calamity to another, rattling around in an 80-year-long pinball machine, wondering whether that text we just sent will alienate the recipient forever, if our choice of outfit will ostracise us from our social circle, or if we’ll be cancelled for accidentally committing a social faux pas in a self-indulgent article on a niche website.
Simply put, we’re our own worse enemy: after all, you’re more likely to commit suicide than be killed in conflict.2
Behind this unfortunate day-to-day reality lies a sinister truth: we have complete control over our destiny. That’s what makes each of us so utterly terrifying: every day, we edge close to becoming living deities.
Fancy ending world hunger? Not a problem. Want to slow, stop and reverse climate change? Great plan; we’ll get right on it.
Everything we want to accomplish is, in theory, possible. The science for a Dyson Sphere or an Alzheimer’s cure might not be here yet, but rest assured, it will arrive – if we fuel its development. Of course, there will always be compromise and trade-offs, and we have to be willing to make those, but as technology develops, we will have the ability to mould our planet and our cosmic neighbourhood beyond our wildest dreams.
Where Would You Like to Start?
These are big questions, and those brave enough to tackle them probably aren’t thinking about them as much as they should. What we all have to concern ourselves about today – right now – is how we want to mould our individual lives and the future of the communities we’re a part of.
For many of us, the rowing community (see, I got there eventually) is a critical part of our lifestyle infrastructure. Admittedly, I’m a little more removed than I was a few years ago, but it still demands I wake up at some unholy hour, that I make far less than the going rate for my work, and that I spend more time clad head-to-toe in waterproof gear than anyone else would deem reasonable.
For the most part, these are trade-offs I’m comfortable with. Through rowing, I’ve met genuinely enchanting people, enjoyed a plethora of opportunities most will never get to experience, and developed a meaningful connection with people of all ages and from all walks of life.
But it’s not perfect.
In fact, rowing – just shy of being the antithesis of perfection – is a quagmire of nuanced issues that differently impact every athlete, coach, and supporter.
We’ve discussed the issues that rowing faces, such as sexism, elitism, a lack of commercialisation and an unhealthy obsession with secrecy, many, many times; I’m not going to go over old ground.
On a fundamental level, this all amounts to an identity crisis: What is rowing actually about?
For years rowing was able to hide. Clad in paradoxically outlandish outfits, we were able to slip between the cracks like some kind of secret society, meeting in run-down shacks on river banks – or occasionally at fantastical multi-day events – and scheme until we keeled over, leaving the next generation to continue our work. In short, the world at large couldn’t care less what rowers were up to.
This, however, is not the age we’re entering.
A New Age
Rowing is coming under increased scrutiny from both the media and the general public. Allegations of abusive coaching structures, sexual misconduct and bullying have always floated around the circuit, only now they’re not discussed in hushed tones in boat bays; they’re plastered on the front pages of the national press.
And rightly so.3
We want rowing to grow and penetrate every stratum, and with that comes the burden of increased responsibility.
Every rower is delighted to see that our sport tops the Olympic Funding charts, but don’t be surprised when our athletes’ underwhelming performance comes under scrutiny: this was an implicit mechanism of the contract we signed with the broader public.
Few varsity games receive the attention that the Boat Races do, and very few rowers turn their noses up at the chance to watch some of the nation’s best athletes battle it out on one of the best courses in the world. But when millions of viewers tune in to watch, don’t be shocked when the tabloids come searching for gossip – what did you expect?
We must ask ourselves, truthfully, are we a sport for everyone?
The answer doesn’t have to be yes, so don’t let yourself virtue signal by jumping to Twitter and proclaiming that we’re the only sport in the world that can teach resilience, integrity, teamwork and a handful of other buzz words: we’re not.
If the answer is yes, we need to pile resources into feeder programmes, push hard for commercialisation, infiltrate every nook of the UK, and accept that the average standard of competition will decrease.4 If the answer is no, we need to scrap the development of learner shells, focus exclusively on improving high-performance centres, and accept that BT Sport and the BBC might get fed up with showing our world and reconcile ourselves with a retreat into the shadows.5
I’m writing this on the 30th December, and I don’t expect us to decide by the end of the year, but we need to be laying the foundations that would support either route forwards; these include, but are not limited to:
- Athlete welfare: how many rowers and coxes have you seen burnout in your rowing career? We need to understand the fundamental causes of unhappiness in the boathouse and develop a manifesto for change.
- Upskilling: if you’ve been in the rowing world for three years or more and you’re not at least basically competent as a cox, coach, sculler, rower and boatman, you have been failed. We’re a community of highly-able people; let’s not streamline everyone from a young age.
- Fun: rowing is often a rather serious sport, and at times it has to be. But in most situations, we can make it incredibly fun. Life is short; why would you choose to spend it being miserable?
What Now?
Just like the night sky, the rowing community seems peaceful from afar. You’ll return to training in the new year, and nothing will have changed. Your squad meme account will be just as funny, and that ergo in the corner still won’t work correctly; on a macro level, everything will be familiar.
But make no mistake, the night sky isn’t calm. Asteroids, rogue stars, planets and even our own satellites whizz around us at unbelievable speed, and one day, something will hit us. Then, we’ll have to make a choice: evolve or die.
“Things are better than ever before. Things are still quite bad. Things can get much worse. This adds up to a somewhat optimistic view because if you realise things are better than before, this means we can make them even better.”
Yuval Noah Harari
1This is, technically, a real possibility, and it’s already happened. Around 70,000 years ago, a red dwarf-brown dwarf binary system moved through the Ort Cloud at the edge of our solar system and may have sent a shower of asteroids our way – but it could take millions of years for them to reach Earth. The odds of a star passing through the inner solar system and ejecting Earth are estimated to be around 1:100,000 in the next 5,000,000,000 years. Sleep well.
2In 2010, there were an estimated 498,123 homicides globally. 796,083 individuals committed suicide in the same period (Data from OurWorldInData).
3That comment alone will upset many rowing fundamentalists, but we can’t have our cake and eat it.
4This last line will upset some people, and in some sense, it is a flaw of averages (the ever-comical example being the calculation that proves humans have, on average, less than one heart). What I’m getting at here is that, from an objective stance, the average speed of a gold-medal-winning crew will be lower as the number of competitions increase. This is factually neither good nor bad.
5My opinion here isn’t relevant, but this clearly isn’t a binary problem – the solution will lie somewhere between the two extremes outlined.
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