Incrementalism

There's more to the below post on faith in process.

I have some old yoga tapes by Brian Kest, yogi to the stars, on one of which he says "strength builds in increments. Flexibility builds in increments. If you don't like where you are, that's OK." (I haven't watched the tapes in years. My ability to quote Kest now is a little scary.) When I used to use the tapes, I didn't understand what he meant. I always assumed he was saying it's OK to be less than fit. But I'm slowly figuring him out.

There is no end to Hollywood depictions of success. They tend to involve somebody deciding, early in the film, "I want to succeed" and investing 90 minutes preparing. Then in the last 15 minutes, voila, the person succeeds. The movie "The Pelican Brief," about a prodigy lawyer who, through painstaking research, uncovered the plot to kill two Supreme Court justices, annoyed me. The painstaking research scenes involve a few depictions of an exceedingly attractive Julia Roberts sitting alone in dark library stacks working by lamplight on her laptop, a few musty Supreme Court reporters open on the desk. (I've spent a few late nights alone with a laptop and a Supreme Court reporter, and it ain't pretty.) One terrible TV series depicting fantasized lives of elite gymnasts brought this home to me. In one 45-minute show, the gymnasts started by performing horribly. They were chastised by their coach, who said they would lose the attention of the Olympic selection committee. The gymnasts had a meeting and decided to do better. And then, amid a soundtrack of soul-thrilling music, at the next practice they excelled, really showing the world what they were made of.

Some depictions are better than others. I recommend the movie "Four Minutes" about Roger Bannister's quest to run the four-minute mile. The movie is fairly slow, which really is the point. The training part of the movie should be boring. Building to an excellent result is pure drudgery. And it's an incremental process. Rarely (never?) is there a "make or break" moment in training, or in life.

Today I need to run. It's chilly outside, and I'm a little tired, so I'd like to skip. Then, we have a faculty brown-bag on an environmental law topic. It's not my field, and I have some interesting reading to do on a bankruptcy matter (keep the jokes to yourself!). But my running goals include a three-hour marathon. My career goals include being "a good colleague" and "a scholar." Today's contributions to those goals will be miniscule, but it's an incremental process. Or at least I think so.