N is the new 30?

Nyad (2023)
Director: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

When do we pack everything up and call it a day? Is there a time frame within which we are expected to pursue our dreams, complete our bucket list and prepare our souls and minds to meet the Maker? Should there be limits to our wants, and is there a limit to the number of attempts one should give to an endeavour before calling it quits? Is age ever a deterrent to our effort to succeed? Should we give up and give it a go on another day when the going gets tough? Or surrender to let your descendants do it, or attempt it at the next birth?

Most societies advise individuals to cool off after a certain age. Setting ambitions and fulfilling personal aspirations is left to when they are younger. Just how old is old?

Things have changed drastically over the years. With increased longevity and the general well-being of the populace, we can live to push our bodies and minds beyond societal-sanctioned limits.

Some expertise only comes with experience and time spent in the School of Hard Knocks.

Many prolific writers and participants in extreme sports are usually in the older spectrum of society. Still, when is it then the faculties give up on the person? The logical guess would be multifactorial, ranging from genetics to lifestyles.

We should continue executing our plans like we will live forever while planning our future like there is no tomorrow.

Fauja Singh

Octogenarian Fauja Singh must have thought this when he retired from farming. Burdened with the loss of his wife and son, he was forced to migrate to the U.K. Rather than waiting till the end of days when the Grimm Reaper would do his rounds, Fauja Singh worked towards the debut at his first full marathon at 89 in the London Marathon. After becoming a beacon of hope to many, being featured as Adidas' mascot and PETA's poster boy (as he was a vegetarian), Singh hanged his boots at the ripe age of almost 102.

Diana Nyad was a distance swimmer who failed to swim the 180 km between Cuba and Florida. Thirty years after immersing herself deep into her daytime job of journalism and motivational speaking, someone toyed with the idea of revisiting her 'Cuba to Florida' challenge. She was told she was mentally more robust than her 28-year-old self when she attempted the first swim.

The movie is basically about the preparation, execution, frustrations, and failures that she had to slay as she challenged the marine life-laden hostile sea unaided by a shark cage. 33 years after her first failed attempt, with three further tries, at the age of 64, Nyat successfully swam across the Florida Straits in 53 hours. Unfortunately, the governing bodies did not recognise her feat because no independent observers could ratify her swim.

(P.S. Note: Many of these super achievers who live to tell the stories of feats at mature ages are outliers. Even if one is in the pink of health, or seemingly so, a word of caution is deemed necessary. Of course, one should do the appropriate due diligence. Sure, even after dotting the i's and crossing the t's, the naysayers around you will bring you down to the extent that you start doubting yourself. Their intentions may be innocent, but the damage is done. You begin imagining imaginary conditions. Of course, these outliers can be the yardsticks we hope to attain. "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars," they say; a good adage to remember.

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The things you do...

Powerman Malaysia 2022

SK does not know whether to laugh or cry. If he laughs, it hurts. It is painful when he moves, and he is even afraid to sneeze. Ever since he cracked up a rib in a freak accident, he senses that his naysayers, who have been telling him to slow down with all those extreme sports at this age, are having a field day. They are secretly happy that he is grounded. Short of saying, 'I told you so', he can see the sheer delight in their eyes. Some are even emblazoned to ask, "why this Kolaveri?**"

Yeah, sometimes SK too asks himself, "WHY?" In the same breath, he also replies to himself, "why not?"

Homosapiens, by design, have been made to be agile and mobile. Through many prototypes which failed and multiple disastrous trials runs, Nature has remodelled and re-fashioned Man to be ambulant with such ingenuity. Only over the past 30 years, through the same thinking caps that make Man leap to greater heights, have we become couch potatoes. These prodigal products of Nature, with the boon of cognition, have rewritten the laws of Nature. The glutes, which played an essential role in moving around, somehow lost their purpose. Man now finds more pleasure in accumulating adipose tissue there. It even develops into a fetish by filling it with prostheses that enhance its gargantuan silhouette.  

Yeah, why do people do the things they do? Why do people want to climb a mountain? Why swim across a shark-infested channel to the other side? Why were the Wright brothers fixated on lifting a contraption up in the skies? Why do people write songs or even compose a blog? It is a challenge to push the human body to its limits. This endeavour gives a sense of achievement and immerses the victor in an avalanche of happy hormones. The trade-offs that come from this, the compliments, the honour and the desire to reach even greater heights, are pretty addictive.

There is also a desire to explore the roads rarely walked upon. As humankind learns about himself and the environment around him, he soon realises that so much more that remains unknown. In our short time of sojourn on Earth, a small fraction of eccentric individuals embark upon a journey of self-discovery. Not all will appreciate this.

**the slang lyrics of a popular Tamil song meaning 'why this murderous rage?'' from the movie '3'. It is meant to depict the anguish of a person whose love has been rejected by the girl he is trying to woo. It went on to include an onerous desire to achieve something.

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The Apollonian-Dionysian balance

Rush (2013)


Friederich Nietzsche identified enduring dichotomies within and amongst us that make our world tick. These two attitudes, both named after Greek Gods, have clashing features. Apollo, son of Zeus, stands for order, logic and reason while Dionysius, the God of Wine, represents chaos, madness and drunkenness. Nietzsche thinks we need both. It emerges from nature itself and can be applied in our day-to-day activities, from art, psychology, ethics to politics.

Apollonian way of doing things can be visualised how a scientist functions with his obsession with precision, discipline and punctuality. The Dionysian effect can be seen in music and art form, which may appear chaotic and not following the rules but nevertheless is music as it is, pleasant to the ears and emotive.

Nietzche saw the fusion of frenzied energy of the Dionysian to be applied constructively inside an Apollonian framework as ideal.

This biopic depiction of the professional rivalry between two F1 racing legends, Niki Lauda and James Hunt brings us to a time when F1 racing meant booze, girls and drug. Even though the movie depicts them as mortal enemies, in real life, they were close friends and had kept in touch for a long time.

James Hunt is the impulsive hard-drinking, the hard-partying late-night bad boy of F1. Lauda, on the other hand, is a fastidious, calculative and disciplined racer who prepares his every move meticulously and goes to bed early.

A memorable quote in the film goes like this. 'Drivers are revered not because of what they do, driving around in circles but because of their brush with death. The closer they are with death, the more people find them fascinating.' I suppose the same applies to other professions that deal with or hold people's life at the clutch of their hands. This would include people in the medical fraternity or in the mafia business.

This opposing features in the drivers form a compelling narrative for a cliffhanging adrenaline-fueled, rubber-burning suspense at the F1 track set in the early to mid-70s. The excellent direction by Ron Howard makes the experience more enjoyable.

Life would be boring if everyone conforms to a universal set of rules and practises fair play all the way. The Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy remains a useful way to view art, psychology, society and every other aspect of life.

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