Why am I paddling anyway?
I could just save the money I’m spending on gas this weekend.
I could stay home and get so much done!
Why am I doing something that scares me?
I am going to die in a freak accident in an undercut on a class III rapid.
This isn’t that important to me anyway.
Yeah right, kiddo. Nice try. Rob Horn calls these thoughts “the demons.” And the best way to get rid of them is to fire it up, paddle like crazy, and get addicted all over again.
My friend Scott mused (referring to life in general): how does someone know what it is they want? For me, there are moments of magnetic clarity when my gut takes the wheel – when I watch a C1 stern pivot turn and my neurons fire in one big, collective “YES!!! *that* is what I want to be doing!” Reason and logic don’t have much say in it.
But these are just moments. Then there is the in-between… packing for the trips and driving all night, icing sore shoulders and gluing foam with contact cement, flat water drills and bruised legs. I get through all this gladly because I know that the next time I get a paddle in my hands, and usually within about 10 seconds, my gut will remind me what it is that I want.
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