Nyad

 "naiad" or "nyad" in Greek means water nymph, a recurring theme in the movie I watched on a whim today about Diana Nyad, the famous swimmer who swam from Cuba to Florida, 110 miles through the gulf stream and shark-infested Caribbean waters. I'd only know her name through Jeopardy clues over the years, as trivia circles like "first ever person to" accomplishments and adventures that had a lot national buzz, and apparently it was a huge buzz in 2013 that Nyad accomplished this feat......at 64 years old! (Where was I when this story broke? For many years of my life I just completely tuned out the news and current events, apparently, or just completely dislodged this story from my brain). 2013....I vaguely remember Batkid, Edward Snowden, the Boston Marathan bombing......yup, that's about it. I was barely part of this world participating in its daily events. 

But yes the story of Diana Nyad is actually one of perserverance and various failures and believing that one is never too old to do something......we're a society that incentives being young and accomplishments...I always envied the Forbes "30 Under 30" editions and "College Students making a difference," especially after I had passed those ages/milestones and hadn't accomplished what those people had. So for a swimmer to come back after 30 years from her last attempt to cross from Cuba to Florida is really a pretty significant feat, a reminder for us that as the movie says, "a diamond is just a lump of coal that stuck with it." (I believe the actual quote from Henry Kissinger is "a diamond is just a lump of coal that did well under pressure,") but both apply as inspirational messages. I appreciate those stories about perseverance and personal accomplishment that also highlight the trials and tribulations that it took to get there, the toll that it took to get there. Too often nowadays I see people wanting to get famous or get rich with the easy route, like snapping your fingers and turning into a millionaire (for a crazy story about how making crazy amounts of money insanely quickly, read "Going Infinite" by Michael Lewis about Sam Bankman Fried, who was just convicted of criminal fraud this week and will be spending quite a lot of time in jail now), and the grind-it-out determination and grid and "10,000 hours" gets overlooked as part of that process of accomplishment something great. Diana Nyad apparently had to fend off sharks, cold water, violent waves, and jellyfish attacks while swimming the 110 miles (doesn't feel like a lot for walking, running, or driving.....but swimming? I don't think I've swum even half a mile consecutively my whole life). Just the logistics of getting a boat to be by her side monitoring, having to refuel with food every few hours (because she's burning so many calories every hour), keeping her head above water, keeping an even pace (apparently a lot of Beatles songs helped set the beat), not suffering any diseases, darkness, and just the fact of being 64 years old! My dad stopped playing tennis with me around age 60 because he couldn't run anymore, my mom had issues with her kidneys at 64, and both just go on long walks now. 

I met a guy today at chess club who mentioned during our brief conversation between games (yes chess players talk, not just bury their heads into the chess game) that he was locked up for awhile and played chess there- I should mention this gentleman was not Sam Bankman Fried. I did a double take at first, hopefully not rudely, but recovered quickly and kept the conversation about chess, but it was certainly unexpected information: here was a guy around my age who was talking to me normally and seemed pretty friendly, nothing out of place, who had just revealed to me he had spent time in prison. Talk about a big setback in life; but he got through it and is rediscovering his life, partly through chess. Him and Diana Nyad remind me that there are people suffering much bigger setbacks than I have the last few years (not getting on Jeopardy, not having a baby yet), and I really haven's suffered real loss that compares to spending one's whole life dedicated to trying to accomplish a single goal of crossing Cuba to Florida, but then not completing it three times in 2 years (like Diana Nyad had in 2011 and 2012 before she finally made it in 2013) and feeling life slip away as one just gets another year older wondering if I'm ever going to reach my goal.