Einstein was a passionate, but not very good, violinist. This is a fact I’ve retained from who knows where, but the visual remains prominent in my mind – perhaps because I use it to justify putting down the proverbial pen and doing what I love instead. When Einstein would get stuck on a problem, he’d pick up his beloved “lin” and play until he forgot about the stuckness. Then he’d go back to the problem and…well, we know how that story turned out.
My violin as of late has been skiing. It’s one of the few things I will shut the laptop for – and where I regularly lose track of time. The idea of having a hobby can sound trite – at least to me – but I’ve come to appreciate how important the things we do for pleasure are. Skiing is where I let the intelligence of my body take over, using the same highways of nerves as when I work, but ferrying different things. Of late, here are three things I’ve learned from skiing:
Lesson #1: You cannot ski steep slopes scared.
Our bodies are wired for fear. On the slopes, when we drop into steep pitches, our instinct is to lean back – as if gravity will magically magnetize us away from the drop. Guess what? It won’t. Instead, the muscular actions that give leverage to the skis are the opposite: lean forward, commit your sight down the mountain, and let your heart lead the way out in front of you. To ski a steep slope, you have to do precisely the opposite of what fear wants you to do.
There are countless times I’ve found myself living scared – and this is when I most need the practice of racing down the cliffs. When my mind is in fear’s rut, I need my body’s intelligence to switch on. When I put down my version of Einstein’s “lin” and get back to my problems, I see them with new eyes, and I have a new spirit with which to solve them.
Lesson #2: To learn, we have to master transforming the energy of fear.
I was skiing a steep, powdery, ungroomed run the other day – the type I don’t really know how to ski yet. My form regressed to that of a complete beginner: shoulders sideways, torso leaning back, skis pizza-ing, poles askew. Fear was doing its thing. To cope, I’d ski one turn at a time and force myself into a complete stop, quads and calves shaking. I wasn’t letting gravity take me, because the steep pitch made the acceleration feel like 1 to 200. Way too much, too fast. I felt like I was plummeting to imminent disaster.
We tend to be okay with most emotions in moderation. It’s when they dominate with intensity that we feel the need to control or avoid them. Fear was holding me to one turn at a time because it allowed me to avoid some really intense feelings. When I’d let myself do more than one turn at a time, I was flying down rocky terrain at what felt like 200mph, dodging trees, legs vibrating from icy crusty terrain, belly on fire in terror. I was coming off a tough week and my system was taxed. I wasn’t in the mood for adrenaline. But I wasn’t going to be able to get down the slope by not being in the mood for adrenaline.
We need to know that the body holds intelligence beyond intellect and underneath rational mind. The knowledge the nervous system holds is intrinsically wired into flesh, body, muscle, and bone. When we do things that allow the entirety of our nervous system to alight, we go beyond cognitive intellect alone, and find solutions cognition may not be able to find on its own.
These are the moments that teach us to transform intensity. Our bodies can handle so much emotional load when we let the energy of it move through and out in the ways it will. For me that day, it meant letting it transform to sound. I made it down that hell slope not with the control of one turn at a time, but by letting the adrenaline happen, and letting it move right out through loud welps, embarrassing gulps, and giddy laughter that sounded very much like a child halfway between a temper tantrum and a grand old time.
Lesson #3: Some decisions have to be made in the moment, not ahead of time.
Same mogul run. Same logic-ing. Trying to plan: tree here, harder turn there, so I should slide this way first, then I’ll go that way, then stop and re-evaluate. Eventually, when I let myself just go, it became improv. I was carving a path that felt safer, because I was making decisions with additional information that I gained because I was in it, in the weeds, in my body, in the moment. The information we need is gained on the path. Try as we might, there are situations where we cannot see what we need to see 10,000 feet above the forest – it can only be met amongst the trees. For the brainy and the risk-averse amongst us, this is the medicine we need to feel alive.
Genius is not a thing of books.
The Wikipedia definition of genius doesn't mention IQ or test scores. There is no logical map to surpassing expectations, to setting new standards, or creating exceptionality. I’m convinced these things cannot be gotten to without trust in our bodies, creativity, and instinct. We need to know that the body holds intelligence beyond intellect and underneath rational mind. The knowledge the nervous system holds is intrinsically wired into flesh, body, muscle, and bone. When we do things that allow the entirety of our nervous system to alight, we go beyond cognitive intellect alone, and find solutions cognition may not be able to find on its own.
Whatever the violin or the ski slope is for you, I hope this note gives you a bit more permission to spend time with it. It might just bring out the genius that you – and no one else – have innately.
