Let's go back to the finnish line so you can see where this all started.
2009. July. 70 hours after I had started, I was done. 340 miles of river, sun, pain, and hallucinations: all in all, a good time.
This was my ending for my first run at the Missouri River 340, the longest non-stop river race in the world. My cousin and I entered cause I was looking for something new, and he was... bored I guess.
Anyway, I had just graduated with my BFA in industrial design and being in the mind-set, I was thinking about how to get faster. I was treating the whole thing like a giant scenario where I evaluated the experience and thought of ways to make it better. Two years later, and this is what I'm blogging: my attempt to win the longest non-stop river race in the world.
There is more to it, I suppose, if I were to really probe. Something about validating my own ability as a designer maybe, or the combination of the things I love (bikes, adventure, boats, design, et al.) Of all of it though, it's the exploration of an idea which I can only express by pushing it until it is complete.
Most of us have had moments like what I had at the finnish: we are standing there and thinking, "I have an idea to make this better." We know it's a good idea. It is self-evident, or at least self-reinforcing. But to prove it would be too much. Too much work, too hard to accomplish, too far beyond our skills or training or ambition or whatever. I have spent a lot of time there, but I no longer trust that feeling of self-evidence. Now I have a different way of thinking: every brilliant thing we have ever seen is not the product of a moment of inspiration and insight, but rather the result of the effort and combined thinking which has allowed for progress. This is true of every achievement, or product, or accomplishment in history. Your toothbrush is as much an artifact of hard work and smart thinking as the space shuttle. And so is this boat.
So let's get started.
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