The Wall

Note to self: Investment Banking competitions are not a good time-reward tradeoff. Fresh from the first 8 hour sleep after a fortnight on 4-5 hours a night, I deliver the ubiquitous:

The Wall

Over the last few months in particular I have been party to many a conversation that has turned to the notion of ‘hitting the wall.’

The understanding I’ve gained from chatting with people is that it is a type of exhaustion. When someone says they’re ‘buggered’ it colloquially denotes to physical exhaustion (or secondarily being in trouble/intoxicated). ‘Hitting the wall’ is what happens if you are mentally and/or emotionally exhausted. Another way to interpret the wall is as a barrier that stops us from reaching something or some state of being that we desire.

Of course, the concept intrigues me, so a few weeks ago I decided to see how far my tolerance went and started actively trying to hit said wall. The notion I am attempting to test is the strength of my perspective. It appears life somehow got word of my plan and decided to join the party by unloading no end of misfortune upon me.

I shall spare the detail, suffice to say when circumstances of emotive adversity do come along, I put them in the dryer very quickly; they don’t get hung on the line outside for other people to deal with.

Part 1 – What is the wall?

In order to properly explore it, we need a better definition of exactly what ‘the wall’ is. The first point to be made is that the wall is obviously a concept of relativity – there’s no objective point that delineates the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Having made that supposition, we can say that the wall is a flashpoint at which we become exhausted to the point where we despair and can no longer internally justify something we are pursuing, be it a project, goal or relationship. To this flashpoint, we can ascribe such thoughts as “why am I here,” “why am I doing this” and it will often be cause to question much greater matters than those which brought about the wall. Conceptually it’s relatively unwieldy to explain, so I’ll illustrate with a personal anecdote:

The scene was a few weeks prior to the final examinations in Year 12 VCE; with everyone caught in the bloodthirsty rut of studying fervently to trounce the finals and bump up that lucrative ENTER/UAI.

Needless to say the atmosphere was sheer pandemonium; with the pressure, stress and noxious weight of expectation so heavy in the air that it appeared to asphyxiate some. The best way to describe it is me hitting the wall in circumlocution. Having observed many a colleague and friend studying and stressing obstinately, I stopped one night midway through watching Gattaca (the examinable film for English – and for the 4th time at that) and thought to myself “what is the point?” My train of thought drew perfunctory inspiration from the film, and it was along the lines of:

“You spend six years in high school working hard to get a magic number so you can gain entry to the best course you can. Then you work even harder to graduate at the top end of your course and tertiary institution to land a well-paid job. Finally, you kill yourself on the corporate treadmill for 30 years so you can climb that ladder and retire to a house on the beach and send your kids to a private school. Why?”

So something as simple as ‘hitting the wall’ studying for an exam was cause for me to question the tangent of progression my life was currently on and firmly disillusion me with it.

Now you’ll be asking: “what on earth does this have to do with the wall?” The answer is that my questioning lead me to a realisation, and that realisation ended up forming a perspective that changed the dynamics between me and walls; and this follows to the next chapters in our exploration – hitting and overcoming the wall.

Part 2 – Hitting the Wall / Wall Dynamics

Examining the level of pain or distress hitting the wall inflicts, it can be reduced to a simple function of (a) wall composition and (b) impact speed.

(a) Wall composition. Picture your life as a series of paths, each one being something you are pursuing. Whilst moving along these paths, you inevitably come across obstacles – there are potholes that trip you up, puddles to get stuck in, and walls that obstruct progress. Some of these walls are made of paper and cardboard, very easy to deal with and they don’t slow us down significantly. These are often easy to get through and if we hit them, it doesn’t really hurt.

(b) Impact speed. This is the double-edged sword that relates to how passionately you pursue something, be it in terms of time, intellectual or emotional effort. An existentialist realist (read: lazy cynic) like me will tend to approach some pursuits somewhat dispassionately, and do not put significant weight on the outcome. As such, the pace is a leisurely stroll – so if a wall comes along, it’s a soft impact and you may get a bit of a bump on the head. The benefit here of course is that you are back navigating the path sooner should that be your desire, but the flipside is getting to the destination is slower, and it can change arbitrarily because the outcome isn’t a prime impetus. For the antithesis, we have the highly motivated individual whose determination and drive push them to sprint powerfully. By virtue of this, they are able to break through some of the walls they face effortlessly and there’s a higher chance of them getting where they want to go, and faster to boot. But there is a proviso: coming in at speed, they can easily misperceive or underestimate the strength of the wall – highly motivated people put the pedal to the floor on the premise they will plough through the wall that they see as perhaps Styrofoam. But there will be times where the wall ends up being Lead, and common sense of course tells us that hitting a solid metal wall at high velocity entails severe damage. On an ancillary note, this is similar conceptually to a passionate high-achiever getting burnt out.

My analysis above has produced what seems to be a stalemate – going slow makes it harder to break barriers and success more elusive, yet going fast puts you at risk of painful collision. Given this, how do we overcome walls of metal and mortar?

Part 3 – Overcoming the Wall & Implements of Perspective

We now come to the most interesting part of the wall analogy – methods of subverting the wall. My signature bizarre metaphors lend quite well to this:

The type of person you are and the kind of money (read: echelon of perspective or the way you think) you’ve got will determine what kind of implement you purchase at the specialist wall shop, and therefore how you deal with the wall. We will make the level of perspective our currency, with the Cyrillic Э as its symbol. Let’s browse the shelves:

Э0 – Sledgehammer
Sometimes if you take a few hard swings at the wall, you can smash your way through to the other side. The sledgehammer method of attacking the wall head on doesn’t require much perspective and is effective with some types of walls, but futile against dense walls like relationship break-ups.

Э10 – Shovel
Good for digging under the wall. Most suitable if you find you deal with situations by quarrying through the downward emotional despair before turning upward and eventually breaking through to the light on the other side.

Э10 – Rope
Good for climbing over the wall. The better option if you persevere and have a tendency to work through issues – climbing the rope isn’t an easy way to get over the wall, but it is feasible with a bit of hard work.

Э30 – Ladder
A higher level perseverance implement than the rope, the ladder makes for an easier climb over the wall. Reduces the difficulty of getting over the wall but requires deeper pockets of perspective.

Э50 – Bicycle
Costs more than the simpler implements, and facilitates getting around the wall. Perspective facilitates reflection; a person who likes to think through issues can often find their way around them with less effort. It still takes pedalling, but it can get you to the other side of the wall faster and with less effort than digging or climbing.

Э200 – C4 Explosive
Big price tag, big wall-demolishing power. If you can manage to reach a level where you have this much currency and view walls as mere opportunities for pyromania (post conventional/actualised), you use this. Throw a slab on, get back and detonate – who ever thought getting through walls could be so much fun?

ЭX – Picnic Basket
The shop doesn’t normally price or stock these, but if you are precariously odd or a bit delusional (I can’t decide which), then the Picnic Kit is the weapon of choice to deal with walls. It includes everything you need, so that when you reach a wall, you can set yourself up and enjoy tea in the wall’s shade. If in apathy, you have no desire to get over the wall or just can’t be bothered, why not sit down against it, have a Darjeeling tea with Scones and enjoy the moment?

There you have it, a series of ways to deal with walls when you hit them. I was once partial to the bicycle, but nowadays, I would use the plastic explosive where I felt there was a wall which warranted blasting through. Though the reality is I am often quite content to sit there with my picnic basket and occasionally like to invite passers by to join me.

Part 4 – Conclusion

Wrapping up at 3:40am this lovely Sunday morning, I will leave a point to ponder.

Ever seen the Matrix? My characteristic understanding is that walls are yet another self-fashioned construct. If you really look at it, we are the ones who put them there in the first place and thus cause ourselves to hit them. Put it this way: I aimed for a graduate job at an investment bank – if I set my heart on achieving it, maybe I’d have got it, but if I did set my heart on it and not got it, I’d have hit the wall quite hard. Seeing as my priorities in life hinge on very different things, I am indifferent when it comes to many goals, a blessing and a curse. But because of this, even my best efforts teamed with fate’s uncanny penchant for mocking me are not sufficient to drive me into a wall.

“Dominating!” – battle cry from Unreal Tournament 2004

P. X. Waterstone

~ by X on May 21, 2006.