Initially, a person might not think that Werner Herzog would have much to say about skateboarding since, to be honest, the guy probably knows way more about skiing as he admits in the video, but in the same breath, it’s easy to see how philosophy can replace experience when one starts to talk about how failure and the perseverance that’s required for pretty much anything that one wants to achieve. Skateboarding, much like anything else, does exist in its own, individual culture. That’s undeniable really, but added onto this is the fact that like other cultures, skateboarding coincides with various other cultures and takes/learns/borrows from them what is needed to continually grow and expand. While there are aspects of the sport that are largely beholden to the culture that’s emerged around it, there are many similarities that transcend the boundary between one culture and another, as Werner gets into the idea how failure is important since it teaches us a great deal about ourselves and how to keep pushing forward in an attempt to finally get that one perfect moment that we’ve been hoping for. It sounds almost hopeless when thinking that we practice and work and we sacrifice for that ONE moment, but the truth is that we practice, we fail, we get back up, and we keep trying for more than that one moment. We keep trying because we love what we’re doing, no matter if at some points we tend to rant and rave.
If that type of passion wasn’t there then anything that a person strives for in this world would be pointless. Staying calm in the face of failure isn’t always possible, as many people know, and when it comes to skateboarding, staying calm isn’t going to happen largely because falling over and over and eventually hurting yourself can be demoralizing after a while. But as Werner points out, most skateboarders don’t do this because they hope to get famous, they do it because they want to learn, to get better, and to master something they happen to care about. There are plenty of skaters out there that want to be the next big thing and will continue to practice and record stunts and do whatever it takes to become the best skateboarders they can. But the idea of failure being important to success is something that some folks still don’t hold a belief in since they might think that failing is intolerable. That’s kind of cute really since their argument tends to be lost before it’s ever made, especially given that failure IS important for success.
Few, if any people ever really succeed all the time. Like it or not, failure is something that we live with because it’s a better teacher than success could ever be. Success is what happens when someone finally reaches their goal and says ‘now what?’. Some people might actually hit their goal and figure that it’s a good time to stop since they’re where they want to be and there’s nothing better after that. The wisest people in this world will understand that the realization of a goal, the success, is in fact very nice, but it’s not the endpoint of a person’s life, nor is it the end of learning what it takes to keep going, to retain the skills that were learned and improve in some fundamental way. Reaching a goal is great, it makes us feel good and it brings a sense of pride that reminds people that they didn’t give up and pack it in. But success isn’t a one-way road since it can lead to failure if one isn’t ready to work so that they can keep that successful streak going. Too many people in this world have forgotten that reaching your goal isn’t the end and have ruined themselves by not focusing on what would come after their success. The example being used, that of a skateboarder, is great since when one finally manages to hit a trick that they’ve been trying to perfect for so long it’s all well and good since they can perform that trick without fault. But what comes after?
What about the many other tricks that are a part of many a skater’s skill set? There’s always more to learn is the point, and the love of something is one of the best reasons to keep learning since to do anything less is to state that there’s no love, no passion, just a desire to use one’s goal to get rich and little else. There are plenty of people that do this, but even those that want to get on TV, that want to have fame and fortune, still have the love for the sport and the discipline to stick with it. Without passion, quite a few things in this world become kind of pointless.
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