Jargogled Impressions.

Grit is an essential trait, and it is so hard to sustain. Grit to me, is the idea of relentless pursuit of something you deem worth pursuing. The ‘relentlessness’ manifests in multiple different dimensions. First, there’s the single-minded focus that comes with the goal. The ability to limit distractions while absorbing incoming inspiration is a superpower that not many can wield well. Second, there’s the belief in conscious luck creation – that your efforts, while seemingly mundane and meaningless, can bring an amount of copious blind luck that won’t be surfacing otherwise. Kind of like you need to be in the ring to win; or simply, skin in the game. Third, grittiness becomes creativity when front-doors are all locked out or too slow a path for success. Identifying that side-door and then attempting to scale it requires creativity with confidence. A trait that is hard to come by and harder still to instill. Finally, grit is girth. That absolute focus on volume, on showing up, on constantly working hard to produce outputs, even if shitty. You need to have something that you can work with – a shitty first draft, an MVP, a pilot, an experiment, a failed journey. Start somewhere, get something real in hand, then go refine it and make it your masterpiece.

A chase for perfection isn’t grit necessarily if it involves constant self-flagellation versus producing something. Perfection is a myth, and we often leverage it to hide away our efforts. We hide because we aren’t sure of it, we aren’t committed to it, we haven’t internalized it, or we are simply too timid to bare ourselves. I bet there are more unfinished manuscripts hiding in people’s closets (living or dead) every year than there are any media published out there since eternity.

Grit is long-term game; hustle is short-term ADHD. Grit focuses on compounding; hustle focuses on infamy. Neither is the wrong, each has its own place in our skill repertoire. But grit leaves the control to the subject and not to destiny. It’s a form of liberty that takes shape in the mind and is reflected in our actions. When combined with passion and a true realization of the power of ‘giving’, grit can be a potent force.

Why is grit important to consider? Because the mundane aspects of our daily lives can sometimes act as an inhibitor to our long-term goals and may dissuade us from believing that anything can change significantly enough for it to matter. In a sense, grit can be an effective antidote to the perils of existentialism because you relegate the considerations and the pathos of this mortal life to the periphery while you focus on the goals uninhibited.

As Anne Dillard says, ‘How you live your days is how you live your life.’ Or to put it differently, how you carry your day-to-day activities is how you shape your life even though it may not seem immediately apparent to you. Self-help coaches call it by different names including, atomic habits, discipline, getting things done, etc. but it all points to the idea that instead of focusing on life’s bigger questions, we must instead devote ourselves to solving for those tiny, little, atomic moments of happiness and satisfaction because inevitably, these things compound and take the shape of our life story itself. Grit, in this instance, acts as the glue that binds it together in the face of doubt and resignation.

Nietzsche said, “There is will to power where there is life and even the strongest living things will risk their lives for more power. This suggests that the will to power is stronger than the will to survive.” The power here is the agency or the control we need on our own lives. In the face of a continuous onslaught of demands and uncertain future, the control is an ephemeral thought but it’s what drives our sub-conscious minds, much more so than our will to live. This is where grit comes in – a tool to pummel through the drivel of human pathos and mind-numbing boredom and existential dread. Grit binds the theoretical pursuit of meaning and purpose with the tactical underpinning of a life-affirming mission statement. It’s a way of being, a conscious training of the mind to reflect and dwell on what’s controllable and within our sphere of influence versus needlessly pondering over the unknowable expanse that is this universe. It’s not the Tesla Roadster Starman but the deeply burrowed Titanic.

Samwise Gamgee in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings comes to mind. Sam did not carry the burden of the ring but was instrumental in the success of the dogged journey. His grittiness shined through the initial hurdle of making sense of this senseless adventure, of placating the high-minded Frodo, of keeping up with Gollum’s misadventures, of continuing to believe in his ‘master’ Frodo, of carrying the bearer of the ring to Mount Doom. This is the will to live versus the will to power because Sam had no control of the ring or the journey, but the grit shined through.

And then there’s Captain Ahab and his relentless pursuit of Moby Dick. “A grand, un-godly, god-like man; but one who has his humanities”.  Ahab’s grit is foolhardy – one that’s easy to prophesy how it would end but one that also brings with it a leadership quality that’s infectious and rousing so much so that Ishmael comes to believe in it “Ahab’s quenchless feud seemed mine”. We see a reflection of this grit in many modern-day Ahabs’ – in entrepreneurs, in the nationalists, in the army, in sportspersons. Pursued as a vengeance or in spite (like with the nationalists) they are doomed from the start much like Captain Ahab, but when pursued as a homo sapien sapien (like with Elon Musk, Greta Thunberg, etc.) their stories inspire.

Our grit is tied to our purpose. Our purpose to who we are and what makes us happy. What makes us happy is to feel useful and have meaning to our existence. As teleological beings, our sense of meaning is tied to our goals which can only be pursued through grit given the seemingly impossible nature of it. And therein lies the circularity we all grapple with, and need to reconcile around.

Sources:

Grit by Angela Duckworth

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Will to Power by Friedrich Nietzsche

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien