The world championships of whitewater rodeo took place this past week at San Juan, Argentina. Spectators there saw a sport that's quite different from the type of paddling I do: competitors execute freestyle moves in the maw of a hole, and their scores are determined by a panel of judges.
The event also included a squirt boat competition. Squirt boats are extremely low-volume craft, designed to perform maneuvers beneath the surface called "mystery moves." The men's champion last week was one Clay Wright of Rock Island, Tennessee. Clay and I go back nearly 35 years, as we attended the same summer camp in the mid 1980s. Like me, Clay is 50 years old, but his "advanced" age didn't stop him from making a better impression on the judges than paddlers 30 years younger.
I'm sure Clay was thrilled to stand atop the podium and be recognized among his peers. But according to this account of the competition, his motivation comes from a much deeper place. This is consistent with the point I made in this post almost two months ago: the top performers in any field, in terms of excellence or longevity or both, derive their greatest pleasure from the everyday process of what they do.
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