"A life of ignoble ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual."
—Theodore Roosevelt
January 14, 2022
Dear Reader,
A few days ago, a few miles away, a few dozen people unexpectedly floated into the middle of Green Bay on a sheet of ice. A sudden, colossal cracking sound initiated the event, as the ice broke free from the frozen shoreline of Point Comfort, Wisconsin. And away it went, whisked out to sea by the winds and currents, with everyone onboard. Eventually, a mile-wide expanse of deadly cold water separated the people on the ice from the land it formerly adjoined.
Depending on where you live, the question that will or will not immediately come to mind is “Why were a few dozen people out on a giant sheet of ice to begin with?” The story has been picked up by some national news outlets, which explain the answer for context. The local paper’s article about the event, however, didn’t bother to do so. Everyone around here already knows why a bunch of people were on a sheet of ice, over an enormous body of water, in the dead of winter. They were fishing.
As odd as it may sound in Phoenix or the Philippines, here it is a perfectly normal way to spend a day. It’s part of the local culture, a part of the scenery. And it is not just a gelid hobby: it is an effective way to provide dinner for your family. C.S. Lewis rightly observed that “there’s nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has been alive half an hour ago and has come out of the pan half a minute ago.” All the better if it has swum chilled in thirty-three-degree water since half a month ago.
Of course, such an undertaking is not without perils, as lately demonstrated. But, thankfully, there were no deaths, and no one was injured. In fact, near as I can tell, no one was even particularly phased by the ordeal. Ice-rescue boats were eventually deployed. These vehicles are air-propelled and can traverse water, slush, or ice; they are made in the nearby town of Marion, Wisconsin. Multiple round trips were needed to get everyone, but I can find no reports of fighting or discord about who would go first. Everyone seems to have remained calm from start to finish, acted prudently with clear heads, and even kept up a sense of humor. Afterward, one angler quipped that it had been a really awful day: he didn’t catch a thing.
Such grace under pressure, exhibited by an entire platoon of stranded, shivering persons, may come as a surprise. But I, for one, am not surprised. This behavior is precisely what I would expect from any of the ice fishermen I know. The highest temperature on the day in question was about ten degrees Fahrenheit. Folks who are in the habit of responding to such a weather report with, “Sounds like a good day to be outside for hours on a sheet of ice,” are not the type to be easily rattled. They are practiced in adversity, comfortable being uncomfortable. Their departure from Point Comfort, while unexpected, was not going to sink them.
Comfort is not evil, and comforting others is often noble — but chasing our own comfort as a primary end in life is not. Many of us confuse comfort with happiness, but these are not the same thing; indeed, they are often opposed to one another. Comfort is also not the same thing as productivity, self-sufficiency, vitality, or resiliency, nor is it at all helpful for achieving them. The pursuit of comfort is not on any list of virtues that I have ever seen. No great culture or nation or people has ever elevated it to that rank. It is only failing and falling cultures that do so. Such a people builds no monuments and presses across no frontiers. Such people are soft and boring and soon gone.
Thankfully, we don’t need to be. Frontiers still exist, even if they are personal, even if they only last for a season and then melt away in the next. Any time we engage with the reality of the world around us, any time we drill an ice-fishing hole or raise a dairy barn or clear a patch of backyard wilderness to make way for a vegetable garden — indeed, any time we set our jaw and grapple a while with external reality, we move beyond the comfort of the merely self-referential and enter the challenge of real life. Real life strengthens us and offers us all those good things that comfort cannot. Real life prepares us to meet with calm resolve what difficulties will inevitably come. This is a good season to step out onto the ice, to pursue real life with everything that is in us, and to chance floating away from our point of comfort.
Sincerely,
Depending on where you live, the question that will or will not immediately come to mind is “Why were a few dozen people out on a giant sheet of ice to begin with?” The story has been picked up by some national news outlets, which explain the answer for context. The local paper’s article about the event, however, didn’t bother to do so. Everyone around here already knows why a bunch of people were on a sheet of ice, over an enormous body of water, in the dead of winter. They were fishing.
As odd as it may sound in Phoenix or the Philippines, here it is a perfectly normal way to spend a day. It’s part of the local culture, a part of the scenery. And it is not just a gelid hobby: it is an effective way to provide dinner for your family. C.S. Lewis rightly observed that “there’s nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has been alive half an hour ago and has come out of the pan half a minute ago.” All the better if it has swum chilled in thirty-three-degree water since half a month ago.
Of course, such an undertaking is not without perils, as lately demonstrated. But, thankfully, there were no deaths, and no one was injured. In fact, near as I can tell, no one was even particularly phased by the ordeal. Ice-rescue boats were eventually deployed. These vehicles are air-propelled and can traverse water, slush, or ice; they are made in the nearby town of Marion, Wisconsin. Multiple round trips were needed to get everyone, but I can find no reports of fighting or discord about who would go first. Everyone seems to have remained calm from start to finish, acted prudently with clear heads, and even kept up a sense of humor. Afterward, one angler quipped that it had been a really awful day: he didn’t catch a thing.
Such grace under pressure, exhibited by an entire platoon of stranded, shivering persons, may come as a surprise. But I, for one, am not surprised. This behavior is precisely what I would expect from any of the ice fishermen I know. The highest temperature on the day in question was about ten degrees Fahrenheit. Folks who are in the habit of responding to such a weather report with, “Sounds like a good day to be outside for hours on a sheet of ice,” are not the type to be easily rattled. They are practiced in adversity, comfortable being uncomfortable. Their departure from Point Comfort, while unexpected, was not going to sink them.
Comfort is not evil, and comforting others is often noble — but chasing our own comfort as a primary end in life is not. Many of us confuse comfort with happiness, but these are not the same thing; indeed, they are often opposed to one another. Comfort is also not the same thing as productivity, self-sufficiency, vitality, or resiliency, nor is it at all helpful for achieving them. The pursuit of comfort is not on any list of virtues that I have ever seen. No great culture or nation or people has ever elevated it to that rank. It is only failing and falling cultures that do so. Such a people builds no monuments and presses across no frontiers. Such people are soft and boring and soon gone.
Thankfully, we don’t need to be. Frontiers still exist, even if they are personal, even if they only last for a season and then melt away in the next. Any time we engage with the reality of the world around us, any time we drill an ice-fishing hole or raise a dairy barn or clear a patch of backyard wilderness to make way for a vegetable garden — indeed, any time we set our jaw and grapple a while with external reality, we move beyond the comfort of the merely self-referential and enter the challenge of real life. Real life strengthens us and offers us all those good things that comfort cannot. Real life prepares us to meet with calm resolve what difficulties will inevitably come. This is a good season to step out onto the ice, to pursue real life with everything that is in us, and to chance floating away from our point of comfort.
Sincerely,
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