"When I find my piece of mind, I'm gonna give you some of my good time."
- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soul to Squeeze
I resent having developed a callus on my middle finger during grade school. I would hold my pens and pencils against that finger during the countless hours of writing, and the finger would swell and ache. I remembered picking at the irritated skin, complaining all the while. My teachers and my parents would explain that I was developing a callus, a resistance that would ultimately make me better equipped to hold the pen for the rest of my life without pain. Today, I resent having developed that callus because I can't remember the last time I held a pen. I wish I had spent those years learning to type instead.
My fingers are beginning to develop new calluses now that I am trying to learn how to play my bass guitar. Once again, I am faced with the pains of gaining resistances that would ultimately make me better equipped to face for the rest of my life with less pain. Once again, I am making myself uncomfortable in order to make the future better.
As my forming calluses ache, I ponder my philosophy about the role of pain in decision making. I believe that I should intentionally make choices that result in a balance of the most pleasure and the least pain. As my callusing fingers can attest, though, current pain for long-term pleasure is sometimes necessary and even the ideal.
I rub my middle finger where I had formed that callus back in grade school, and I ponder the concept of foresight. Sometimes, as my teachers and parents were, I will simply be wrong about the future. Foresight allows me to imagine how the future might go based on the evidence I have from past experiences. But, if you have ever done any investing at all, you know that past performance does not dictate future results. I am not able to accurately predict the future 100% of the time, and my mounting fears make it harder to be willing to invest at all.
The callus on my middle finger is useless today. The years I spent forming it didn't pay off the way they had predicted. In a way, I resent having been made to endure so much pain for such a useless reward. I sometimes wish I had just put a bandaid over that finger everyday to avoid the pain. In another way, though, I am glad I was made to form this useless callus.
The callus itself might not do anything today, but I did gain other benefits from the experience. Diligence, determination through difficulty, an ability to assess risk and reward, confidence in the face of challenges, and the audacity to face the frightening and sometimes painful ambiguity of the future, were just a few of the things reinforced by my experiences building this callus. I am thankful for the development of those lessons, as they do serve me well today, even if the callus does not.
Other examples of efforts that do not necessarily manifest themselves in predicted or hoped-for ways include high school athletes, musicians, actors, etc. In adulthood, they might find themselves working at a corporate cubicle and never using the talents they fostered in their youth. Nonetheless, their experiences from the past continue to influence and shape their current experiences and behaviors. Those investments did not pay off as expected, but they still paid off.
Developing the new calluses on the bass guitar, I play the Red Hot Chili Peppers' song, Soul To Squeeze. This song will always hold particularly personal significance to me because I learned it long before I ever heard the track. I first heard the chorus lyrics muttered by a shipmate in naval bootcamp. He would sing the tune to himself while he worked, and one day I asked him if he would teach the lyrics to me. So, only knowing what he taught me, I began to sing, "I got a bad disease. Up from my brain is where I bleed…"
Playing this song takes me back to bootcamp, where I had faced a new level of emotional pain, and had to form a few new calluses of sorts. I was so terrified in my first days. I would stand at attention and weep. My blood pressure was so high, my nose would just start bleeding at random times. Like a good little sailor, I maintained my military bearing while tears rolled down my cheeks and blood dripped off my upper lip.
A big black man, strong in body and chalked full of testicular fortitude, pulled me aside and patiently listened while I told him about my fears. He was a good man, and his encouragement helped me more than I ever knew how to articulate. However, as the weeks of bootcamp went on, I found my own strength to carry on, and I eventually became very arrogant and unfriendly. On one of our last days, I started a fight with that big black man. Why? Because I was an idiot. I have no other explanation. The fight was quick. He lifted me off my feet and flung me across the room. Then he stood over my crumpled frame and spat down at me, "Don't forget where your balls came from!"
As I play the bass tabs to Soul to Squeeze, I still remember where my balls came from. In some small way, I diligently form these calluses in his memory. I feel like I owe him that much.
Beyond the bass, I'm still forming physical, emotional and psychological calluses in my life. I am becoming stronger everyday. In an effort to give others some of this good time, I find myself parroting my grade school era teachers and parents, and that big black man who gave me my balls. When I relate with people who are covered in figurative bandaids or body armor they use to avoid the pain of learning, I try to help them understand the future value of the pain they face today. I invite them to peel off some of those bandaids, or remove some of that armor. Sure, it is going to hurt when they do, but I remind them why they were born with the ability to feel in the first place. I remind them that they will adapt if they stick with it. Calluses will form, and we can face the ambiguous future hoping together that they will not be decimated in the long term.
Some of these calluses won't pay off the way we hope or imagine. We will inevitably resent the forming of some of them. We will look back one day and wish that at least some of the choices we made had been different. However, we will also hopefully find ourselves stronger and braver than we had previously been. We will hopefully be able to see that even the most useless calluses remind us where our balls came from.
