IF YOU’RE GONNA BE DUMB, YOU GOTTA BE TOUGH.
In my new book ‘A Wild Path,’ I tell the story of golfing with my buddy Carroll. On the occasion of a foolish and somewhat painful mistake–a ball ricocheting off a pine tree, perhaps, or a shank off a shin–Carroll spoke the memorable words quoted above. I broke up laughing and promised him that someday those words would go into a book. And now they have. In fact, they are the title of a chapter. In the course of it, we explore how Carroll’s saying can be made endlessly adaptable simply by changing the word, ‘dumb’–perhaps to something like sensitive, or gentle, or caring. As in, ‘If you’re gonna be sensitive, you gotta be tough.’ I explain how in the psychological literature there is a personality type called HSP, or Highly Sensitive Person. Below is the conclusion of the essay. I kinda like it.

So… we have these people who are considered Highly Sensitive. Not much doubt that I’m firmly-ensconced there. Maybe you are, too. We occasionally have difficulties, you and I, dealing with the ‘vagaries of life.’

If you are the type of person who gets a tear in the eye at the sight of a noble old tree clinging to its last speck of life; who listens to bird songs and hears notes from heaven; who sees every fresh dawn as an awakening as pure and symbolic as the first morn; or who cannot pass by a flower without stooping to smell it, then, you, my friend, have a problem. If you are a person who cares about prairie bluestem and meadowlarks and redwoods, about rainforests and pollinators, who is concerned with whales and green sea turtles and leatherbacks, exploited wilderness areas and coral reefs and glaciers and climate change, and who worries about our grandchildren and our grandchildren’s grandchildren, then you are doomed. Absolutely doomed—against all the yahoos, fools, nincompoops and ignoramuses of this world, who are many and who are often in power, and for whom such concerns are merest rumors. Or frauds. Or mean nothing at all.

You are doomed, that is, unless—along with being gentle and caring and sensitive—you can also learn to be tough. Tough enough to keep your balance—at least part of the time. Tough enough to get back up when you get knocked down. Tough enough to use those sensitive powers of perception to recognize the yahoos and fools for exactly who they are, and deal with them accordingly. And not give in and not give up, no matter how many tears are shed or sleepless nights are endured or blood pressure meds are required. Tough enough to buckle up and help defend the things you love. And those grandchildren’s grandchildren.

How do you do that? I don’t know. I’m still working on it. Every day. I read somewhere once that it helps to be only a part-time fanatic. To set aside moments or days when you consciously say, “No—this is not the time to think about that. Not the time to mourn whatever it is I’m sad about. I will appreciate what is in front of me. I will engage with this hour, this cup of coffee, this rose blossom, this grandchild. I will appreciate my life.” It helps to have interests—at least a few—unrelated to your causes. Bridge or chess or gardening or painting. It helps to read about other times when people had other challenges—terrible challenges—and fought their way through them. Which is, of course, virtually all the times that human beings have lived upon the earth. It helps to find inspiration in other creatures who also face obstacles and difficulties in their daily existence. Which is, of course, all creatures. It helps to not let yourself become isolated (which is easy for sensitive people to do) but to remain connected to the world around you in many ways, and to a circle of friends and family who support you in hours of need. It helps to look at the stars at night and find perspective in the scale of the universe, or to put your hand on a boulder and try to imagine what it means to be two and a half billion years old. Physical exercise is helpful—the flood of endorphins released as worries of the mind are temporarily lost in the exertions and sensations of the body, as the challenges of one more step, one more lap, one more weight, one more mile, are accepted and accomplished. Maybe it helps to take baths in pickle brine, or to walk barefoot across hot coals, or lay down on a bed of nails, or brush your teeth with sand. Though to be honest, I haven’t tried any of those therapies.

But the other things help. Sometimes, a lot.

It also helps to laugh. Laughter is an antidote to sadness, an inoculation against defeat and a preventative of despair. So, I go golfing with Carroll. And sometimes we hit the ball out of bounds or into a pond. And we tell stupid jokes. And we laugh at our mistakes and our bad putts. Especially when it’s the other guy, of course, but sometimes at ourselves. And sometimes—accidentally—someone says something smart. And useful. Like, “If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.”