Thinking is a Trick
Stephen Harris
June 05, 2005
I like a silly, strange, sport called wakeboarding. Not as much as I used to,
but I still like it. It is a cross between gymnastics and drinking beer on a
boat. Pretty much anyone can go out and get dragged behind a boat and have fun.
But it can also be a rush when you start to learn to do tricks. There are guys
who can do impressive feats on a wakeboard. I’ve seen people do toeside 900’s, double flips with a 360 in the
middle, jump over cars…. Impressive, strange and dangerous stuff.
But the tricks don’t have to be that impressive. I used to be able to do 360’s
and backside 180’s. I landed a flip once. I almost landed a second one, but it
landed me in the hospital instead. So the one flip will be good enough for me.
Even the smaller tricks involve coordination of strength, courage, faith, trust,
and stupidity.
Learning a new trick or honing another is a great feeling that changes the
balance of the ingredients above. Knowing how to do a trick reduces the courage
required because of increased faith and trust. Strength and stupidity are
required no matter what we’re doing. Knowing what we’re doing means that our
prior experiences are leaving an impression on us that we can use to anticipate
and interact with the future. The pattern of coordination necessary to do a
trick is abstractly remembered in your body using the same principals that allow
us to learn to walk and talk. Learning is a trick. Thinking is learning.
Therefore, thinking is a trick.