28/04/2023
A must read from Ben Fogle. ❤️
I failed my exams but exams also failed me. I find it astonishing that in 2023 we are still fixating on exams as the medium of defining peoples intellectual potential and capabilities. As a philosopher once said, ‘everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live it’s entire life believing that it is stupid’
Like a fish. Some people are better at swimming than climbing. Some people have exceptional ability to retain information and regurgitate it under exam conditions. Others fall apart under pressure.
Exams are heavily weighted to perpetuate the continued opportunity of the few not the many.
I have spent a lifetime healing the wounds of my early childhood failings.
Fail enough and eventually you’ll concede to those failings and once you capitulate, they became inevitable.
From there, it’s a slippery slope to self loathing that strips you of your confidence and self esteem.
The wilderness has been my rehabilitation. There is no failure in the wild.
Just life and death.
It is black and white.
The wilderness does not care about race, colour, religion or politics. It is uncomplicated and unforgiving.
This is what makes it so therapeutic. Without the complicated nuances of society, we are empowered to make decisions based on immediate circumstances rather than perception or reputation. Rather than viewing the landscape and those within it as competitors, we see them as collaborators. It seems strange to me that the single hour of pressurised decision making during my A-levels aged 18 affected me more than the split second decision at 8500m on Mount Everest when my oxygen bottle failed aged 46. One was an artificial indicator of supposed ability. The other a split second life or death decision. I only passed one of them…..and lived to tell the tale.
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An important reminder as we head into another exam season.
