Lewis Gordon Pugh – Achieving the Impossible
Just finished reading ice swimmer and fellow Channel swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh’s captivating book “Achieving the Impossible“, published in May 2010, and came across this extremely inspiring video speach about his Mount Everest swim for Peace, also in May 2010, which I want to share here, because it carries such an important message:
The book is a captivating documentary from his background of swimming from Robben Island to Cape Town at age 17, his pioneer swim across Lake Malawi with Otto Thaning (EC 1994), to the English Channel in 1992, his swim around Cape Agulhas in 1994 – the southernmost point of the African continent, where the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean meet – on to his multi-day staged swims around Cape Good Hope, across the 204 kms of Sognefjord in Norway in 2004 and the river Thames in 2006, crowned by his record-breaking and world-consciousness-awakening swims in the Antarctis and finally his 1 mile swim in minus 1.7 °C water at the geographic North Pole in 2007.
He has become a dedicated environmentalist trying to raise awareness about the urgent need to change our ways if we want to protect our planet – and he has shown with his swims how things that would seem impossible can be achieved with determination, dedication, the courage of the heart and a vision.
Lewis Gordon Pugh talking about his North Pole swim
Here another video where he describes his North Pole swim:
I hope Lewis will receive the Torch Bearer Award of the World Harmony Run in the near future as one of the outstanding individuals of today`s world, committed to working towards making the world a better place, and in particular towards more harmony between man and nature.
His birthday is December 5th – so happy birthday!
“Smilingly you touch
The head of impossibility.
Carefully you feel
The heart of impossibility.
Powerfully you transform
The life of impossibility
Into definite practicality.”– Sri Chinmoy (a poem dedicated to Michael Gorbachev in 1990)
Footnote:
Speaking of sustainable living and a change of our ways – if more people changed to a more plant-based or even vegetarian diet, it would make a big difference for our future. (I have been a vegetarian since 1981!)
And regarding over-population, I vividly remember an answer by the Dalai Lama at the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago in 1993. Asked about a solution, he answered with a very cute smile: “It is very simple – more people have to become monks and nuns!”