Endurance. or stamina, is vigor over an extended period of time. A person may be supremely skilled but with endurance that person can apply those skills over a greater time.
Real
True Narratives
The story of Ernest Shackleton is one among many several stories that could illustrate stamina and endurance. In 1914, he and his crew set out to explore Antarctica. After their ship ran aground, they were stranded for many months and then had to row more than eight hundred miles to survive.
- Caroline Alexander, The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antacrtic Expedition (Knopf, 1998).
- Alfred Lansing, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001).
- Ernest Henry Shackleton, South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917.
Other survival stories:
- Nando Parrando, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home (Crown, 2006).
- Slavomir Rawicz, The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom (Lyons, 2010).
- Dean King, Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival (Little, Brown and Company, 2004).
- Edward E. Leslie, Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls: true stories of castaways and other survivors (Mariner Books, 1998).
- David Howarth, We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance (Adventure Library, 1996).
- Steven Callahan, Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea (Mariner Books, 2002).
- Joe Simpson, Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival (HarperCollins, 1989).
- Malcolm McConnell, Into the Mouth of the Cat: The Story of Lance Sijan, Hero of Vietnam (W.W. Norton & Co., 2004).
- Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Random House, 2010). (The writing of this book also illustrates endurance, as its author suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome throughout most of its preparation.)
- Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017): “ . . . it is easy to imagine future generations of explorers and daredevils harnessing the lessons and truths within the pages of ‘Endurance’ as the blueprints for their own trips into the unknown.”
- Ed Viesturs, K2: Life and Death on the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain (Broadway Books, 2009): “An American climber recounts some of the most dramatic attempts on the peak of K2.”
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Visual Arts
- Umberto Boccioni, Dynamism of a Cyclist (1913)
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
On the Hindu holiday of Janmashtami in 1998, commemorating the supposed birth of Krishna, the master Indian flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia performed a ragamala based on Raag Khamaj and prepared for the occasion. The performance lasted for three hours and twenty minutes. The lead performer was accompanied by two other flautists and a tabla player. (In Indian classical music, unlike in the Western concerto form, the soloist has very little time to rest.)
Also impressive is sitarist Nikhil Banerjee’s performance of the hundred-minute raga, Purabi Kalyan, in Berkeley, California, in 1982.
These compositions, for solo instrument, are to be played without a break:
- Dennis Johnson, November (four hours – see also the page on Cycles - Seasons): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4.
- LaMonte Young, The Well-Tuned Piano (five hours – see also the page on Being Fully Engaged)
- Morton Feldman, String Quartet No. 2 (five hours – see also the page on Life)
Albums:
- Max Roach, “Members, Don’t Git Weary”