In 1970, the people of Florence, a town of around 9,000 souls in Oregon, learned this the hard way.
When beached whales die and their carcasses rot, gases can build up inside their body during decomposition. This has made for plenty of recorded self-detonations since the early 20th century.
Stuck with a beached whale in the middle of November, officials in Florence decided they’d use explosives to help the natural process along. Thankfully, they recorded the incident, which now serves as a cautionary tale. Why? Because instead of a clean beach, local onlookers got whale parts raining from the sky. Rather than fade, the stench spread in a 1,000-feet circle, and a car parked over a quarter of a mile away had its roof caved in from one of the flesh meteors. Not even the scavenger birds wanted a piece of this action. Scared by the blast, they chose flying away over picking off the remainders. Yowza!
The lesson from this event has had its own metaphor for much longer than whales have washed ashore in Oregon, albeit with a different animal at its center: “How do you eat an elephant?” the question goes. Answer? “One bite at a time.”
I’d love to write a book in a day—but I can’t. In fact, I can barely write a single essay in that timeframe. As a writer, the best I can do is nibble. Nibble away at the words until, someday, another tome stands completed.
Whatever shape the whales in your life take, please: Drop the dynamite. Pick up a small spoon instead. Toss sessions at the problem. One. Then another. Then one more, and an extra 10 minutes after dinner. Square inch by square inch, the wall will turn into a door.
You can’t blow up a whale. Only a whale can blow up a whale. So unless you want to collect scraps of rotten flesh for weeks on a smelly beach, I suggest you assemble your important work the only way it’ll hold together: piece by piece—until the coast is clear.
