Enter Label: Jeremy Renner jet skis 2 years after being crushed by a snowcat, could you?
and Ayn Rand's essays on the importance of art
Dear Companions,
Just wrapping up another IVF round this Tuesday. Will share more in the series “What if Bryan Johnson had Ovaries.”
Afterward, I need to slam into a Slim Jim in the Healingvrse. Get my resilience in swing. Plans to make. That’s why I tuned into Jeremy Renner’s interview with Rogan and picked up his memoir, My Next Breath.
Because nothing says resilience like being able to jet ski within two years of being crushed by a 1400-pound snow cat.
I can distinctly remember thinking: this is the only guy who has it worse than me.
Jeremy Renner from Hurt Locker sustained severe injuries on New Year’s Day 2023 when a 14,000+ pound snowcat ran over him while trying to stop it from hitting his nephew.
I remember comparing myself to him the day I read that news—I was totally dysfunctional at that point, unable to leave my room or escape my pain.
Miraculously, his spine was largely unaffected as was his brain. Here’s a breakdown of his known injuries:
Number of Broken Bones
Over 30 bones were broken in the accident.
Blunt chest trauma with at least 8 ribs fractured in 14 places.
Orthopedic injuries
Left leg (tibia) broken.
Right ankle broken.
Right clavicle broken.
Right shoulder broken.
Jaw broken.
Mandible (jawbone) cracked in multiple places.
Eye socket broken.
Knee injuries.
Lung injuries
Lung collapsed due to chest trauma.
Yet he was back to running (however poorly) within two years. What was his philosophy, I wondered.
Renner’s Healingvrse Lesson
He describes how his left eye was "squeezed out of its orbital socket," and that he propped it on ice immediately after the accident.
"In my agony, I still maintain a kind of blind hope. Despite what had just happened, and with each breath in thrall to the fear that this is where the story ends, I still find in myself a level of what I can only describe as optimism," Renner writes. "Though my body is completely smashed, my eye hanging out, every breath an agonizing push-up from the depths of drowning, still my mind manages to delve into a kind of instinctual problem-solving."
In that near death moment he discovered his one truth:
Love is the only thing you can bring with you from this earth.
So, he also concludes: True love cannot occur without suffering.
Recovery
From the interview it was clear—his recovery was about hard-core dedication.
He describes how the first phase required 24/7 focus on recovery. How he weaned himself off pain killers and gabapentin within a couple months. Specifically, when he realized that the medications didn’t prevent him from feeling the pain of a cracked molar.
How he preferred to have his wit, even if it meant just laughing when he was told he “broke everything, including his asshole.”
When guided toward self-pity during the interview, Renner stopped it short. Recovery like mine is no different than regular aging, he says.
He saw the greatest pivots in strength when he began to focus on his blood panels and cellular health. For a long time, his hemoglobin was at a 2.
After a year, he reduced his recovery to 12 hours a day. He could walk on the sand, enjoy the sun and family, and live life, and at this point “life stuff” began to fuel his recovery. It taught him that he could actually live, not just recover.
Renner talks about wanting to get back to work. He does the usual Healingvrse math—should he take on something action-heavy, like Bond? He’s not sure if that kind of training would wear him down or help him get stronger.
Rogan eggs him on: What a comeback story that would be.
Quick note on me
Recovery tends to look the same for all of us: a simple life shattered, a thousand interventions, and eventually, a simple mindset with recovery at its core.
I didn’t have 32 broken bones like Renner. Maybe I had 32 broken energy points. My physical pain guided me to every far-reaching nook and cranny of my personality; to weed out things did not serve healing.
His act of destruction was at the hands of a snowcat—mine by something not visible to a microscope. My scans do not show anything broken, yet my return to exercise has resembled someone seriously injured (due to PEM, common in post-viral conditions).
I want Renner’s Action Man style. I want to stop being afraid of body movement. And flying. And visiting the darker parts of my story for writing. My therapist from the Dark Ages of my recovery shipped me my files—will I ever be able to open that?
On Art, Writing
Words are like fire. People have told me to write. I wrote! Here! Deeper, they say. But those deeper words would be like kerosene. I’m no longer as fearful of kerosene.
Renner understands the purpose of sharing the story regardless of the hardship.
To help others feel less isolated in their suffering.
To reach a few people so they can see through life’s challenges (or BS) without having to suffer.
To heal from the tangible quality of writing down his story, which he predicts will outlast any movie or music he creates.
The Romantic Manifesto
Ayn Rand puts it eloquently in her book, The Romantic Manifesto.
She discusses the importance of the soul and art. She condemns society for valuing selflessness, for knowing the least about things that matter most—that which represses the non-social needs of the soul…
She goes on to say:
Art does have a purpose and does serve a human need; only it is not a material need, but a need of man’s consciousness.
Art is inextricably tied to man’s survival—not his physical survival, but to that on which his physical survival depends: to the preservation and survival of his consciousness.
I hope these are the first words to visit me when I wake up from anesthesia, and that you too, will be there.
Cheers to the kerosene. Light it up, baby.
With much love from the Healingvrse,
Rebecca