The genius here lies in Fitzgerald's refusal to separate struggle from futility—we're not rowing *despite* the current but *because* of it, as though the resistance itself generates our forward motion. Most people assume effort leads somewhere; Fitzgerald suggests that effort *is* the somewhere, that we're defined less by destinations than by the exhausting, necessary act of pushing back against what pulls us backward. Watch someone recovering from addiction, or rebuilding after failure, and you'll see exactly this: the beating on becomes the point, not a means to escape the past but a way of insisting on presence while the current tugs relentlessly. The quote's power comes from its refusal to offer hope as escape—only as an ongoing, dignified resistance.