Leap Before You Look

I love it when the world changes right before my eyes.

It isn't that the world itself literally changes; rather, my perception of it changes radically thanks to a new thought or (more commonly) thanks to something someone else says. It's like the scales drop from my eyes and I see exciting new possibilities highlighted in neon light where before I saw only the everyday world of my limited imagination.

That happened again just recently. I crave a change—my life is currently literally unsatisfactory (and I know what "literally" really means) and I'm trying to change it—but I've tended to measure my efforts against the rulers of 'practicality' and 'common sense,' minimizing risk and 'being responsible,' and today I find myself wondering, "What the hell was I thinking?"

I'm not advocating irresponsibility, just for the record—I think it's important to take responsibility for the consequences of one's actions, and I think that it is important to "be responsible," whatever that really means—but I am suggesting that I got caught up in a false and artificial construct of what constitutes "being responsible." I somehow equated responsibility with conformity—to social norms, to family history, to other people's expectations—when that isn't it at all.

I believe that being responsible is and must be a personal synthesis. I believe that what it looks like is different: different for different people, different at different times, and different under different circumstances. I believe that "being responsible" depends.

I also think that for me, 'practicality' and 'common sense' and 'being responsible' made handy masks for the real issue: fear.

I was (and am) afraid. Afraid of the unknown, afraid of taking chances, afraid of the future, afraid.

But I am unwilling to be ruled by fear. I remember the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear (from Frank Herbert's Dune series):

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Don't misunderstand me; I know the value of fear—as teacher and survival mechanism—and would never want to be fearless. Rather I want to be courageous, facing my fear and letting passion and judgment temper it. Fear gets a vote, but shouldn't get a veto, if you see what I mean.

According to "conventional wisdom," you should always look before you leap. It's reckless to jump when you don't know what you're jumping into...there may be jagged rocks just beneath the surface or a tiger hidden in the tall grass. And all that is true.

But "conventional wisdom" will quite likely lead to a conventional existence, and I crave something different—something astounding—rather than something conventional.

So perhaps-just maybe-to get what I want and be who I want, I should leap before I look.