I do not think there are any links between the different thoughts I am about to explore, but I had similar opinions about most of the essays I wrote for school and as often as not things came full circle, so we’ll see. The first thought is from Steven Pressfield On Habit: http://www.stevenpressfield.com/2011/11/habit/.
I have long known two things about myself. The first is that I am a creature of habit, good bad or otherwise. I quickly fall into an embarrassing level of sloth if I get away from the habits and rituals that I use to define my life. The second is that I need goals, at least for the initial period of constructing habits. It is why the writing has never stuck, I have yet to find the appropriate goal to inculcate the habit. I think trying for http://www.nanowrimo.org/ is the wrong approach. It would be like running a half marathon when up til then I’d only sprinkled a few runs over the last year or so. A friend of mine did this; he finished, but not well. So I think a novel in a month is a great goal, but not in the month of November. It is a great goal for next year, should I have developed a habit of mostly daily writing. I understand the pain of staring at a computer screen for hours and days and having nothing, nothing at all come to mind. The struggle might be the point for me. I am stealing the thought from Montaigne, but I do not value what I do too easily. I know I am a good student. I know I can do my job with minimal effort. These two areas don’t define me so I have had to look outside for things that will, and it is in the struggle that I better define who I am. For some reason I always come back to the Delphic “Know Thyself” tinged with what I will only describe as an engineering upbringing, where to know something is to know where it fails.
This sounds unduly pessimistic. I disagree with that assessment.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.’ We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. -Marianne Williamson
I strive to embrace failure. Without failure, I cannot grow. My great fear is not failure. I have failed more times than I care to remember. One of the few eternal truths I accept is that I am a flawed individual, prone to all the foibles of humanity, and I can point to ample proof to back this up. The above quote encapsulates my greatest fear. I fear not becoming great beyond measure. Not that I can nor that I will but the potential is there. I may be a vessel flawed to the point where striving for such success leads to shattering myself, but I would rather try to be great and suffer irreparably then settle into obscure mediocrity.
This is not to say that I strive for fame or fortune or power beyond measure. It is trite to say I want to be the best me I can be, but that is the basic idea. It is why I am leaving my job and all I have known for almost a decade. It is why I can imagine leaving everyone I know and love and going off into some vast unknown. I do not think this is likely, but the idea doesn’t terrify me. I guess I want adventures. Not necessarily paddling through the Congo adventures, but adventures nonetheless.
On that note comes another link, again from Mr. Pressfield: http://www.stevenpressfield.com/2011/11/out-of-my-comfort-zone/. The thought he mentions that most resonates is that of creative panic. The quickest way I’d explain it to someone is the ability to get things done at the last minute when a paper or presentation is due the next day. That feeling is creative panic. I think people have developed ways to manage it which are unique to their experiences, but naming it can allow the ability to use it in unfamiliar territory. Students tend to descend into panic on timed tests. I tend to crush timed tests. This is partly an ability to quickly absorb information and more so a set of guidelines I’ve mostly tacitly developed to deal with situations where I may not be prepared or have adequate time. It applies elsewhere, with a similar example to his travel issues and where I tend to get lost. As a teenager this completely wrecked me. I was incapable of dealing with it. Now I tend to stay calm, avoid panic and approach the problem as just that, a problem to be addressed. I tend to get un-lost quicker and definitely much less stressed. Having identified this, I think it would be helpful to apply to other life areas that stress me out.
Creative panic comes into play because I think the absence of it is a very apt indicator that I am plodding to mediocrity. I don’t really have anything to add to this thought and my last bit I think I will save for the next post. It ties in, so to some extent it will be a continuation.
