Swerving into Reality
Half of fearing something will fail is the fear. But fear *is* failure. Fear convinces us to chart a course so devoid of adventure, of risk, of originality, that success is replaced with mere survival. I don’t mean success as in living in the right neighborhood, driving the right car, and having the right job. Excuse me while I vomit. I mean when a particular project succeeds according to its goals and ideals. A real project, not a meaningless project of masturbatory self-improvement - improving the self for its own sake.
Swerve into the oncoming reality. Swerve and be alive.
The other half of fearing something will fail is the actual failure, creeping up, not because it’s a bogeyman, but precisely because it’s a real thing that waits for those who don’t plan sufficiently to succeed - who are inattentive. All it takes for a ship to fail to make shore is an inattentive crew. So much of failure is predicated on the predictable, understandable, and forseeable, even if it’s a matter of forseeing that the unforseen will happen. You know, in the movies, when someone watches the monster turn, and stalk toward them, while they’re paralyzed with fright? It’s almost as if they find it a relief to be caught and eaten. That’s how failure creeps up on the hopeless, the fearful, those who refuse to take risk.
It’s a risk to hit the thing with a pipe and run, because you don’t know that it’ll succeed. It’s a guaranteed thing to watch yourself fail. Imagine the skipper, staring at the rocks up ahead, unwilling to swerve, because it’s off course and uncharted. The course has changed. The new course is adventure. Swerve into freedom from fear. Swerve into the oncoming reality. Swerve and be alive.
