A Giant leap of faith

A week ago I started working on the next character who will appear in The Outer World section: Mark. A story about protecting your family, the fear of incompetence, the reverse Dunning-Kruger effect (he knows just enough to understand he doesn’t know enough).

Then I revisited something older, for Inner World, it felt like it could be adapted & brought to light: Precision vs Passion, my favorite pendulum.

But the week had other plans for me, & everything I’d scheduled as routine flew out the window.

I wouldn’t mention anything that happened, except for one experience I can’t forget. I treasure it also because, past a certain age, I think I rarely add memorable positive experiences to my life. Experiences that change me.

Where you look is where you’ll go — that’s what’s written on the crash bar of the motorcycle where I take my lessons. I already knew this: look not toward the ditch, but toward where you want to go. But living it was something else entirely.

I wasn’t ready for tight curves on the training ground. I didn’t know how to lean. I got advice I couldn’t figure out how to apply: from the hips, like salsa, like Shakira (I don’t dance). Then the instructor showed me where to look when entering a turn & it was a shock. There? All the way at the end?!

The first 20 curves taken that way, I was convinced it was pure luck that I hadn’t fallen, that it was only a matter of time, as if some inexplicable magic was about to wear off. Eventually, my brain accepted that it wasn’t needed, threw in the towel & let me take the curves without thinking.

When I came back to my desk to write this, after a week away, it was similar. I thought I wouldn’t be able to produce anything, but then I took a leap of faith & looked toward where I wanted to go. And my fingers started touching the keys, the music gave me back my rhythm, the laptop welcomed me as if I’d never been gone.

I held onto that, because I know there will be more pauses & pauses invite too many thoughts.

We are very rational creatures & that gives us the pleasant sensation of control, makes us feel good about being smart. But how rare & precious it is to find something you can trust even when it has no clear shape.

What other gems might be out there?

"Faith is a passionate intuition." — William Wordsworth