First and foremost, let me apologize to my dear readers (both of you). If anyone else happens to stumble across my work here and wonders at my absence from posting, lemme 'splain.
Life. Life happened.
Seriously, it has been a bit hectic of a time for me in the last two months, September especially. I've had to make tough choices about my employment and where I'm living (hint: it's related to employment), I've done some additional not-for-leisure traveling, I've borne witness to and stood in support of my friends having tough times with additional issues, and oddly enough, may even have loved and lost a person I've never met, but with whom I'm told I formed a perfect match. Some truly scary and nerve-wracking decisions.
Perhaps worst of all (okay, not really an impact on my life and lack of writing, but it sort've works as a tie-in and introduction, so just hear me out) is that America's unlikeliest zen master recently passed after a long and fruitful life. Lawrence "Yogi" Berra died recently, leaving our world a bit more logical, but a lot less colorful. I've long believed that the epitaph on his grave marker should read: "I really didn't say everything I said."
This is especially humorous to me largely due to the fact that he isn't known to have ever actually said that - or half of the other things often attributed to him - but he saw enough mirth in it to make it the subtitle of one of his published books. But that's the irony of it, and perhaps the magic of it too. Yogi was always eminently quotable, especially since his funny witticisms didn't entirely make good sense; it was always the thought behind it that mattered most.
Perhaps this is the primary reason why my good Friend quoted a large passage of Yogi's that discussed fear. On this topic, my Friend quoted Yogi as having the following to say:
So it is that I've made peace with my choices in these last couple months regarding my own livelihood...when I wasn't regretting not writing more for this blog. The whole thing left me fairly introspective regarding a wide variety of other things, such as my faith and the Church (here having the big C, meaning the Christian faith generally, and its various adherents), my friends, their friends, and their ongoing tour aboard the Struggle Bus, and my (non-existent) love life.
You know, the small things.
The first two things were fairly easy to resolve. It's definitely been the third that's taken most of my time and attention. I do not claim but one regret in life, and it's unrelated to romance, but I know myself to have been notoriously thick-headed where love abides. Well, I won't sell myself short; I'm still notoriously thick-headed.
It's a big reason why my friends have regularly attempted to play matchmaker for me, usually without my knowledge. And not always with my blessing, either. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy that others are looking out for me. I just usually prefer to forge my own path as it regards romance. I've just been remarkably bad at it.
Some years ago now I came across a diary of mine that I had long-since stopped using. (My time as a diarist has been spotty, as you well know now, though I seemed to have a particular fervor for penning the most ridiculous things during junior high and early high school.) I read through it and noted with a great deal of envy - and hindsight, honestly - how happy and naive I had been regarding my high school romances. Such trivial things pleased me in the greatest of ways.
But this post is about Fear, not how dreamy I may or may not have found certain females in my high school. Answer: Not at all...ish. At the very least I never actually used the word 'dreamy'.
Given that hindsight, there are a significant number of choices with regard to my love-life I would have made differently, had I not been so fearful of the consequences that I know now aren't so serious. This has always been my version of kryptonite; I've always been too afraid of rejection, of what other people might say, to have ever been confident enough to have taken the necessary risks. I, unwisely, let my fear stop me from doing things and experiencing life. If I gain those experiences, perhaps I overcome more fear as I find things don't go as poorly as I've imagined they always would.
Again, though I don't have any regrets, I do often find myself playing the What If? game. On my mind recently has been one particular encounter I had a decade ago, probably more, where I had returned to a familiar place for a vocal concert and spent the evening entranced with a particular dark-haired, bright-eyed, and altogether lovely soprano. I did not realize until some time later the identity of this woman, and that I had known her as a youth, though at the time I found her to be a bit snotty and a rather ... rambunctious young girl. I suppose she was given a bit more leeway back then as her parents were often busy caring for her sibling who was, I think, afflicted by a developmental disorder (I assume the sibling remains alive, but I've been so long out of contact with the family that I haven't the foggiest and would not presume to make the alternate assumption. Is that a result of these sorts of disorders? I refuse to speculate further without adequate foreknowledge since I realize that I, like a certain ill-begotten young man by the name of Jon Snow, know nothing.).
My current self wishes I could reach back in time and smack my youngest self so that my slightly-older self would have thought to have made it a point to talk to this beautiful woman. She had become graceful, lovely, and, erhm, well-behaved...I suppose. As my vivid memory chokes to life under the heavy cloud of dust, I realize that even this description does her a great injustice. She seemed kind and responsible, a well-leveled head atop alabaster shoulders. My memory of her as a child was being blown away as quickly as leaves before a stiff autumn wind as I watched this woman. I let the moment pass, and only recently have I realized how much more I could have, probably ought to have, done. I don't mean to suggest I deserved any outcome, but I ought to have at least tried for my own sake.
But would anything have come of my approaching this young lady after the concert? Would we have lightheartedly reminisced about our wilder younger years (occasionally I must publicly maintain the fiction that I had wild years; I suppose I must've been a terror for a rare minute or two at some point as a toddler), all the while falling madly in love and making plans for an admirably long life together?
Extremely unlikely.
The point, however, is that I never even made an attempt. I let my fear control me and hold me back from taking the necessary risk. Nothing may ever have occurred, but what if it had? I will never know.
This is something with which I know, I know, my Friend never struggled. I know she always had the confidence to make the hard choices, even if it took her some time to consider all the options. I know that if she ever encountered a decision that needed made, she would make it. It's just one of the many ways that my Friend has done and continues to inspire me.
I haven't had much opportunity to flex these new-found muscles of risk to build my confidence, but I'm trying. At some point, I hope to be able to approach an alluring young woman, look her straight in her beautiful, clear eyes, and, in the words of the late preeminent philosopher Mr. The Notorious B.I.G., "ask what your interests are, who you be with, things to make you smile, what numbers to dial."
You know what? This is also extremely unlikely, but you get the gist. When we come to a fork in the road, we should all do as Yogi recommends:
Take it.
Life. Life happened.
Seriously, it has been a bit hectic of a time for me in the last two months, September especially. I've had to make tough choices about my employment and where I'm living (hint: it's related to employment), I've done some additional not-for-leisure traveling, I've borne witness to and stood in support of my friends having tough times with additional issues, and oddly enough, may even have loved and lost a person I've never met, but with whom I'm told I formed a perfect match. Some truly scary and nerve-wracking decisions.
Perhaps worst of all (okay, not really an impact on my life and lack of writing, but it sort've works as a tie-in and introduction, so just hear me out) is that America's unlikeliest zen master recently passed after a long and fruitful life. Lawrence "Yogi" Berra died recently, leaving our world a bit more logical, but a lot less colorful. I've long believed that the epitaph on his grave marker should read: "I really didn't say everything I said."
 |
| "No! Really!" (source) |
This is especially humorous to me largely due to the fact that he isn't known to have ever actually said that - or half of the other things often attributed to him - but he saw enough mirth in it to make it the subtitle of one of his published books. But that's the irony of it, and perhaps the magic of it too. Yogi was always eminently quotable, especially since his funny witticisms didn't entirely make good sense; it was always the thought behind it that mattered most.
Perhaps this is the primary reason why my good Friend quoted a large passage of Yogi's that discussed fear. On this topic, my Friend quoted Yogi as having the following to say:
Everybody's got fear. Everybody's afraid something bad is going to happen sometime. That's life. But what's important is that you don't let it stop you from doing things, taking risks. Every decision is a risk, every choice leaves a choice behind. You can't let yourself get paralyzed by the fear of what might go wrong. (from What Time Is It? You Mean Now?: Advice for Life from the Zennest Master of Them All)
So it is that I've made peace with my choices in these last couple months regarding my own livelihood...when I wasn't regretting not writing more for this blog. The whole thing left me fairly introspective regarding a wide variety of other things, such as my faith and the Church (here having the big C, meaning the Christian faith generally, and its various adherents), my friends, their friends, and their ongoing tour aboard the Struggle Bus, and my (non-existent) love life.
You know, the small things.
The first two things were fairly easy to resolve. It's definitely been the third that's taken most of my time and attention. I do not claim but one regret in life, and it's unrelated to romance, but I know myself to have been notoriously thick-headed where love abides. Well, I won't sell myself short; I'm still notoriously thick-headed.
It's a big reason why my friends have regularly attempted to play matchmaker for me, usually without my knowledge. And not always with my blessing, either. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy that others are looking out for me. I just usually prefer to forge my own path as it regards romance. I've just been remarkably bad at it.
Some years ago now I came across a diary of mine that I had long-since stopped using. (My time as a diarist has been spotty, as you well know now, though I seemed to have a particular fervor for penning the most ridiculous things during junior high and early high school.) I read through it and noted with a great deal of envy - and hindsight, honestly - how happy and naive I had been regarding my high school romances. Such trivial things pleased me in the greatest of ways.
But this post is about Fear, not how dreamy I may or may not have found certain females in my high school. Answer: Not at all...ish. At the very least I never actually used the word 'dreamy'.
Given that hindsight, there are a significant number of choices with regard to my love-life I would have made differently, had I not been so fearful of the consequences that I know now aren't so serious. This has always been my version of kryptonite; I've always been too afraid of rejection, of what other people might say, to have ever been confident enough to have taken the necessary risks. I, unwisely, let my fear stop me from doing things and experiencing life. If I gain those experiences, perhaps I overcome more fear as I find things don't go as poorly as I've imagined they always would.
Again, though I don't have any regrets, I do often find myself playing the What If? game. On my mind recently has been one particular encounter I had a decade ago, probably more, where I had returned to a familiar place for a vocal concert and spent the evening entranced with a particular dark-haired, bright-eyed, and altogether lovely soprano. I did not realize until some time later the identity of this woman, and that I had known her as a youth, though at the time I found her to be a bit snotty and a rather ... rambunctious young girl. I suppose she was given a bit more leeway back then as her parents were often busy caring for her sibling who was, I think, afflicted by a developmental disorder (I assume the sibling remains alive, but I've been so long out of contact with the family that I haven't the foggiest and would not presume to make the alternate assumption. Is that a result of these sorts of disorders? I refuse to speculate further without adequate foreknowledge since I realize that I, like a certain ill-begotten young man by the name of Jon Snow, know nothing.).
 |
| Wait. I swear I've heard that before.(source) |
My current self wishes I could reach back in time and smack my youngest self so that my slightly-older self would have thought to have made it a point to talk to this beautiful woman. She had become graceful, lovely, and, erhm, well-behaved...I suppose. As my vivid memory chokes to life under the heavy cloud of dust, I realize that even this description does her a great injustice. She seemed kind and responsible, a well-leveled head atop alabaster shoulders. My memory of her as a child was being blown away as quickly as leaves before a stiff autumn wind as I watched this woman. I let the moment pass, and only recently have I realized how much more I could have, probably ought to have, done. I don't mean to suggest I deserved any outcome, but I ought to have at least tried for my own sake.
But would anything have come of my approaching this young lady after the concert? Would we have lightheartedly reminisced about our wilder younger years (occasionally I must publicly maintain the fiction that I had wild years; I suppose I must've been a terror for a rare minute or two at some point as a toddler), all the while falling madly in love and making plans for an admirably long life together?
Extremely unlikely.
The point, however, is that I never even made an attempt. I let my fear control me and hold me back from taking the necessary risk. Nothing may ever have occurred, but what if it had? I will never know.
This is something with which I know, I know, my Friend never struggled. I know she always had the confidence to make the hard choices, even if it took her some time to consider all the options. I know that if she ever encountered a decision that needed made, she would make it. It's just one of the many ways that my Friend has done and continues to inspire me.
I haven't had much opportunity to flex these new-found muscles of risk to build my confidence, but I'm trying. At some point, I hope to be able to approach an alluring young woman, look her straight in her beautiful, clear eyes, and, in the words of the late preeminent philosopher Mr. The Notorious B.I.G., "ask what your interests are, who you be with, things to make you smile, what numbers to dial."
You know what? This is also extremely unlikely, but you get the gist. When we come to a fork in the road, we should all do as Yogi recommends:
Take it.
