Courage as Gateway
Taking risks is the only way through, much as I wish otherwise...
Several years ago I turned sustained attention to my deeper self — largely because I was having trouble answering the basic question “What do I want?” I really couldn’t connect with an answer, which started to nag me. Delving into spirituality, psychology, even poetry followed.
So what have I learned? An observation and a tentative conclusion:
My emotional walls have been thick, but my fog of busy-ness has been even thicker. The world loves a busy person — at work, especially. And it can feel so good! For me at times it was workaholism, but nearly as often it was true in other aspects of life. Justine and I have moved a ridiculous number of times, each time requiring all the work of uprooting and re-rooting. For years I ran a LOT, so fitness fit the bill. So did side-hustles, and helping family members, and and and…
Courage sits at the threshold to a more fulfilling future — and the need for courage seems only to grow. I explored my shadow and admitted things to myself about myself that I’d prefer not to have noticed, much less accepted. And now I’m called to bring my truer self into the world with a level of vulnerability that is uncomfortable, to say the least.
Walt Whitman’s poem below has long resonated with me and came to mind. Maybe I’m understanding why he added “and identity” to his answer.
Have you been too busy to hear your own voice? If you paused, what might you hear?
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O Me! O Life!
By Walt Whitman
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.