Sunday, January 13, 2013

Disquiet

And it is 2013. It feels like a watershed year. Spent the tail end of the previous year working over my master plan and am now spending most of the time working up the courage.

Fragility and frailty of life as experienced by the people I know and of the people I have met, all make for uncomfortable reminders of mortality. Sickness, breakdowns and deaths - seeing the circle of life played out accords little comfort to fellow journeymen, and dont we all have our one-way tickets.

As years blur into each other, time takes liberties on the body, mind and spirit. And as so often happens to the middle aged, we collect responsibilities as we once we collected dreams. Being trapped by fear and duty, it becomes easy to justify the paths not taken.

Tolkien articulates this best as Lady Eowyn describing her fear

A cage. To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recalls or desire

A bit high brow to be quoting Tolkien so early in the year. Still its the hallmark of bonafide geeks who don't go out much. I digress.

But it's one thing to be knowing yet another to be doing. And deciding. A career change, going back to school or fleeing to the hills, I would have the priestesses of Delphi on retainer if they still existed.

The most debilitating human ability next to worry is regret. And I have made oscillating between the two close to an art. More than stressful work, I am quite convinced that an idle mind will send me rolling into the grave much sooner.

Still here I am. Like a boulder at the edge of a precipice. Brimming with potential energy yet too weighed down to fly off the cliff. Perhaps all that is needed is a swift kick.