Just because it's shiny

It's hard to stay on track.

First of all, you have to have a track. That's not so easy. You've got to figure out what animates you, makes your heart sing. Basically, you've got to find your soul. Having found it, you need to figure out how to create a life around it. How to spend your time. With whom to associate. How to earn a living...

BTW, I'm not saying you ought to pick a track and stick with it forever. You should always re-assess what you're all about. As Emerson famously said "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds..." Your track needn't have been foolish from inception but as times change (and as you change), it may become foolish and obsolete. So no, don't pick a path and stubbornly follow it forever. But you should always be on some path. Know who and what you are and have a plan for being that. [Similar to Gretchen Rubin's "Be Gretchen" rule.]

And then you have to stay on track. And staying on track is really hard. Much like holding reservations after you've taken them.



You see, shiny objects are going to appear as you move through life attempting to manifest your soul in all that you do. Those shiny objects can be large and very shiny such as beautiful women or men that look so delicious but are all wrong for you, financial opportunities or jobs that can be lucrative but which will take you further from your soul... Or, they can be small and just sparkle a little bit when you're at a moment of weakness. A brief opportunity to say something hurtful to someone you'd really like to hurt, a chance to not tell someone something they ought to hear but which will be difficult to say, even parking in a handicapped spot for just 2 minutes.

But you've got to ignore the shiny objects. They aren't good for you. They will destroy your life. Because your life is entirely about your soul. The rest of it is all about enabling the soul. And the problem is that the soul is not subject to apprehension by the senses while all of the other stuff looks so vivid, smells so delicious, tastes...oh man how it tastes! But those things are not real the way your soul is.

So find a way. Muster the courage to ignore the shiny object in an effort to burnish your soul.

Is courage worth it?

WARNING: For this post, I am going to conflate non-conformity and courage. I recognize that they are not the same thing. But they do share certain features and I am in the mood to conflate. If you are allergic to conflation, please consult your philosophy professional before reading this post.

The question posed in the title of this post is something I have been grappling with personally and professionally for some months now. In my life I have seen ample evidence of Emerson's comment that "for nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure." I have felt the sting of that whip many times. And lately it has got me wondering whether it's worth it.

After my two recent posts about change (see the most recent one here), I wanted to write about courage. Specifically, I wanted to exhort and encourage my tiny readership to act with courage in their lives.

But now I'm not so sure. I wonder if it's worth it.

On the one hand, courage is so badly needed in order to produce the revolutionary change I discussed in my last post on change. Someone must have the ability and willingness to challenge the prevailing order and produce the ideas that will illuminate the future.

On the other hand, there is that whipping.

So I don't know.

But it seems to me that those who are non-conformists, who are courageous just don't have a choice. I would imagine that the soldier that jumps on a grenade does so not out of a careful consideration of the relative merits of maintaining his own life versus preserving the lives of others, but simply because he cannot help himself. The thought of not saving the lives of his comrades is just not part of the package for him.

In a much smaller way, I think about myself. I feel that my life would be so much easier if I just went along. If I thought as others did, felt what they felt and acted as they act. But then I think about that life. It feels very much akin to what Thoreau meant when he wrote that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." I cannot really imagine living that life. I cannot imagine being happy without the ability to imagine a different world and attempting to bring it into existence.

What scares me about that is that I see a lifetime of whipping. It was much easier to take as a 20 year old. It's starting to hurt as a soon to be 40 year old.