Fear
First steps are always the hardest. Ideas, dreams, and visions of what you hope for are equal parts exciting and terrifying. When you talk about them with others, you get a sense of accomplishment and joy when those around you affirm the quality of ideas and encourage you to live them out. So perhaps you start planning out what it might look like to manifest your dream. Budgets are estimated, YouTube videos are consulted, and maybe you seek advice from those who have already been to your destination.
But, like any journey, planning can only get you so far. Ultimately, no one is fully prepared for the road ahead. Until we have done the thing, there will always be that voice in the back of our mind that questions whether we’re fit for the adventure. “Do you have what it takes?” This is where the real challenge lies. Will we move forward or let fear win the day?
In reality, the fear can find an object in almost anything. Change, challenge, and novelty are uncomfortable and there is that animal part of each of us that is a magnet for the easy and manageable. Fear is one of many preloaded responses to keep us stuck. All of us recognize the legend of the knight slaying the dragon to rescue the princess or obtain the gold. In our everyday life, that fear, that thing that pushes to keep us stationary and comfortable, is the dragon; our dreams are the damsel or the gemstones.
Overcoming
The question then becomes how do we overcome that fear, that dragon within us? Ultimately, I think the answer is faith; a faith that there is something about our dreams worth pursuing; that if we follow our hearts in this way, life is to be found. Alternatively, we can ask the question of what would happen if we didn’t take the leap. Where will you end up if you never step into adventure? What does the future look like if the journey isn’t endeavored?
In my experience, it means hell. That might seem a bit extreme, but I don’t quite mean a place of hellfire, brimstone, and torture. What I have in mind is something more akin to Dante’s depiction, which sees Satan as frozen in ice in the deepest pit of hell, or perhaps C.S. Lewis’ vision in Great Divorce of a place grey, disconnected, and lonely. That is where we end up when we don’t pursue our dreams. Why? Because dreams are part of what animates us. Hope is what fuels the drive for life. This is what the traditional view of hell tends to get right. Inaction on dreams is what eats away at and consumes our hope, our very soul; the soul that hopes for better things, for goodness and beauty beyond our current circumstances.
Fundamentally, this is because our inaction is in fact a choice; a choice against our dreams; a vote in favor of distrusting ourselves. This only affirms and feeds that fear which held us back from the onset. Thus, downward one goes until hope is lost. Pairing a fear of this consequence with the hope of what could be in the dream, this seems to be the weapon that can overcome that initial fear, the dragon within.
Why I Write
I suppose all of this is my internal wrestling with making the first steps on my own journey. I did all the planning for running a blog: I set up a website, designed the templates and art, and set up the media and made the announcements to publicize it. However, I hadn’t made that first step. I had the idea, the vision, and the dream, and I tried to set everything up to go without a hitch, yet there was still that initial movement that I had failed to initiate. And with that, I started feeling my hope start dwindling. Slowly, I became more anxious, it became tougher to get out of bed, and I started filling my time with more busy work to try and find an excuse for not getting the ball rolling.
Thus, I came to a point where I had to look at myself in the mirror and own up to it. I was letting myself down. I had a dream, a vision for where I hoped to be, and I was letting that die, and my joy with it. So, I bring to you my inaugural piece, on the ‘why’ behind the Scales of Life project you see before you. My dream is to learn out loud and to discuss the lessons and wisdom behind a life of hope. In practice, that will look like articles about themes of religion and history that have been impactful for me, reviews and expositions of music that have moved me, inquiries into human nature and sexuality, experiments with different lifestyle choices, and simple treatises on things like bourbon, brotherhood, and bonfires.
Ultimately, my writing will involve that which is important to me, and that has been the obstacle at the starting line, as talking in depth about what I’m passionate seems to me a vulnerable and risky process. Yet, my hope is that discussing what moves the heart of humanity will also move you. Thus, I welcome you to the Scales of Life.
Noah McRoberts
P.S.
I would be unwise and untruthful to claim that all of these ideas or my own and completely original. In reality, we are all a conglomeration of the experiences we’ve had, ideas we’ve encountered, and people we have related with, and I am no exception. With that, at the end of each piece I compose, I will include some of the podcasts, books, or other forms of learning I have consumed that helped me come to my thoughts. So, for this piece and those to come, I encourage you to check out the links in the P.S. to the content that influenced me.
Great first post! I’m excited to read more in the future! Keep up the great stuff brother!