An Attempt Worth Making

I have been avoiding this for a long time. For years, I've thought of exploring and sharing my ideas with people – and I do, just not as succinctly or honestly as I would've liked. In my attempts to be more action-biased, I've bought domain names and paid for website hosting services, anything to get me started. The first days would involve me pacing , thinking, overthinking. Restlessness results in inaction, and inaction gives way to unease. Over time, the daily hustle and bustle encroaches, and the whole project becomes a pipe dream once again, haunting my subconscious and fuelling existential anxieties.

Potential is nothing if not honed into existence. And yet, it is the perennial mirage that keeps me tethered to the uneasy compromise of status quo. It keeps me sleepwalking towards seemingly important ends while realistically going nowhere. The unease of 3am anxieties buttressed by the illusion that somewhere in the future, things fall into place, potential is achieved and an enduring content follows. That illusion keeps me in line, shields me from finding out what happens if I try and fail.

But the restlessness, the anxiety stays. Nihilism creeps up and pays a visit every time the inevitable setback occurs, when even the uneasy compromise fails me. And once again I find myself vulnerable. I am forced to confront the worst. Wasted potential, wasted time on a life that yields little meaning. The call to create ignored, distracted by the uneasy comforts of that mirage. And now there is nothing there to fill me up when life gets me down.

And yet, deep within those anxieties, that fundamental emptiness, lies the seeds to my way forward. In the midst of uncertainty, emptiness, and a dearth of meaning there is space to ask 'what if?' It's just that more often than not, 'what if' sounds more like 'if only'. But if I were to set aside the self-reproach, acknowledge those very fundamental fears of doing one's best and not measuring up, and reject that shameful implication that such failure relegates one to worthlessness and deems one unlovable, what remains is an earnest curiosity.

In unending absurdity only curiosity can thrive. In that empty space lies an openness that calls for humans to explore, discover, and make up their own meanings and ways of being. It is an opportunity to create a rich tapestry, one that is truly ours precisely because nothing existed before. The truth is, I don't see myself anywhere. So I'm putting myself out there - crafting my own voice, and using it. And I don't know if it's valuable or not, but I'm gonna bring it into existence and let reality be the judge.  

And so I pledge myself to this responsibility. To steward my curiosity, foster an openness to possibility and perform my duty to create in service to the timeless pursuit of wisdom, style, and character. I promise I will stumble; I will fail to measure up despite my very best efforts, I may even give up sometimes, for a short while I hope, but I will try. For it is an attempt worth making.

The only way out is through curiosity and creation.

An attempt has been made.