It’s always there, isn’t it? Right in front of you; that cloudy mirror, forever reflecting more light than image, more hope than cold reality. We hurt our eyes squinting to get a glimpse of how we’d look, what we would’ve accomplished – but at the same time we cautiously draw a veil of illusion over our line of sight, an ineffectual shield from the razor-edged truth that crops up, inevitably, from time to time. It never shatters the glass but it can shatter our hearts, the way it hits us, who are always too sanguine to notice, like an bullet train: inexorably.
We – with our fragile veils – are compulsively drawn to that mirror, though, and I suppose it’s just our curious reaction to fear – we want to believe in our aspirations, to calm the raging torrent incessantly swirling inside us. I know when I see the future, I want to envision utopia, to transpose all that is right and good – and reassuring – onto whatever’s really there; but another part of me tells myself that is disingenuous, that I should be realistic in order to get a more nuanced and better informed grasp of what could conceivably arise so I can react with more wisdom. And what do I really want, anyway – paradise, or life?
That doesn’t mean I relish every last bit of the challenge. I’m worried – worried about the next five days, worried that I might not be able to anneal all these imperfections and insecurities out of myself to face these Herculean labours. I don’t have an explicit regimen of toughening up; I’ve always tried to keep flexible, adapt. This method seems inadequate, though: the obstacle is unprecedentedly big, at least it seems that way, and it’s true that self-confidence is not the only – or even the most difficult – hurdle to overcome. I particularly dislike the idea of existence as a race – if I preferred undue and immoderate competition I would have applied to Oxford or Cambridge (lol sorry, guys) – but at junctures like these I can’t help but think I just have to pave my own path through. Excellence does not have to fit into a Darwinian paradigm but I know it takes effort and zeal. And damn me if I’m not gonna try.
BRING IT.
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