| Posted on February 3, 2014 at 5:30 PM |
I have been struggling to choose a topic for my first entry. It is apparent (to me), that the first public entry poses the biggest challenge, because I feel that the first has to be everything at once. I’m paralyzed by the daunting, unapologetic weight of first impressions. “It has to be an attention grabber, a spark of brilliance, a delegate for my cognitive committee; it’s a real make-or-breaker.” In other words, this intimated ‘first-entry’ is my kryptonite.
I’ve compiled a long list of topics and article titles, but there’s not a topic in the list that strikes me as an ideal “starter,” and I’m trapped in this ceaseless discourse with myself—fettered by indecision. I scan the list of titles, over and over…and reject every one of them:
No, no, no, no. The target audience is too small for an opening entry.
No...relatively inconsequential...and kinda hard to say.
No, no, no, no, no...too obscure for a 'first entry'.
No, no—too broad to tackle in one entry.
This is all too familiar. The more importance I place on a task, the more debilitating the paralysis. Once again, I sit staring down the barrel of certain defeat, unable to budge though I’m well aware that the finger on the trigger is my own, and this gun is full of blanks. As I sit in idle contemplation, I’m reminded of a quote I once read (thanks to a fortuitous landing on an obscure website, the name of which eludes me):
"A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure [wo]men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort." - Sydney Smith
After rereading the quote, it occurred to me that I have two options. I can succumb to my fear of failure, or I can throw caution to the wind, embrace my amor fati, and show my hand, not because it’s a surefire winner, but because—win, lose, or draw—I refuse to fold. While the latter may end in failure, it is the former that ensures failure by self-fulfilling prophecy. In thinking this through, it occurs to me just how silly a “fear of failure” is. How can I fear “failure” to such a degree that it renders me paralyzed if I am, at the same time, willing to surrender all effort and, in so doing, render failure inevitable? That in mind—I realize that I have nothing left to lose (hence the candor).
I want to talk about all of the items on my list. I want to write the articles, and with ‘first impression’ jitters out of the way, I can…and I will. For now, I'll take this opportunity to segue into a related topic—one that often graces my contemplation; i.e. the debilitating obsession with ends.
A fear of failure is one of several instances in which one’s unrelenting obsession with possibility poses acute hindrances. That which exists is present and actual. Actuality annuls possibility. Man thinks and man acts. So long as man thinks he is contemplating action—he actualizes nothing. We learn to “think before we act”. Unfortunately, there is a fine line between beneficial premeditation and paralyzing deliberation.
The obsession with ends begets paralysis because ends are possibilities, and possibility is infinite. The wider the breadth of my proverbial horizons, the greater the depth of my worldly understanding, the longer I deliberate. I know too much of possibility. There are too many ends to consider and too many paths or combinations of paths that may get me where I want to go. Not only must I seize with conviction, an end from an infinite pool, once I make this choice, the deliberation begins anew as I contemplate the means by which I may reach this end. If I am to succeed, I must act and I must commence of my own volition.
In an unprecedented, valueless existence, such tasks as decision making and voluntary action are simple; they are not inherently difficult. So, whence comes the complication, anxiety and fear? Man has an inherent sense of responsibility unique to his species. Sartre says, in his Existentialism and Human Emotions, “Man is condemned to be free—condemned, because he did not create himself, yet, in other respects is free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” In a more antidotal tone, he goes on to say (of man):
We shall confine ourselves to reckoning only with what depends upon our will, or on the ensemble of probabilities which make our actions possible. When we want something, we always have to reckon with probabilities…but probabilities are to be reckoned with only to the point where my action comports with the ensemble of these possibilities, and no further. The moment the possibilities I am considering are not rigorously involved by my action, I ought to disengage myself from them.
I will rely on fellow-fighters insofar as these comrades are involved with me in a common struggle, in the unity of a party or a group in which I can more or less make my weight felt…But, given that man is free…I cannot count on men whom I do not know. I’ve got to limit myself to what I see.
While Sartre does not explicitly differentiate between them, I believe that some pursuits are blind and some are blinding; they are very different, and we are prone to both. A blind pursuit presupposes the concession that ends are not absolute.
“It is not given to everyone to know the end.” F.W.J Schelling
A blinding pursuit, on the other hand, is one in which the obsession with preconceived ends prevents one from genuinely participating in life; that is to say—it prevents one from engaging with one’s present (with actuality). A blinding pursuit renders the pursuer vulnerable to failure by way of paralysis, or anxiety-induced forfeiture, or by the delusion that success requires the acquisition of predetermined ends.
“Existentialist conversion does not suppress my instincts, plans, and passions. It merely prevents any possibility of failure by refusing to set up as absolutes the ends toward which my transcendence thrusts itself.” Simone de Beauvoir
He who accepts the haze on the horizons towards which he travels is better off, by far, than he who refuses it. To accept the haze is to venture—period. It is to accept the absence of preconceived ends and venture. It is to concede to uncertainty and ambiguity and venture.
“Given that men are free tomorrow and they will freely decide what man will be, I cannot be sure that, after my death, fellow-fighters will carry on my work to bring it to its maximum perfection… Does that mean that I should abandon myself to quietism? No. First, I should involve myself; then act on the old saw: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
The doctrine that I am presenting is the very opposite of quietism, since it declares, ‘There is no reality except in action’…man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life.” Sartre
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Ethics of Ambiguity. Trans. Bernard Frechtman. Illustrated reprint ed. N.p.: Citadel, 1948. Print.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism and Human Emotions. N.p.: Citadel, 1985. Print.
Schelling, F.W.J. The Ages of the World. Trans. Jason M. Wirth. N.p.: SUNY, 2000. Print.
Categories: The Passion Diaries
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