On Fear Of Taking Action

Note: This piece was written on October 21, 2024.

I've still been thinking about the pointlessness of the life so many people, myself included, live. There are so many things I say I want to do, yet my actions continue to tell a different story.

I do think a large part of the motivation behind that inaction is fear. Too many people are aware of the things that might go wrong, and so they continue to act in safety. But safety is an illusion; it does not really exist. Anything could happen to any one of us at any time.

I don’t just mean death, to be clear, although that is the most obvious conclusion and the most glaring example in my own life right now. But there could also be a layoff from a job, no matter how many years you’ve invested in the company, or divorce after a lifetime of marriage, or the end of a friendship which you’d relied on, or countless other things. All things are precious because all things could and will come to an end.

The problem for me, and I think for many others, is that I am far too aware of the negative consequences that could happen if I take action in the direction I want to go, and not aware enough of the positive consequences that might happen if I take that path. I am also not focused enough on the things that might happen if I do nothing. So much might happen no matter what path I take.

This is, of course, partly evolutionary; I am putting myself in some sort of perceived danger and exposing myself an unknown “threat” by putting my work out into the world for possible criticism. But my bodily harm is not actually threatened if I follow my creative pursuits. I am just too aware of the possibility that I will be perceived negatively, potentially altering the tribe that keeps me “safe.”

My awareness makes it so much harder to do the things I truly want to do. To be a blissfully unaware idiot who believes they can do or be anything if they only put their mind and effort to the task that Mark Twain talked about–I wish for that, but I will never get it.

What I do have is, stereotypically, this new way of looking at my life that I simply cannot escape, brought on by unexpected tragedy. If I do not use it to propel myself forward it will swallow me whole. I think I might have to run from it the rest of my life or I will be consumed by its darkness.

Like the island of nightmares in C.S. Lewis’s The Dawn Treader, here there be monsters of my own mind. I don’t think I need Aslan to save me, though; I think I can sail away if I remember that my dreams are actually delightful as well as terrifying, and I choose to see what excites me rather than what might haunt me instead.

The edges of the map might always be a mystery, but I know there is light to be found in the adventure.