Red Shoulder Hawk

Red Shoulder Hawk

Monday, November 14, 2005

Raw materials from collapse

Suppose a friend invites you for a walk. You are lead to a pile of wreckage, and told, "If you clean this up and make something of it, you may have it."

Would that be exciting? Imagine the wreckage hides some sort of treasure, and you can see hints that if you take this project on, the reward will be very great. Now is it exciting?

I'm attempting to look at the wreckage I now see all around me in these terms-- namely, as opportunity. I've made this mess: the mess of too many commitments, of work that falls off the table, of missed connections, of the constant sense that there too little time and too much to do and even if I get most of the doing done, somehow the balance of dollars and energy tends towards the negative.

I can see how I've built this empire of collapse. If I keep looking at it this way, within the self-flagellation arena, it keeps sucking me dry. I'm experimenting with the idea that the myriad half-starts, bogged-downs, and not-yet-followed-throughs are simply what is, and I'm coming at them fresh and ready to assemble them into something great. I don't know where the enthusiasm to take this on will come from. If I find that, though, and can start from there, then whatever I build will not crumble.

In a nutshell, my new perception is this: it's all just a jumble of raw material from which to build greatness.

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