Decisions and revisions
May. 14th, 2003 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4How do we seek out the things we want from life?
Do we sit down and work out where we want to be, what steps are necessary to get there, and then launch our n-stage plan into action? Or do we simply play it by ear, feel our way towards something better?
There may be some people who have this kind of focus, but experience suggests that the vast majority of people are merely stumbling around in the dark, finding out what works and what doesn't, repeating the things that seem to work and avoiding the things that don't.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Grand Plan, while it can be a great dream to hang on to, can also be its own stumbling-block; it's too big, too all-encompassing, it incorporates too many major life changes which we can't make all at once. In trying to do everything at once we end up doing nothing at all, falling on the first step.
The first step is to take a step. Meaningless? Obvious? Think about walking from one side of the room to the other. How do you do it? You take one step forward. You don't step from where you are straight to the other side of the room; you just put one foot in front of the other. Maybe they're imperceptibly small steps. Maybe you're just shuffling an inch at a time. But you're moving.
Maybe you don't even know where you want to be. Most people don't. If all you know is that you don't want to be on this side of the room, take a step away from where you are. It's the first step that matters. And every step is the first step.
There are as many ways as there are people. Maybe more. Some of us follow the signposts; some of us wander into the woods without needing a path; some of us take the path of least resistance, the road worn smooth by a million feet. (Some of us sit and stare into the river at Parson's Pleasure.) The paths have a power of their own, the force of memory and myth; they can guide us, but if we let them, they will shape us and own us.
* * *
I am treading and retreading a path that is beginning to own me. I am wandering around the same few (half-deserted) streets like a drunken man, my sense of purpose and urgency made farcical by my lack of direction.
I have been wandering this way for some time. (Oxford, Cambridge, London ... Unreal.) I cling to the illusion of progress, because the times and the places are passing me by as I walk in the same tired ways. I need to step aside, but there's a crowd all around me, all flowing in the same direction. (I had not thought death had undone so many.) I have gathered this crowd around me, I asked them to travel with me, but now the path has gained its own momentum.
There's always a jolt when you step off a moving walkway, a moment while your feet catch up and remember how to walk entirely on their own.
It's the first step that matters. And every step is the first step.
Do we sit down and work out where we want to be, what steps are necessary to get there, and then launch our n-stage plan into action? Or do we simply play it by ear, feel our way towards something better?
There may be some people who have this kind of focus, but experience suggests that the vast majority of people are merely stumbling around in the dark, finding out what works and what doesn't, repeating the things that seem to work and avoiding the things that don't.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Grand Plan, while it can be a great dream to hang on to, can also be its own stumbling-block; it's too big, too all-encompassing, it incorporates too many major life changes which we can't make all at once. In trying to do everything at once we end up doing nothing at all, falling on the first step.
The first step is to take a step. Meaningless? Obvious? Think about walking from one side of the room to the other. How do you do it? You take one step forward. You don't step from where you are straight to the other side of the room; you just put one foot in front of the other. Maybe they're imperceptibly small steps. Maybe you're just shuffling an inch at a time. But you're moving.
Maybe you don't even know where you want to be. Most people don't. If all you know is that you don't want to be on this side of the room, take a step away from where you are. It's the first step that matters. And every step is the first step.
"So leave the ways that are making you be what you really don't want to be
Leave the ways that are making you love what you really don't want to love"
There are as many ways as there are people. Maybe more. Some of us follow the signposts; some of us wander into the woods without needing a path; some of us take the path of least resistance, the road worn smooth by a million feet. (Some of us sit and stare into the river at Parson's Pleasure.) The paths have a power of their own, the force of memory and myth; they can guide us, but if we let them, they will shape us and own us.
* * *
I am treading and retreading a path that is beginning to own me. I am wandering around the same few (half-deserted) streets like a drunken man, my sense of purpose and urgency made farcical by my lack of direction.
I have been wandering this way for some time. (Oxford, Cambridge, London ... Unreal.) I cling to the illusion of progress, because the times and the places are passing me by as I walk in the same tired ways. I need to step aside, but there's a crowd all around me, all flowing in the same direction. (I had not thought death had undone so many.) I have gathered this crowd around me, I asked them to travel with me, but now the path has gained its own momentum.
There's always a jolt when you step off a moving walkway, a moment while your feet catch up and remember how to walk entirely on their own.
It's the first step that matters. And every step is the first step.
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 03:39 am (UTC)Most people I've talked about this (and myself) do a bit of both. Have a not-all-too-precise goal, and if decisions are to be made, make them with that goal in mind.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 04:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 04:22 am (UTC)Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 04:57 am (UTC)Anybody who hasn't read it, GO AND READ IT (http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html).
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 05:36 am (UTC)Life Plans. Hmmm. All I can say is I had one, once. All of it got me to where I am now, none of it is currently in operation or is obvious/capable of being inferred from outside observation of the way I live. I wouldn't go back and change things now (although I'd like to erase a few years), although obviously being staggeringly rich and famous would be nice. :-)
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 07:20 am (UTC)A journey of a thousand miles only has to begin with a single step until you learn how to fly.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-15 06:55 pm (UTC)EXPN crogglesome? (I honestly can't tell from this description whether you view the current state of affairs as a good thing, a bad thing, or not quite unequivocally either.)
A journey of a thousand miles only has to begin with a single step until you learn how to fly.
Thank you, JLS. :-)
no subject
Date: 2003-05-15 06:56 pm (UTC)EXPN crogglesome? (I honestly can't tell from this description whether you view the current state of affairs as a good thing, a bad thing, merely an odd thing, or some/all/none/fewer of the above.)
A journey of a thousand miles only has to begin with a single step until you learn how to fly.
Thank you, JLS. :-)
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 09:45 am (UTC)How do we seek out the things we want from life?
Do we sit down and work out where we want to be, what steps are necessary to get there, and then launch our n-stage plan into action? Or do we simply play it by ear, feel our way towards something better?
I have neither answers nor ways of trying to solve the problem and this worries me. I know things I'd like to do (my old ambitions list) and things which make me happy (see my last post) but these aren't the same thing. In a sense, they're only distractions.
I have a nasty feeling that there is no answer and this is something we all have to work out for ourselves what works, but I don't want this to be the case.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-15 06:58 pm (UTC)Maybe the distractions are the point? Having fun along the way, meeting fellow travellers, telling stories, admiring the scenery... rather than worrying about where you're going?
I have a nasty feeling that there is no answer and this is something we all have to work out for ourselves what works, but I don't want this to be the case.
Why not?
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 11:22 am (UTC)