I have no need for my “inner-child” or another mantra. I only care about the power to manifest my intentions. I have systems for this. Target accuracy about 90%. The errant 10% are things that I have apparently not properly articulated yet.
The key to navigating obstacles from distraction to terror seems to be desire and going at it with unwavering dedication. It’s not necessary to understand the whole journey, only to identify the next step and take it.
Recently, however, I wavered.
I was overwhelmed with despair, surely multi-valent. I was inconsolable, untouchable, reactive, helpless. I watched joy pass but could not reach to taste it.
Then one day in the sunshine, the sky shattered and fell in bits of glass around me. I did not dare to walk upon it and so I sat very still and looked very carefully at every reflection, every layer, at what was transparent and what was opaque.
After some time of looking I noticed that every conjunction of light and shadow was a space of interpretation. I realized that the inversion of despair is imagination.
NOT an infrastructure of Hope. Only the willingness to rearrange the pieces, even slightly. That is imagination. And it is all we need to combat despair.
A very simple example: Suddenly, dancers around the world can indeed imagine dancing in masks. Had we been able to imagine this two years ago, we might have avoided all sorts of damage.
Imagination averts helplessness, disappointment, judgment, and destruction.
It is a powerful alternative to the word ‘no’.
