Risk Arriving

Good morning.

I found myself compelled to revisit this entry which I had made earlier in the year in my friend's (Themba Makamo) blog (kanivothek-word.blogspot.com). I hope that you will find inspiration and charispitisation as you read through it.

Thank you for taking the risk to read it.

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Picture: Felix Salmon



And on some nights we did not sleep, not that we were immune to sleep, no, it's just that these dreams kept us awake. These dreams kept sleep at bay; the very same dreams demanded our company. A yawn at certain points was a complex thing to understand: not being aware of the time, did it mean that we are waking up or about to sleep? The pursuit of passion had engulfed us so much so that time was time as we spent it.

On these very nights, I would pull blankets off the bed because papers occupied it. Wrapped in these new found sheets, concepts lay there. Concepts lay with me. Conception. Some concepts were already developed, some were just introduced, while some were about to emerge. I buried some in the bin while some rested in peace in a certain corner of my mind, never to be seen. Some had a "3rd day" mentality – miraculously arising from nowhere.

Vowing to not become a statistic, I took it upon myself to look forward to dying empty with all potential exhausted. It meant I had to start somewhere. Though hard and not necessarily exciting, start I had to. My mind was the starting point. I had to at least encourage my thoughts to flap their wings and face the harsh reality of leaving the nest in which they were conceived and face the great sweeping winds of flight or suffer a spectacular thump of after-crash landing from a steep fall. The alternative held more appeal as I could risk crash landing than live with the constant wandering of what the sweep of the wind mid-air feels like. So, I had to flap; I had to leave the nest; I had to fly; I had to conquer. All well and good is intention; yet translating into action is another form of death. The fear of that death is in the form of the living dead we encounter and interact with on our daily basis.

What does the all-too-familiar bench of fear boast on its roster? Do we recognize hesitation, procrastination, unfulfilment, regret, missed opportunities, envy when others progress, justification and mediocrity sitting there? Surely this cannot be what you deem a "Dream Team". Sadly, it would seem that if we identify with fear we would not be alone. There is a legion of others on this side of the ring that it no longer troubles us. The t-shirt fits, so we put it on without hesitation. We have somehow come to conform and made being afraid the new cool. Put on a proper pair of sunglasses, bright shoes, big watch and cologne, and you have fear dripping swag.

Fear becomes a bad thing if it does not cause us to realize that we are not meant to be stationary and stagnant. It becomes unacceptable if it does not cause us to confront the shadows that lie before us and the shadows that lie to us. It has a way with dismissing initiative and confining us to response mechanisms. In a 100m sprint, though the hammer has clapped and the clock tics, the runner is yet to peel off the mat. Anticipating better conditions, he watches on as others make way, fumbling as they may be. The fear to start badly ultimately is the fear to start at all. Fear keeps man ordinary. Though the bland and unimaginative are not appealing to us, they've become all that we can do with. They are all that we know and are accustomed to.

Fear sometimes gives you enough room to think that you're still in the game and lets you emit a spark here and there. But in retrospect, you are capable of far more; you are a blaze that shouldn't just warm those around you, but should set alight the trail that you chose to tread on. Fear is a hero's homecoming to the village of the unknown. In the village of the unknown, your level of "should've, would've, could've" determines who will wear the reigning champion's belt of shame, regret and envy. Oh the cruelty of fear! Giving you a false sense of hope; giving you those 5 positive phrases to say every morning, noon and evening; giving you a head start on what you should have become yesterday; taking your money at many-a-seminar promising you to come out a man of purpose, potential and power. O fear, fear, for why hast thou not forsaken us? Fear turns sane men into fools and robs many vessels of the opportunity to reveal the treasures vested in them. Are you afraid as yet? Does this all seem too familiar? Are you looking into a mirror?

We are found guilty in this that when we should've been in the fields, we instead were under the warmth and heaviness of blankets, dreaming of that great harvest. Our tools lay there gathering dust and rust while the sun drank water and beckoned the great shadow of the night to come, when man rests from his work. "From what are you resting?" I ask. We've long rested on our laurels, eating the fruits of poverty while our hands and minds go to waste, in haste.

Potential sits there untroubled. Days come and go without the will to rather try and fail. We've sat down for quite a while now to a point where we think we'll arrive by looking and pointing. No! Walk. Get up and get your walk on. Be challenged and be changed. The scope of what you can do is only limited by the horizon cast by your mind. Push it a bit further and see down the road. Chase it and in so doing continue pushing it to a point of tiredness where horizon will rather touch and kiss a foreign land.

Dare to be you. You're all the difference that's needed. Do you! Give you and believe you. Far is where we're still going; test-drive the machine you are and risk arriving.