cliffs of a moor in Ireland. The fencing (designating the safe viewing place from the step just before “over the edge”) was very un-fence-like. Really more like the small fence used around a flower bed. More decorative than functional. I remember being startled by the innocuous nature of the fence. As if it were a gentle suggestion that you might not want to travel beyond this point but if you are interested in going to the edge and hanging over, we wouldn't want to prevent you the experience. Yes. Those very thoughtful Irish. I did walk to the edge. And I did peer over. Not for long, for the drop took my breath. Not steep; straight down. But what a view.
Walk to the edge. Push your boundaries. Question your assumptions—those that are your own and those that others presume for you to undertake. Take all your expectations, which are kept in little boxes, and stack the boxes in the form of a ziggurat, or pyramid. And then step up and to the edge of it. Einstein believed that it is madness to continue the same actions and expect different results.
Walking to the edge is performing an action with the expectation of creating different results. Therefore the action must be different. It is not an invitation to continually make yourself uncomfortable—but rather, to question your comfort ability. What opportunities are missed by simply claiming the action that is most familiar, the one that is easiest to reach from where you're standing?
Conventional wisdom might retort with, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.”
A thing can break slowly. So slowly I don't even notice the break. I simply learn to compensate. Over time I've operated in tried ways with a system which is profoundly dysfunctional and I've not noticed. This happens all the time when people injure themselves. Fractures gradually worsen but the ability to compensate and mask over pain is staggering.
What happens when I walk to the edge? At the cliffs of the moor I lost a good amount of my breath. I was afraid. I moved away from my traveling companion warily, lest his sudden movement, wholly impersonal and not owing to me anything, should accidentally tip me toward a view I would not much care for (accidentally becoming quite personal). I compared the Irish fence structure and my concept of “fence” (developed in a lifetime of living in America) with what a fence is supposed to accomplish. In the moments before my desire of not wanting to fall tiptoed me back over the small fence, I felt a holy and unfamiliar wind. The colors of this majestic wonder compelled my imagination. Not in any other place in Ireland did I have the full impact of islandness than I had standing in this spot, this very vulnerable spot.
So. It may be frightening. Standing at the edge validates or clarifies our values and provides a sense of what is truly important. Loyalty and a sense of trust in our companions is called into question at the edge: one is more inclined to fend for one's own safety than depend, magnanimously, on the good intentions of another. Walking to the edge is something more likely to be done alone than with another or in a group. Walking to the edge becomes a very selective process. Who is at your shoulder or taking on the wind alongside you is very significant. To stand next to that person at the edge requires a great bit of trust. Generally, it's not advisable to walk to the edge as a social setting. The edge is an inappropriate context for gaining group consensus. Consideration by committee takes too long when one is faced with the choice between a few inches to a two-hundred-foot drop or flat ground behind a small fence.
And what of that drop? What are the consequences of such a fall? Is it correct to assume the results are death? Walks to the edge point out a knowledge base that needs to be filled out. Questions that need to be answered. Assumptions that can be challenged.
The view. After all the other considerations perhaps it is the view, which is the best justification for such steps. “The best place to stand is where everybody else—isn't.” Just as the best thing about leading a parade is that there are no hats, trombones, or batons to look around or over. Leading the parade provides the best view. (Leading a parade also provides the best view of you—it's a visible and vulnerable place.)
I am looking at a view—and I give my breath over to it. With grace, it gives my breath back. I determine to do a thing at the edge not because it makes me uncomfortable but in spite of the fact that it does. I allow that discomfort to instruct me; it is the discomfort of an experience at the edge that is the personal litmus of when it is time to step back behind the fence—or, perhaps, off the edge.
Stretch your usual patterns. (Recognize that habit provides a certain discipline or safety.) Do not become locked behind habit.
Read a type of literature that is unfamiliar to you.
Avoid television for an extended period. Send an unexpected letter.
See a movie by yourself.
Go a different way.
Try new tastes, colors, smells, sounds, ideas.
Stop affirming, “Oh, I'm not very good at (fill in your particular thing)” and then undertake a project as if you are good at that thing.
Introduce yourself to someone you have been wanting to meet.
Recognize the power of your words. Accept that they have a consequence (words build cultures, and preserve and destroy them). Every word has a story and a degree of impact. Do not say of your words, “Oh, they don't matter.” They matter a good bit.
Listen Hard
there is no silence long enough to keep me
from listening to your heart and celebrating the
vastness of your spirit.
remember the difference between
looking and seeing
(remember the difference between
hearing and listening.)
One of my best pals is eight. She advises me on fashion, shares her opinions on my food choices (many of which she approves, by the way), and tries to teach me jazz moves that make me apprehensive about the way she wants me to position my older self. A pretzel comes to mind. She shares her opinion about the way I “screw up” my face.
“Why are you screwing up your face like that?” she used to ask with frequency.
“I'm listening to you.”
“But why does it look like it hurts?” was her well-founded question.
“Because I'm listening to you so hard.”
“Maybe you should listen a little lighter—you're going to give yourself wrinkles.”
Her advice continues to be reasonably sound. A recent check in the mirror bears out her assessment. Between laughing hard and listening hard, I've tracked some well-earned line miles across my face.
When I listen to someone I hear their words in the same way I hear my own words when I am typing quickly. I have a tactile encounter with each word in order to type it accurately. If I were to rewrite this phrase I might consider amending it to “listen hard and well,” for there's a little magic in listening well—to hearing what is being said as well as what is not being said. Oh, volumes have been written on why it is that we come to have so many misunderstandings. But not in this volume. I still have many misunderstandings with my words—bring offense when none is meant. I have much to learn on this note.
Life experiences and maturity help us to know when
