I’ve had many great adventures here on the BlissQuest that ended with me thinking, “Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time…”
I’d even put money on the probability that I will be thinking those very words when my lights go out. And because my life has a track record of being so odd, astronomically bizarre, alternately macabre and gleefully random – I suspect I will be ended by some cosmically impossible, statistically unimaginable and yet hysterically humorous event. It will be so full of irony that I’ll probably literally die while laughing.
So this belief has given me the courage to make bold choices, illogical leaps of faith and powerfully impulsive jumps toward a life of freedom from fear. Because, what’s the worst that could happen? I’ll die laughing; that’s not so bad, right?
In the early days of the BlissQuest I had to retrain myself to follow my impulses. I had to consciously set one foot in front of the other to make choices to be free, happy, and adventurous.
It was only through repetition and failure and more repetition until success that I began to get the hang of taking wild leaps of courage and imagination. It was only through practice and observation that I started seeing the small stories come to life, until the feedback of my choices – the reward of my impulse to TRY ANYTHING that sounded like a good idea started to pay off and my results were; Less anxiety = more joy, more “yes”= more adventure, fewer “what-ifs” = open ended possibilities, and more freedom = BLISS.
This week alone I’ve made 5 notes in my journal of ideas that sound brilliant or challenging or just plain foolish.
It’s been sort of a running joke of late with friends that if I think it sounds like a good idea – I should wait 24 hours and ask if it’s still a good idea. (which means I can cross off my plan to drive Freya through the construction zone that has the giant mud puddle for a little off-roading experience). The thing is, I don’t want to train myself out of the impulse to try, to reach to jump, to believe it can be done.
I’ve worked really fucking hard to get back to this place!
But maybe there are some things that I cannot do. Should not do.
Of late, with the last go around of the LoveQuest I have felt burdened, overwhelmed, obligated to follow through on my master plan to find the adventure of love.
Like any adventure that I set out to experience – I draft a plan of action. The key to my greatest successes on the BlissQuest have come from having a plan of action, which is obviously “more like guidelines, than actual rules” but it’s a place to start and an idea of what I’d like to experience and a vague estimate of danger zones along with a trumped up – flowery happy ending. Viola! Recipe for disaster…or a really funny blog. Either way, what I usually end up accomplishing is a lesson learned, a good entertaining blog at the expense of my dignity, and a fondish memory that I will likely smile about for the rest of my life – which is ultimately the real point. And more often than not, I also say goodbye to another disproportionate fear that has had some ridiculous hold over me that has power no longer. Also, sort of the point, right?
So that brings me to the LoveQuest.
While everyone seems to know this already, and they’ve even tried to tell me – I’ve only been realizing it the last couple of days… The LoveQuest might be the only adventure I cannot attack with gusto and or create a plan of action to enter into the experience that I want to add to my life. Laugh if you must, but I’m just now figuring the edges of my ultimate flaw and trying to trace them back to the original mistake.
Which comes somewhere along the lines of; I have been operating under the assumption that I can approach the LoveQuest with the same set of logical rules I have applied to most of my adventures thus far.– but the success or failure of all my previous plans ultimately remained up to me to accomplish or fumble. It was always within my power.
The LoveQuest is the only adventure in my current queue of desired mega-adventures that I have absolutely no say in. None. It’s completely out of my control.
I can be open, ready and willing – but I cannot charge at this fear, or the desire or any other element of this particular thing because it is entirely intangible and does not adhere to any of the universal laws of physics and or logic because it is ethereal.
I’ve been throwing myself at challenges, running pell-mell at things I want or things that scare me for the last 4 years and even though I usually manage to get in the ballpark of what I wanted – they have mostly been tangible worldly experiences that can be quantified, categorized and explained.
Love cannot.
It is not an alga rhythm.
It is not an equation of odds.
It cannot be chopped at with a sword.
Or suckered into an agreement.
Love cannot be quantified by pattern analysis.
It is not a scientifically repeatable explanation.
It can’t be bullied into submission or threatened within an inch of its life.
There isn’t even any reasoning with the stupid fucking random illogical chaos that it is.
There is no picture of love, only the residual imprint of behavior on what it touches.
There is not a set of instructions, or steps or even sheet music that will explain it.
It cannot even be framed adequately with words…
And without words for me to give this ephemeral desire form or substance – after that, all my arguments, theories, plots, plans of action, guidelines, hypotheses, and directions fall apart. Without reason I am a powerless ship on a massive ocean and I have no choice but to wait on the wind and the current.
Without the structure of a plan – I am completely at the mercy of variables like say, oh the fickle nature of mankind and the easily amused irony of the universe.
Because, without a plan without some powerful mathematical reasoning, some formula that bonds quarks into reality. Without that power or comprehension then it is entirely possible for the person you have loved more than air, trusted more than gravity to utter the words, “I never really loved you.”
And only as I wrote that very sentence did it suddenly occur to me why I am struggling so hard to understand and accept this particular challenge.
I have utterly lost my faith in love and have set out to control the experience in a
laboratory of my own making. I have attempted to capture it and squeegee off the whimsy, siphon off the inconsistencies and distill it into a pure substance that can be understood, predicted, and trusted. Take fate, destiny and the wishy-washy nature of humanity and toss them out to alchemize an experience that can be relied upon to provide the desired results.
I’M SUCH A FUCKING IDIOT!
Because love was never mine to control, I have been tackling my ongoing fear of intimacy by charging the lion. I’ve been trying to create reason for the experience to come to me.
I’ve been approaching the LoveQuest wearing a lab coat – because I am petrified of being swept off my feet. Terrified that I will not have a say or an influence in my direction or experience. Logic says that if I can control it – I can never be surprised or hurt again, right? So I have tried to reason the hell out of the approach rather than just let it happen how it needs to happen. I’ve been clinging tooth and nail to anything grounded to prevent myself from being carried away into the realm of bliss wherein I will be naked – exposed, powerless.
I want my next great adventure. I’m ready, excited even. But I am now beginning to think, this one adventure is the one I will have to relinquish my control over. To properly ride the ride I have to let the Universe drive while I keep my backseat driver mouth shut.
This goes against all the conditioning I have done for myself in the last four year. It flies against all the judgment I’ve worked to rely on. It utterly defies my logic.
And because of this – it is actually the greater adventure, the greater challenge the greater attempt to overcome my fears, because how I’ve dealt with overcoming fear is to take control of it, so therefore relinquishing control of this aspect of my journey – I am completely flying blind and vulnerable.
Without a plan of action, I feel totally helpless. But damnit, it sounds like such a good idea at the moment… but what’s the worst thing that could happen? I might just die with a smile on my face….
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