|
Ad Hoc Mapping
Treading the path in front of me, I take a side-long glance at the outskirts of the known terrain. The edge of wilderness taunts me, but simultaneously tempts me with its promises of fun and love and boundless riches. My life is sketched out in front of me in the form of this path I have dedicated myself to following, and it's a great route, don't get me wrong. I mean, I have everything I've ever wanted or planned on having, but some primitive ego urges me to deviate into the risky, uncharted jungles of the Unplanned and Untamed. Is this desire to risk our lives and security for excitement and adventure inborn, or is it nurtured through our culturally conditioned mindset of low expectation and complacency and fatalism? An ancestral urge to break out of these mentally dulling prisions we've erected around ourselves? "I'm so proud of you." The words write themselves in smoke across my mind. They're my dad's words, but often-times I wonder if they're also my own -- the mental line I chalk up my path with to prevent myself from crossing over into the wilderness. I keep myself in check with Microsoft Money and Franklin Covey Planning Systems and make substance of this path laid out in front of my feet. But, I know that by allowing my urges to be muffled by comfort and blissful ignorance, I will continue to blindly, deafly place one foot in front of the other. That, by far, is my greatest fear.
|
