25lines, redux

Step 1: Potential.

A lot of us at some point in our life knew great potential. This holds true for macro thinking as much as it does for micro events (and this should be well understood). Hopes, dreams, aspirations – naive or not, they make up more of our core identity than we would like to think, even if your attitude is not to have them. It would seem that it composes a significant chunk of your identity, at least in the modern world, and especially in America today.

Ambition reveals itself in layers. Personal ambition is one thing. Most people have it, it is not rare. Learn how to cook. To read more Dostoevsky. To learn how to play the bass. These are things that just require being and doing and persistence. Admittedly there are hoards of folk unable to persist. There are no rose beds without thorns. Endurance, persistence. The first layer of definition.

Social ambition. To care for family. To protect. To provide. To be true to friends. Again, not uncommon, but I believe the ambition part of this is less frequent than the personal ambition.

Career ambition. This is the one I think most of my friends have felt or feel. And it is rare. Our generation finds it more acceptable to waft through life. And why not? After all, we live in Good Times. When the pursuit of dreams is the ideal goal, where breadwinning isn’t necessary for the abundance of trust funds and parents’ basements. But if you’re the kind of person who wants to feel… significant? It’s a little harder to stomach. It cannot be avoided, and I call this out in detail here because I think any of you reading this (who know me in meatspace) are most likely to feel this one.

Life ambition. Not to be confused with Personal ambition. Life ambition is about sculpting your life, molding your entire span so that it accomplishes something. This exists in varying scales, whether it’s being a father, a great big brother, a patron of the arts, or a patron saint. Or the emperor of the universe – this is the level of ambition that some don’t want, but require.

Everyone can trace backwards in their history and find a point at which any or all of the above had potential into the sky. Maybe you were a wee one who was a little faster at walking, a little faster at reading. Or in grade school when the teachers would tell your parents you would be Excellent one day. Or even so far as high school where in the process of exploring yourself you found something special, nurtured it, and wanted a little more than everyone around you.

Some people find their truest selves in their dreams. Day dreams are waking nightmares if they’re in discord with the reality of your life. It’s a very calming and reasserting process to run through and detail your potential. What you wanted. What you might want. What you do want. And by when you want to get it.

Looking backwards is hard, because we like to focus on the failures and the negative points. On all the things we didn’t do (you never regret… well, it’s amazing how true that stands). We focus on time lost and on failures caught. But looking into the near future isn’t just easy, it’s delightful. Because there’s this valley of hope-meets-potential where you can say the things you know you could do, if you really wanted to. And then, if you’re that kind of person, you can leave room for yourself to fail with the old adage of “I must not have really wanted it” if I didn’t go for it.

But if you want to release the bile shadows within, you need to start with the future perfect potential. It kickstarts a level of consciousness that’s hard to fake otherwise. After all, we each want to believe that if we really wanted to – we could do anything.

We believe that until we encounter reality. A sobering experience, as many know from hangovers and clearer still for others who’ve had to grapple with broadening self-awareness. This is, of course, Step 2.

But that’s for another day.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 11:47 pm and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.