It’s been a while. We enter, we leave, we return.. We move.
On to the subject of the hour.. Why is it that so often in times of change, it feels desperately necessary to have be granted permission to proceed with it and follow it through? What is with this perceived requirement that propogates this unshakeable bedrock of doubt that if we don’t have it, our attention is thus stolen away from propelling ourselves towards the change itself, and insists on first establishing cold, hard evidence that we’re ‘allowed’ to move forward with whatever it is that we’re trying to do?
Who are we looking for said permission from? Who needs to pat us on the shoulder, catch our glance with a twinkle in their eye, and affirm to us with a generous nod that says, ‘go ahead, kid,’? What happens when we wake up, realize that there is no one tangibly there to approve of our choices but ourselves, and still move along to the next thing?
Animals, and nature in general, have long been a humble point of absolute magic and majesty to even the least perceptive eye. The endless pigments of colour in vegetation, in creatures, big and small; the hum of insects’ wings as they float and fly from A to B; the immeasurable weight of water, and the immense weightlessness of sky. Nowhere does nature need to fill out an application form to proceed as it sees fit. It does not call its closest circle of confidants to ask for permission to press on; it presses relentlessly without it, regardless of consequences, be them of growth or destruction. Nature just moves. It exists. It screams in its pain, it cries in its sorrow, and it rejoices in its joie de vivre. No matter how loud the pressures get.. it resists the weight, it persists in pursuit of its ends, and it moves. Nature listens to itself without thinking there was any other way to proceed.
It’s easier than ever to fall down a surprisingly paralysing rabbit hole of over-analysis, so much so that within 5 minutes of a perusing a reddit thread that’s come up after entering our particular question into our search engine, our gnawing existentialism kicks in and throws us into a tailspin of worry, confusion, and debilitation. Every new endeavour becomes thwarted within minutes of its conception. Every decision doubted wholeheartedly and hastily judged harshly. Every dream endlessly deferred.
To ‘persist & resist’ is a golden nugget of wisdom historically attributed to the widely known and revered Epictetus, a major contributor to Stoic philosophy. The maxim expresses, in sum, that to persist in times of difficulty, and to resist the temptation not only to not give up, but to take the easy way out, are antidotes to two relatively universal flaws in our human character. What is it to persist, in light of said permissions never being granted? What is it to resist such a need for authorization, and pursue our own ends without it?
Fortunately, we are, in truth, nature itself. Albeit, at times, we are of a nature plagued by indecision, fear, and a incessant need for approval; but we are nature, all the same.
We thus have it within us to grant ourselves the perceived permission we seek & feel we require in pursuit of ourselves, of change, just as we also have everything we need to overcome the consequences we meet from said pursuit.
With every press for progress, we can persist from the pressure to give up, or to second-guess. We can resist fear, doubt, and endure the friction we will inevitably greet as we move forward. We may even do both of these things without anybody else’s permission that it’s allowable, that it’s acceptable, or that it’s of collectively judged good or negative value. We may charge confidently towards the leap of change for no other reason than because it’s what truly & deeply feels like the right next thing.
That’s enough permission as anything else.
