I learned some great stuff today. Rather, I should put this a different way. I learned about some great stuff today.
I’m looking forward to trying something new. It’s going to be a long road, but I think I may have finally figured out something that people have been saying to me for a long time. It reminds me much of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s instructions on how to fly: “The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
Well, I think I get it now. I think what I was missing before, metaphorically, is that flying is a natural act of continuously falling without stopping. Or rather, when you miss, you continue to fall, and that is flight.
That phrase “just do it”, not in the Nike sense, but in the “don’t wait, do it now, what are you waiting for?” sense, has a bit more meaning when put in this context. It’s not about not being afraid of falling, but about ignoring it. As Douglas Adams says, “It’s no good deliberately intending to miss the ground because you won’t. You have to have your attention suddenly distracted by something else when you’re halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground, or about how much it’s going to hurt if you fail to miss it.” In other words, “Just do it.”
At this point I can’t tell if I’m stuffing more into this metaphor than is reasonable, but I’m managing to hold it all in my head without it spilling. Proceeding cautiously, but steadily, and actually doing it.
