The Earthquake inside

Recently, I made a change. A decision. In fact, 'made' might be a little bit strong. But according to one of my closest friends, who applauded my choices or fate, as it were, I can be proud because "I really owned it". Other people would have just stayed put, treading water, walking in circles, she said.

So, I am now the proud owner of 'it', whatever 'it' is. Well done, me. I think.

It involved a change in job. A change in purpose. A change of mind? Yes, I concur, although not a deliberately articulated one. It was a core shift that might go unnoticed to those who don't know me well. It was one of those underlying, deep, internal movements that seemed to be completely out of my control, yet was somehow both conscious and unconscious at the same time. An earthquake inside.

These core-shakers can be hard to manoeuvre.

It stands to reason, that if you're used to working within a clear structure and you're tossed out on your heiney, you won't know what the rules are anymore. The boundaries dissolve. You lose your bearings. Give me a pre-determined framework to climb and I'm in there, navigating the scaffolding like a pro. On the flipside, working within the constructs of others, requires a bending and re-shaping of both your will and your terms. You're always trading-off something.

The concepts of structure (our external influences and environment) and agency (our freewill and capacity to think for ourselves) are considered polar opposites in the social sciences. They wrestle for power in a classic debate about which has the greatest influence on our behaviour. Can one exist without the other? I think it's a bit like the chicken and the egg. Freewill, left to its own devices must ultimately develop its own set of rules, a baseline to build from, or else it will surely lose its way. Without freewill, structure is never questioned or challenged. They are and they have to be, as interdependent and as balanced as yin and yang.

But freewill can be hard to pin down. It lacks direction, as unpredictable as nature, as the wave I rode in on to find myself here. It rises up like a fire with an undetermined point of origin and shrinks only in the presence of fear and loathing (and not only in Las Vegas). This is a fire I can no longer suppress but cannot yet control. I am both my strength and my weakness and within this contradiction I seek a compromise, a settlement with myself.

It remains to be seen if the change has made me. Whatever 'it' is or will be, there is only one way to find out. I stand now, on one side of a cliff, armed with all of the materials to build a bridge to the other side, but not quite knowing where to start. There are no instructions. No guidelines. The valley in between is an abyss of potential, a projection of possibility.

Struck by a paralysis that is too much time and space, I pause before I venture out to cross the distance, between where I am and where I could be.

I breathe.

And gulp.