We Die by Dreams or Drown in Dread
A Meditation
Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. —Fyodor Dostoevsky
Go all the way with it. Do not back off. For once, go all the goddamn way with what matters. —Ernest Hemingway
His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ —Matthew 25:21
Above: One life, two paths. Which way, fellow traveler?
Life is an impossible test, but it is the one to which we are all called.
It contains neither syllabus nor curriculum. Its greatest lessons are not taught or read or solved or memorized. Instead, they are lived.
This precious gift, this honorable vocation is as large or as small as we make it.
We don't have to do anything but be us until we die.
We are all Sisyphus in our own way, beset with stones to roll and mountains to climb.
We don't get to choose if it hurts, but we do get to choose if we keep going.
Pain is inevitable. Yet, we choose the pain with which we are encumbered.
It is the pain of dread or the pain of dreams, never both.
To strive is to suffer.
So too is to sit still and do nothing.
Too often, wittingly or not, we choose dread.
It seems safer, but appearance is not reality.
We shrink from our respective destinies. Our gifts scare us, so we bury them not to make them grow, but to kill them dead.
We underestimate our abilities and undermine ourselves not out of humility, but fear.
We don't want the burden of actualizing our potential, of transforming our base self into our best self. Better to think "That's beyond me" instead of "I betrayed my gifts."
But fear does not keep us safe, it only keeps us small.
It is a poison that turns ambition into angst and angst into apathy.
It is a slow death, a life that drags on with a whimper instead of a bang.
It hardens the heart and stifles the soul.
Over time, we realize that a dream deferred is as good as dead, that later only really ever means never.
As this dread slowly suffocates us, we realize that hell isn't fire—it is unrealized potential.
Nothing sits as heavy as regret. It is as dense as lead and as solid as granite.
No burden compares to the weight of untouched dreams.
This is not pessimism, just physics.
It is a Gordian knot that tightens slowly and surely; wrapping around our lungs and squeezing tightly until we cannot breathe. Action loosens it; inaction snarls it further.
It is a ravenous rat that scratches and bites and gnaws ad infinitum.
Sure, our dreams might kill us, but in pursuing them, we lighten that cold, heavy feeling in our chest.
With great power comes great responsibility. To ignore the call is to waste the gift.
Going for broke is far better than dying every day.
The acute pain of trying and failing hurts much less than a dull, persistent ache.
If it's our calling, it will keep calling.
We must pick up the damn phone.
Our destiny demands that we do so.
We cannot be derelict in our duty.
The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would solve near all of the world's problems.
But nothing changes if nothing changes.
A ship at harbor will never sink, but ships were not made for the harbor. They were made for the ocean deep.
Do not succumb to dread. Chase down your dreams.
Every moment is a crossroads, and in each, we must decide our direction.
When we slam the door and shut ourselves in and stick our fingers in our ears, opportunity does not stop knocking.
We must answer the door no matter how scary it seems or how inadequate we feel.
Life only begins when we take this leap.
Though we can look before we leap, knowledge is not power here. Surrender is.
Faith sees best in the dark and begins precisely where thinking leaves off.
The magic happens when we’re scared as hell, but we jump anyway.
When we take the plunge and we realize the only thing we had to fear was fear itself.
When we realize that there was always a safety net below held together by family and friends and faith.
When we recognize that we were the source of our unhappiness all along because we were standing in our own way.
When we jump and then, unencumbered by the weight of regret, we begin to fly.
This life will happen with or without us.
We are too often the orphans of our past, not the parents of our future.
We forget that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
No more.
Now is no time to think of what we do not have.
We must think of what we can do with what there is.
Get up, get at it, and get to work.
What we do in life echoes in eternity.
What we don’t haunts us to places unknown.
Per my about page, White Noise is a work of experimentation. I view it as a sort of thinking aloud, a stress testing of my nascent ideas. Through it, I hope to sharpen my opinions against the whetstone of other people’s feedback, commentary, and input.
If you want to discuss any of the ideas or musings mentioned above or have any books, papers, or links that you think would be interesting to share on a future edition of White Noise, please reach out to me by replying to this email or following me on Twitter X.
With sincere gratitude,
Tom
A++++++
This definitely had my mind racing. So many opportunities waiting for me. I feel it in my bones. More eternity echoes and less unknown hauntings!