Razor Point of Fact

321.

There are points along the timeline of an examined life that represent moments of monumental change. In script writing jargon they are known as that specific moment in time when the protagonist, wearing one of the thousand faces of a Campbell hero, decides to act. He or she may have been pushed, prodded, ridiculed, tortured, insulted, bruised or broken, but a previously missing combination of courage, understanding, need, love, duty, guilt or other reward suddenly motivates the heroic choice. One can, faced with this decision every lucky man encounters, chose the path of the superior man or spend the rest of his days in shame and regret. Until, of course, another opportunity arises offering another chance at redemption. These things can take time as they are anything but easy. There are philosophical circles that decree that this is all there is to it… one can chose the heroic or wallow away as a dumpling in the dish. Continuing this tasty allegory, these advanced spiritual avatars call everything else in life gravy.

The three-part therapy session complete, I am left as pleasant a physical sensation I can recall. I actively attempt to end the current conundrum and drift into what should be a deep and restorative slumber. But I am torn. The last time I can remember being called on the carpet, asked to choose a direction at the crossroads of courage and doubt, was when I asked coach for a breather - to allow what would turn out to be a spiral fracture of my left ankle in a playoff game - the time to tape and wrap. Matter of fact, since that incident, now almost four decades past, I have been the person doing the questioning not the answering. Up until this very evening I had considered this issue to be one of the fibers that had, successfully by most estimates, gone into the construction of my character. If you were, say, a private deceptive looking to dig dirt and collect ammo for a character assassination campaign, you would need a fucking big backhoe. How much of this is ego and how much fact is something I have never stopped to consider. Until now. This place on that timeline. I open my eyes to find that there is no place to hide.

After all, I have done OK on the rehabilitation. I was supposed to be dead. Three point-blank nines in my spine. Six months in a coma. Back to work, on the job and chosen' bad guys in remarkable time - and against the recommendations of the entire medical community - says something. Still, the prospect that what I had considered and envisioned to be an easy ride into the sunset had just been thoroughly torched by a single comment. From any other source I would dismiss as irrelevant. But.

I have been challenged. My very spirit has come into question. Her words: "the quality of the remainder of your days, while not completely up to you, is something that you can steer in the direction you choose. You can choose dumpling or warrior. And for the warrior there is nothing between," reverbate.

The true challenge is in the reality that I know she is right. Of this there is no doubt. It is a premise I have used in one variation or another in my own teaching and coaching for many years. "Your spirit knows what is right even when your body and brain resist." I am the bullseye of a lightning bolt of illuminative understanding. I have succumbed to the casual acceptance that 'things' would become easier as the workloads lessen, as we move from participator to spectator, doer to watcher, active to passive. I want easy. I want the fruits of my labors to provide a bounty of comfort, a cornucopia of convenience. Cake, I want to eat cake. I am struck by the arrow of enlightenment sharpened to a razor point of fact:

This will be hard.