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Thursday, February 14, 2013

Uth Sa'vunin

"The reality of it is that we’re all playing the game constantly. We don’t take breaks, we refuse to give in and yet, no matter how hard we train and try, we all want to lose in the end. Those that win are all but dead. We play the game because we live. There are no limits and yet only one rule. You fall, you lose. And it is in this rule that you play on; to make that other person lose with you."
- R, Laro (butchered excerpts)

I guess it's very difficult to trust anyone who says they aren't afraid of anything. After all, many lessons are borne from fear, or failure, or anything with similar negative connotations. I don't think I could ever consider myself a cynic or a skeptic, but there are times when I realize that I do have a whole lot of questions that only seem to make sense to myself - and sometimes the answers are utterly incomprehensible to me.

There's the first kind of fear - which is something that I imagine is most familiar to those who have to struggle to live. One can feel it when they have to climb a cliff with only some rickety ropes and random strangers to place one's trust (and life) on - and the only way to deal with it is to smile (or laugh maniacally), throw caution to the wind and proceed with reckless (or measured, at the very least) abandon.

Then there's the good kind of fear, the type that provides motivation because failure is simply inconceivable. It's the kind that drives one to memorize the answers to seven hundred questions in an insanely desperate bid for a change of pace. It's the kind that serves as a substitute to caffeine, especially when one has to come up with something short of a miracle to graduate on time, on top of other equally important concerns.

Naturally, there's the fear of the unknown - which isn't that much of a concern, really, because there is always someone else who has already walked down every unfamiliar path that we come across. Most of the time, it isn't really wrong or embarrassing to ask for directions as opposed to rushing in blind and hoping for the best. Foolhardiness, after all, has a hard limit.

And then there's the last kind of fear - the kind that rears it curious head when reason and common sense (which are often quite helpful crutches, so to speak) are thrown out the window. It's the fear that one feels when they realize that the shoes they walk in are really, really fucking strange and that conventional wisdom won't really work. Or at least that's what it feels like.

But we push forward anyway.

What the hell, though. Might as well get to it.

2 comments:

  1. I wonder how this is a Valentine's post? HAHAHA, random memos to self is random.

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