I didn’t quite know how to go about writing this post, but here it is anyway.
Those times wherein I found myself unbalanced – for better or worse – produced the strongest and most intense memories. When I restrict myself to considering only the negative side of the equation, with the further restriction of only examining recent years, it also becomes clear that those times engendered the greatest introspection and self-reflection. And speaking very broadly, they always produced more questions than answers. It’s been like that for the past year – trying to find my feet, in different places at different times in different ways; up till June, though, there wasn’t much time to reflect; when you’re a trainee you worry about other things, like staying alive.
Back to the bigger picture. In one case particularly, the ability of such negatively imbalanced situations to affect the way I thought and behaved was striking, to say the least. Taken out of my comfort zone, it was then that I found myself going beyond what I would have imagined possible and – I say this retrospectively – producing brilliant crystallized poignance, the like of which I have never been able to replicate since. I would venture to say that that’s because the circumstances have never since been replicated in full again. That’s fine by me, but I still find the whole thing curious to this day. Who wouldn’t want to be able to reach into oneself at will, as it were, and emerge with the seeming ability to just…transcend limits? Without quite knowing how one did it, either.
*****
There were tradeoffs, of course. One might say my heightened ability to do some things precluded me from doing others properly – though I still maintain that those failures could be attributed to a lack of proper focus or whatever. I think with proper management, they didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. I also think it’s not much of a stretch to say that I found myself at my best when I was firmly centered. But the complicating factor here is that in not-so-good times I also won things and received accolades that I never expected or sought. I need to think about this more.