Ever had that guilty fantasy about going on holiday.. and just staying away, yup, simply not going back home at the appointed hour? [Well not YOU of course, because you're a responsible member of society; with a steady job, a mortgage, staff who depend on you, family, a goldfish, a garden, a country to run, an unrelenting to-do list..]. A yearning for that elusive “time to think” maybe? Secretly want that buy-out/retrenchment to force you into finally doing something meaningful? To contemplate higher things. Write that book. Change the shape of the world in some way.
To emerge glorious by Walt Whitman’s prescription:

On the evening of 28th November 2008, I left for the end-of-year break ..and haven’t been seen back at home or work (or online) since.

Thoroughly irresponsible; mercilessly smitten; gently but certainly challenging beliefs I had thought hardwired, fumbling through an identity-crisis, in a city I had rained scorn upon. I’ve abstained from gym, discovered chocolate as a health-food; delved deep into some of the most beautiful music ever created; swum in more addictive US political intrigue than I thought my brain was calibrated for; negligently ignored the existence of modern telecommunications [imagine: no email or obedience to the phone] and worse ¹. All the while, blissfully roadtripping the length and breadth of this magnificent country with the best guide no money could buy.

I have NOT: been learning a new language, writing that book, saving a species, meditating for world-peace or anything vaguely useful to humanity, at all.

Sins of this order were unmentionables, unthinkables only a few short months ago in my busy=virtue world.
[Are you growling at me? You who cannot up and leave your world?] You’re thinking about all the dazzling things you’d do if you didn’t have to do anything aren’t you?
[Should you need to shore up your virtue, be soothed that I certainly haven't emerged gloriously. Nor prepared to take my position among the enlightened. I am happy in a dizzingly undeserving way though, if that counts for anything.]
If there is a lesson or an epiphany² from this indulgent meander, it’s so prosaic that it’s embarrassing (you kind of expect more of a sabbatical).
It’s this:
In hunting for genius, I’ve joined the ranks of those halfwits, who, refusing to sensibly learn from wiser ones or the volumes of sacred texts that dependably spell out that you could go to the ends of the earth, stand on your head, eat only lentils but why go to all the trouble when the answers have been with you all the time [mostly in a blindingly obvious manner]. Even if you’re a burger-noshing clod with no credits in your spiritual log, you know what you’re born to do, even if you don’t know you know, in line with aforementioned obvious manner. We are very skilled at missing the simple solution because complexity is like a honeytrap to the human brain. I doubt you’ll believe me unless you’ve gone off the map yourself; but you don’t need to unplug from the mundane world to ‘find yourself’; grab a gap-year to discover your purpose; or even ‘vision quest’ for Big Meaning³.

I’ve given up on believing the grand answers are magically “out there” for the intrepid to scoop. The angels won’t come chorussing in on cue when we’re ‘good enough’. There is no clarifying certainty. We’ll only ever tend toward it with tantalizing glimmers to keep hope stoked on the cookie trail.

THE SUPER-SUBTLE SOUL SWINDLE

Problem is, a persistent mythology holds: that we should work like the blazes until that ONE DAY when we may be lucky enough to retire/take a sabbatical/live in a small Karoo town or ascetic ashram ..when at last, safely removed from the mediocrity of the masses, enlightenment will timeously trickle in. THEN will we know our rightful purpose on this big spinning ball, and begin our life’s worthy work.

It’s a myth akin to believing that you should suffer during your time on earth, to save up credits for heaven. Being good or Father Christmas will know and you’ll be punished with socks and soap. IT’S ALL A DUPE!

starting small. starting now

Astronomers have discovered a curious way of  searching for deep space objects, a trick called averted vision - stare directly and you miss the fainter stars, which are only caught out of the corner of the eye (an odd glitch in our physiology). Meaning is out there, twinkling just beyond scrutiny. When we focus on other things, it seems to shimmer into visibilty (an odd glitch in our psychology).

Sometimes, with our monkey mind distracted by mundane chores, our higher mind can play at the periphery. Tinkering at the edge, as Einstein did while punching the card as a patent clerk, could yield moments of genius that change how the world works. Or lay the path to change history and human rights on your commute: “My only concern was to get home after a hard day’s work” - Rosa Parks.

Devoting our lives to the search for the elusive Philosopher’s Stone seems to yield only craziness.
Just getting on with things in a fashion that suggests that there is no heaven to expect ‘out there’; no perfection or control of all factors before we begin.  We surely don’t need a “wake-up call” disease to clear the decks? Shouldn’t we live with full gusto by default ..because what the hell else are we holding out for? We all seem to start too late, if we begin at all. It doesn’t mean giving up the day job, getting divorced or married, getting Big funding for the Big idea or running away to the circus/countryside ..whatever your rebooting dream looks like.

“I think you should profit from the mistakes of others. You don’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Lowell Ferguson

I guess we read other’s ramblings to grab a morsel or two of vicarious wisdom (hopefully saving ourselves the foolishness of going headlong into trouble we may otherwise feel compelled toward):
Herewith my crumb of hard-earned clarity || release the pause button || quit waiting for the right time, enough time, enough money, the kids to grow up, to get your degree, the clarity to sketch out your grand strategy. Get tinkering. Get messy. Get going >>

Deferring heaven to some angel-thronged post-body subspace where you get to cash in your rewards seems like the real sacrilege. We can muster an army of excuses for shelving our passions like winter jam and labelling them “When I.. (fill in favoured excuse)”. [BTW if you run short of any, don't forget you can mail me for spare ones that sound virtuous enough to leadweight any dash for delight. Workaholic speciality #7.]

Well I’m done with hunting genius, going for good enough to get going now. Ditching any lingering belief in clear strategic plans, finally happy to lay in a course in the approximate direction of that tenacious twinkle in the corner of my eye and see where it leads. Accepting that being human is messy, and precarious. That any genius we stumble on is inextricably tangled in so much paradox and damn luck that there’s little chance of taming it to serve us tidily anyway.
I’m finally paying attention to advice from someone I’ve missed hugely during my 404 -  simply: start small, start now.

So here’s to hopeful, curious tinkering on stuff we love (if nothing else, it may save your sanity if your day-job sucks) and to hell with whether it fits neatly into a business plan, to backing our own unlikely story in a world where the unlikely is increasingly likely.

“Often people attempt to live their life backwards; they try to have more things or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is in reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.” -Margaret Young

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* 404? Webspeak for getting lost in cyberspace – “Error returned when a server cannot find the requested page”. [Also: anthropomorphised to mean a clueless person, as in "don't bother asking him, he's 404".]

PS. I remembered Po Bronson’s What should I do with my life? on Fast Company & had a look through again, not bad if you’re feeling like the world has lost the plot & you need a mission makeover. [Don't expect any epiphanies.]

PPS. okay one last, for the geeks >> as master of your own digital realm, some 404 inspiration for fun.

1. my beloved friends & family relegated too – NOT something I would do again – this stuff’ll kill ya [↩]
2. Why is it that we wait on an epiphany to fling us onto the right road? “Never underestimate our ability to ignore the obvious.” Maybe it’s the fairytale hangover of longing to be divinely “called” to a world-saving mission, to be heralded at TED. Perhaps we’re a little bleak that our heart’s chief desire is to do something so delightfully ordinary that will never land us on the cover of Time. [↩]
3. ironically, it seems to  only deepen confusion, self-righteous separation and Don Quixote-weirdoness. IMO: STAY IN THE GAME! [↩]