Regardless of your proclivities towards the Bible, in other words whether you read it as myth or literal, it is safe to say that from a philosophical point of view, a truism is conveyed in the story of when Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, namely that mankind kind of screwed itself.  Enlightenment does bring us certain benefits, no doubt about it, but knowledge isn’t always a pure and unvarnished good, even when the information is cloaked in the best of intentions.

Just what am I getting at here?  Well, a few months ago I spilled my smart ass, enlightened beans when I wrote the following post about Freedom:

Before I could do what I set out to do, I’ve had to begin the process of reestablishing the foundations which will eventually allow me to do what I set out to do. My initial thoughts were that this site would go silent until these things were in place, but, I’ve learned something indirectly from my good friend Ian Wood, that the process of reestablishing and regaining your foothold IS the interesting story. Fulfillment is all good and wonderful, but how one gets there is what people relate to versus the eventual results of the story. Accomplishments don’t happen without going through a lot of shit along the way.

So, where am I right now? Here is what I wrote in my journal at the Rombuk Monastery after fending off some gastro-intestinal issues, one year ago today…

…I think that this vulnerability is required to gain a way of living that I consciously choose, apart from mindless routine designed to construct certainty and the illusion of safety. This is what Bruce Lee meant when he said, “When one is not expressing himself, he is not free. Thus he begins to struggle and the struggle breeds methodical routine. Soon, he is doing his methodical routine as a response rather than responding to what is.”

I also made the infinitely foolish mistake of opening my mind to this drivel, when I quoted a passage I wrote at the Rombuk Monestary:

…It still leaves me with an extremely uncomfortable uncertainty around what lies ahead. I keep relying on the trust that I’ve placed in my preparations, plan and, most importantly, my team. We’ve done an excellent job in staying strong and healthy to this point, our acclimatization plan is excellent and we have a great Sherpa with some very solid experience here.

This is the crux for me. Full, 100%, pure commitment. Putting one foot in front of the other, not looking back and, as our Sherpa says, “bhurti, bhurti” or “slowly, slowly” doing what we set out to do…

A few months ago I was blindsided by a major life event.  At almost exactly 5:30 on a Wednesday afternoon, every metaphorical rope I had tied into for career and personal safety was maliciously cut when my then boss informed me that my services were no longer needed.  The financial and career safety I had built for the past 8 years shattered in a split, “sorry, this isn’t your fault, but we have to go in another direction,” and I was left holding a pink slip and an incredibly uncertain future.

The problem for me was just beginning.  Without the knowledge of everything I wrote above, I could have easily gotten back on the bandwagon with a job that provided a great living.  Unfortunately, I cannot escape the knowledge I’ve gained in the past and I didn’t feel settled with that option.  I’ve had this creepy business idea in my head for a while and instead of normally providing my thoughts a mild irritation during low activity periods (which, in my brain, is pretty frequent), it became a screaming banshee alerting each part of my body that if I want to live the life I say I’m determined to live, I have NO CHOICE, but to risk everything and build this silly business.

Dammit.  You have no idea how much this frees me, but at the same time, pisses me off to no end!  Just what do I think I’m doing?  Right now, I don’t have the money to do this, nor the resources to pull it off, nor the focus to hone my business plan versus blogging about nothing.

Actually, I now have a business plan, naturally of which I can’t divulge the full details, but it will be a business intelligence/web 2.0 solution for the adventure travel community.  I have a major problem with it, too: it is REALLY good.  I wish it was crap enough to scare me back into the corporate world, but instead it is actually compelling me to move forward.  So, right now I’m just a kid with a dream, but that’s it.  I hope to share with you here my process for moving forward and, somehow, getting this business built.

I’m haunted–HAUNTED–by this statement that I wrote a year ago:

This is the crux for me. Full, 100%, pure commitment. Putting one foot in front of the other, not looking back and, as our Sherpa says, “bhurti, bhurti” or “slowly, slowly” doing what we set out to do…

Acting on this firmly held belief, this week I liquidated all my “holdings” for cash, so that I can live modestly and do what it takes to get this business funded to hire or partner with people that can get this technology developed and launched.  If this doesn’t work, I am literally worth nothing; placed on the same economic plain as an entry-level McDonald’s employee (unless they have a piggy bank with some spare change in it, then they’ll have a leg up on me).  I’m headed off to Brazil in September to meet people within my industry to figure out how to break into the market.

Why am I so pissed off about this?  Why?  Because, I am honestly doing exactly what I’ve always wanted to do.  This is beyond my dream–this is who I am…and it is scaring he bejesus out of me.

…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Adventure, Business, Consciousness, Start-up. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.