Gliding hand-in-hand through the woods with the Fear.
We used to call it "the Fear."
It's that fly by the seat of your pants approach, soaring without a safety net, going fully exposed in the world without any protection or backup. It's proceeding full steam ahead though life while not knowing what's next. It's barreling through the haunted maze without a care as to what's potentially around the next bend, behind the next fake wall. It's making way without making plans. It's that motivational spectre that keeps you on your toes.
It's dancing on the edge of failure in order to fully succeed.
I do a lot of my best work staring "the Fear" right in its dead-eyed uncaring face.
I would say my flirtation with "the Fear" began, as many things begin, in high school as a yearbook photojournalist. We needed shots. One of the year's many deadlines was rapidly approaching and we needed more photos for the student life sections of the book. Rule one of yearbook was that a good annual was not simply made of lovely posed and staged photos of groups and clubs, faculty and smiling students. One needed to catch the day-to-day color of student life at varied points during the year, usually carefully corresponding to publisher-imposed deadlines for going to press.
One thing about being a high school yearbook photographer is that things tend to get very boring quite quickly and stay dull for days. That is to say that it was difficult to stay motivated. Way out deadlines were really way, way out. Especially for a teenager with a driver's license, a car and permission to leave campus at will. Yearbook business! Respect the press pass
As one could imagine, the campus life photos were definitely not done with lots of time left on deadline. Oh, sure, there were some half-hearted attempts at "roaming the campus" and "catching the student body" and "photographing the natives within their habitat". Most of these unusable shots were just of my friends around the lunch table and random assorted classmates at their lockers between classes.
The day before the film needed to be dropped off at the developer, I became the lead photo journalist on assignment for National Geographic magazine. I was catching groups of friends laughing outside the media center, I caught hand-holders on the walkway by the tennis courts, I found someone cramming for a test by the typing lab. I was on fire. On top of that, I really liked what I was shooting. It didn't feel like work. With each snap, the concern (read panic) over the deadline began to melt.
I was striding through the halls with the Fear as a partner.
The Fear has become a lifelong motivator. It's not the useless fear that lingers in the pit of one's soul irrationally preventing action. It's the Fear that says there is no other choice but to finish an endeavor that one has set themselves to.
The Fear doesn't justify the attempt at procrastination. The Fear just exists, a impassioned motivator intent only to inspire action.
It's that fly by the seat of your pants approach, soaring without a safety net, going fully exposed in the world without any protection or backup. It's proceeding full steam ahead though life while not knowing what's next. It's barreling through the haunted maze without a care as to what's potentially around the next bend, behind the next fake wall. It's making way without making plans. It's that motivational spectre that keeps you on your toes.
It's dancing on the edge of failure in order to fully succeed.
I do a lot of my best work staring "the Fear" right in its dead-eyed uncaring face.
I would say my flirtation with "the Fear" began, as many things begin, in high school as a yearbook photojournalist. We needed shots. One of the year's many deadlines was rapidly approaching and we needed more photos for the student life sections of the book. Rule one of yearbook was that a good annual was not simply made of lovely posed and staged photos of groups and clubs, faculty and smiling students. One needed to catch the day-to-day color of student life at varied points during the year, usually carefully corresponding to publisher-imposed deadlines for going to press.
One thing about being a high school yearbook photographer is that things tend to get very boring quite quickly and stay dull for days. That is to say that it was difficult to stay motivated. Way out deadlines were really way, way out. Especially for a teenager with a driver's license, a car and permission to leave campus at will. Yearbook business! Respect the press pass
As one could imagine, the campus life photos were definitely not done with lots of time left on deadline. Oh, sure, there were some half-hearted attempts at "roaming the campus" and "catching the student body" and "photographing the natives within their habitat". Most of these unusable shots were just of my friends around the lunch table and random assorted classmates at their lockers between classes.
The day before the film needed to be dropped off at the developer, I became the lead photo journalist on assignment for National Geographic magazine. I was catching groups of friends laughing outside the media center, I caught hand-holders on the walkway by the tennis courts, I found someone cramming for a test by the typing lab. I was on fire. On top of that, I really liked what I was shooting. It didn't feel like work. With each snap, the concern (read panic) over the deadline began to melt.
I was striding through the halls with the Fear as a partner.
The Fear has become a lifelong motivator. It's not the useless fear that lingers in the pit of one's soul irrationally preventing action. It's the Fear that says there is no other choice but to finish an endeavor that one has set themselves to.
The Fear doesn't justify the attempt at procrastination. The Fear just exists, a impassioned motivator intent only to inspire action.