Maverick’s reengaging

A recurrent theme in my life has been the constant and ever present choice I’ve had to make between fight and flight. Mark it up to excess adrenaline, excess testosterone or whatever the science nuts will have you believe but it’s always been the central fight of my life. I would like to believe there are a lot more like me, like 100% of humanity has to make these choices on a daily basis type more. So essentially this is not something unique to me it’s an everyday choice that everybody needs to make, some do it faster almost imperceptibly others ruminate and take a lot longer, sometimes making the wrong choice and then living with the consequences. The living with the consequences part is not the difficult part, no it never is since it was you who made the choice and you knew what you were getting into. The part that is difficult is the letting the world get away with forcing your hand to make some choices and then making it look like it was your choice all along. The “manipulated into going against your grain” feeling is what really sucks.

Always there are two forces at work in any given ecosystem. One which will try to bring about radical changes, to propel the constituents into a future that is in one word “different”. Different from the status-quo. This force is always eager to disrupt, to turn over a new leaf as you may call it. This force is termed juvenile, short sighted and in extreme cases anarchist by the other side. The other side being the force that glides on inertia, loves the status quo with all the might available at its disposal and practically wrote the antiquated rule book, yes the rule book that society nee the ecosystem considers as it’s soul. In life there is always going to be a constant struggle between what is and what could be. What is is safe, secure, tried and tested, in the rule book and the biggest thing it’s “accepted”. On the other hand what could be is often painted as an unknown abyss, a dangerous experiment, diversion from the preordained plot, the workings of a maverick mind. It’s a struggle between the future as the future sees it and the future as the past designed it. Whoa! that’s never going to be a clean fight. Specially when change is an ugly word in the dictionary of a majority of the population.

So how does one deal with such conflict? How does one go in and change the wiring when there is so much resistance? How much does one invest ones own self into the righting of the wrongs, the tuning of the ignored, the fixing of the unhinged? How does one, essentially, explore the possibilities?

Well I woke up at 2AM today to the crying of dogs. Then I cleaned the lint filter in the washing machine, brewed a pot of coffee, drank half a liter of water, ate a pear and then poured myself a cup of java before heading over to the laptop to put down my thoughts into words. The thoughts I had woken up with. One does not go head on with the nay sayers, the non-believers, the doubters, the rule book waalahs. No. One engages in an asymmetric confrontation with these folk. One lets them hood wink themselves into believing that what they are doing is the only way forward whilst building ones own prototype of the alternate reality. So a reality that is and an alternate reality that also is, the ecosystem chooses. Nine times out of ten the ecosystem will choose “wisely”, once it will choose to go with the maverick. Don’t take the rejections to heart, however, take the acceptance to heart with all the heart at your disposal. Understand it’s an uphill run to begin with and you’re not aiming for speed or distance, all you’re aiming for is a good burn. Because once you’ve mastered hill runs you will see that you’re stronger, faster on the straight line runs. It helps build your muscles, similarly it helps build your arsenal when engaging with the nay sayers if you do not take rejection to heart. Every time they figure out a way to cheat you out of your victory they’re giving you experience to help build your next solution. Because lets face it, mavericks do not give up they just have the wrong gene. The gene that says “change I will” every waking as well as sleeping moment of their existence. There is one more thing that one needs to do, disengage. Disengage for a while, walk away, glide around, take in the scenery, review the learning’s from the last crash and burn, regroup, take inspiration from the things that worked the ideas that brought change and were accepted by the ecosystem with open arms, get perspective and then once you’ve spent sufficient time licking your wounds and figuring out the next “change”, re-engage.

For even though your change might be rejected the fact remains that you got your idea out there. An idea that is out there has an impact even if it is refused, ridiculed and rejected. That idea makes people think, softens them up to the possibilities of a better world. Sometimes it just so happens that someone else proposes a similar idea and it gets accepted. That too is a victory because you were in it for the change not for the glory. You wanted to shake up the status quo not get credit for bringing the change and when your idea gets implemented, regardless of who suggested it, it’s a win! Rejoice.