Once I am devoted to something, I no longer need to figure it all out in my head in order to be able to do it. I find my heart and my mind become synchronized when I commit myself to action. Without this commitment, it will always feel like every granular detail needs to be sorted out in my head in an ever-twisting labyrinth of preplanning. I mistake this for real planning, sorting out all sorts of sophisticated head-stuff which are just twists and turns of a false labyrinth with no exit. I mistake this for taking the real journey of life, for this mental labyrinth is just an elaborate way of staying put. All the anxiety and exhaustion of turning about in the labyrinth disappears the moment I decide to devote myself to something, and they liquify into a liberating clarity of heart and mind.
The desire for the perfect vision or idea to fulfill falls away when I take action, especially the more I become absorbed in action itself. That is what relieves my anxiety. We mistake the perfect image for what to do in life as the antidote to the existential anxiety of lack of purpose, but the very act of action-taking is itself the real antidote.
Perfection is illusion. No matter how beautiful and complete I imagine a vision is in my head, once I take action, that vision as I exactly see it all falls away once I take my first steps towards it. It does not mean I give up or settle for less, but rather what emerges along the journey towards my vision will often show me something even better, more cohesive, more elegant than the vision as I initially conceptualize it.
Almost always, the first steps towards a vision will prove the narrow, perfectionistic imagination of how to achieve it or how it should look to be erroneous. The journey, actively etched into reality like a work of art, gives that vision depth and complexity, and thus real beauty. You will realize your perfectionistic vision is not only a demotivating block to life, but shallow and lackluster by comparison to the vision that emerges upon taking action. We fear first steps for this very reason: they inevitably will show our perfect vision to be false. We forget that once we are on the journey what emerges is the real vision.
Devotion to acting on a vision is not blind faith, and it is in fact its opposite if done the right way. Blind faith is having the perfect vision in one’s head and refusing to take action—for it comes from fear it will be proven false by coming in contact with reality. Blind faith is also acting on a vision without revising it with new information based on contact with reality. Devotion to action is confidently moving towards a vision with the knowledge it will be far from imperfect, realizing what the action does is refine the vision over time. A true vision is the ongoing co-creation and interplay of action and imagination, not merely former, not merely the latter.
