from LN blog: 1

losing the way

As with many readers/writers/collectors, I have many favorite quotes/passages. One, however, is permanently inscribed on my brain. I think it everyday; I face it everday; I try and live it everyday.

..frightened
I may already have lost
the way: the first step, the Crone
who scried the crystal said, shall be
to lose the way.
-- Galway Kinnell, The Book of Nightmares

Many large companies, many small teams, many promising ideas are lost and paralyzed by the fear of the unknown and the unwillingness to veer from "the way". Our hope should be that there is courage enough within ourselves, our teams, to see past the seemingly logical path ahead and to leap to that unknown. It is a universal truth of youth that a man must lose himself to find himself. I find myself often wondering why, then, this same inspired mantra does not find a home within corporate culture.

Let us remember that without the blind courage of others, we would not be able to see today.

I long for the mantle
of the great wanderers, who lighted
their steps by the lamp
of pure hunger and pure thirst
and whichever way they lurched was the way.

--Galway Kinnell, The Book of Nightmares

shanti,
mjh