I’ve always hated the intergalactic axiom “Do or do not. There is no try.” Sometimes the best thing you can do is try and the reward comes from the effort and not any abstract barometer between success and failure. Sometimes the reminder “I’m trying” is enough to sustain whatever challenge you were brave enough to invite into your life. “I’m trying” is proof you are doing something, that you‘re pouring your energy somewhere, when your dreams still seem as far as they’ve ever been. I have a 19 year old coworker who is a little bit of a know-it-all and an ambitious athlete and in another person these traits may be annoying but his stage of self discovery is so apparent that these traits are more endearing than anything else; in his trying to come across as smart, as accomplished, as organized and like he has it all figured out, you see the values he’s striving for and in these traits you ultimately see him trying very hard to be Good, at least what he thinks is good. Obviously he doesn’t hit all his goals (no one does) but he tries and that effort is so human, vulnerable, even, if you take a person’s aspirations as insight to their values. And trying to live up to your own values is sometimes all you can do. While you’re in it all you can know is that you’re trying. Trying is like the constant grinding of the millstone in your chest, a slow and persistent change that one day accumulates into something; it harbors the potential for a spark, the freedom to erode, the consistent friction towards yielding entropy in its highest degree. It’s a warm and present focus on the process and not the outcome. It’s that tension in your chest right next to your heartbeat, one fueling the other.
“Try as I may (try as I may) / To love what fits in my hand / I don’t / I don’t“ (- Cameron Winter) ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum 🫀
