Throwback: Just Like That

Photo by J CS on Unsplash

All your life, you read about things and think about the things that intrigue you. There are societies, and their rules. If you're not intrigued by these rules, you will accept them, and live by them all your life; never once questioning them.

If they're intriguing, you begin to wonder why they were placed there in the first place. Who put them there, and what do they stand to gain? 

What happens when you break these rules?

I've thought about these rules all my life. They're not always set by an external authoritative figure. Sometimes  they're just there, in your heart. Call it social conditioning or what you will.

The further you think about them, and the deeper you question them, the faster they begin to fall apart and disappear. 

Once I had established that the rules were gone, I realized that I couldn't afford to follow suit. Sans rules, it was a short drop and a sudden stop; before you know it, you find yourself on skid row.

So that's how the guidelines came up. They were my own designs, based on my comfort zones. But to know my limits, I had to test them first. A continuous process, and a topic under constant revision. 

Once you know the rules, roughly, at least, you start to think about those things that you think may be within your limits though you haven't tested them out yet. You can't imagine yourself venturing there... and yet you probably will...

So you try and imagine. You spin out the scenarios and test out your mental reactions. You think you might have an idea of the lie of the land. You talk to people and the picture gets just a little less blurred. Sometimes you're scared. Sometimes you know you'll have to grit your teeth and go through with it anyway.

But what I find, time and again, is that these things just happen. You know...

... Just like that.