When we choose between doing things for others’ imagined approvals or for our deepest personal desires and longings. “Dare I eat a peach?” “Dare I disturb the [social, public] universe?” indeed.
Well, back to Joseph Campbell’s “Follow your bliss”. The choice has always been clear for me. A life of many opportunities and moments I did not repress or defer to others so as not to taste peaches or disturb the universe. Momentarily, these windows. And knowing that not choosing to act meant a lifetime of regret and missed opportunity. Myriad what-ifs–the beautiful and wondrous possibilities.
One can be an agent or possibilitarian. One can be an agent/author of one’s own life or a mere victim/watcher. Or as Auden put it, a “fearer” not a “farer”. Frank Sinatra’s “Come Blow Your Horn” describes this process all too well– “In a one-word-speech: Reach.”