Familiar vs. Unknown

The challenge the familiar

The safety of the unknown

 It has been an interesting few days.  I gave a talk at Denver University last week.  It was unfamiliar territory for me.  It was at a University that I have only recently become familiar with, due to my son beginning his second year as the Head Coach of the Men’s Hockey Club Team.  It is in a city that I have a new experience on a more regular basis.  The city and the University are lovely but uniquely different.  Although everything was and is fresh and unfamiliar, it felt comfortable and welcoming.  The talk was successful and there will be more.

California does not have great weather variance but Fall has its own blend of feel and smells.  As the leaves of the sycamore trees fall along the dry river beds there is a comforting smell mixed with the not-quite-done-with-summer heat and the winter-is-coming chill that commences in the late afternoon.  I was back in an area I have spent the last decade for the weekend.  It was all familiar and very much the same.  Yet there was that feeling of a slight twinge in my stomach, a sense of insecurity, maybe doubt, and a questioning of my decision to leave.

 The familiar is challenging.  Instead of experiencing the present, you might find yourself replaying the past, questioning your decisions. It is that wave of doubt which crashes on the shores of your experience and then withdraws to leave a residue of sadness.

The unknown, on the other hand,  has none of that complex of feelings.  The unknown has no frame of reference.  The unknown is truly present.  It is the fresh unmarked powder day; the unmarked ice rink following the Zamboni machine’s ability to wipe away all the mistakes of the previous.  Some see fear in the unknown but other than the risk of putting yourself in the moment, there is the clean unexperienced presence of something new and exhilarating.

As I cast my ship away from the dock, I am excited for the unknown and what lies ahead.  The anxiety is for the adventure and not over the mistakes of the past.  The familiar offers the stability of the known yet framed in the judgments of the familiar.

I am hopeful of finding the freshness of the unknown but tempered with the lessons of the familiar.

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