Louis picks up on my ‘insane’ comment. I can be blunt (harsh, abrupt, direct) can’t I? Pain in the arse too I imagine. I described Louis’ comment as ‘insane’ because in a world of change that you have been gifted you cannot possibly trust or rely on a methodology (of practice, conduct, living, working, doing) that is premised on only doing something where you are confident of knowing in advance what will happen as a consequence of that doing.

Yes, buying groceries is like this. Catching the train is, sort of, like this (though even that is so complicated as to already trouble this certainty – delays, that guy’s headphone bleed, the too loud too private phone conversation over the way, realising what you forgot to do and wondering if you’ll remember to do it when you get home, the walk from the station to home down he hill past the yellow gums and musk lorikeets, or if later the ring tails doing circus tricks on the power lines), but the important things that you will do will be a mix of things that happen to you and things where you act without the certainty of knowing what might happen next.

I am serious when I say that the way to conduct the important things is like falling in love. There is risk, danger, élan, desire, reward, possible failure, understanding, misunderstanding, confusion, clarity, but also you simply do not know what is going to happen. This does not stop us. So many of the important things you will do have this model, it is a leap or a jump, and afterwards unexpected, surprising, interesting and valuable things might occur.

So yes, I am cautioning you about prejudging and deciding not to act because you’ve already decided you know what is going to happen, what you will achieve or learn, by doing this not yet done thing.

(And read Louis’ post, because surprising things did happen.)