Audacity

to realize our hopes and dreams

I want to set up a non-profit for self-directed education, I have begun to tell the people around me. When and how? I have no idea, honestly. I have no capital — neither social nor financial. I am also a minority in many definitions of the word, small-built and still look like I am 16 even though I am in my mid-thirties. I am also extremely introverted and have a certain repulsion towards power structures.

But I have distinct qualities which are arguably rare. I have no interest in pure survival. The idea of putting an expensive shelter over my head as a life goal is demotivating enough to shove me into an existential crisis. I am also delusional enough to ignore people when they tell me the life I envisioned for myself is not possible.

I am actually really pragmatic if people can get a sense of what I weigh in my mind. The thought of being at the brink of death, looking back at my entire life and feeling that I could have done more — is terrifying. I am only in my 30s and already feeling very annoyed at my insecure, fearful 20s.

I don’t want to blindly, comfortably, numbingly reach my 40s, look back and keep on wondering if I could have done more in my 30s. I want my 40-year old self to be proud of the self I am now.

What is it about Chase Adam that made him believe in the possibility of Watsi? How did Elizabeth Holmes decide to drop out of college and start a healthcare company at age 19?

They say it is delusion. I call it audacity. The audacity to believe that our dreams are much bigger and more important than anything else. That they become a neccessity to our existence and they are no longer an optional path. They become the path. The only path we want to take. That life becomes untenable if we don’t start walking on it. When sheer will wins over rationality and logic.

This is what sets people apart, I think. People who have dreams so vivid that facing all these odds and obstacles becomes more attractive than everything that is precious and beautiful in our lives right now.

Life is a series of battles. Pick the ones we cannot live without, not the ones we want to live with.