On Between One and Go

I never do anything with high stakes. For those of you who know me, this will come as no surprise. That fact notwithstanding, there is something I’ve heard from people far more brave and adventurous than I, about a split-second – one I think I have had experience with. It is said that in the moments before committing a scary or dangerous act, there is a beautiful instant in the countdown. In those tense few seconds, as three becomes two and two becomes one, a confidence and sense of ease settle just in time to act. That moment, for all the profundity I find in it, serves a critical cognitive purpose.

Fear plays an important part in getting us to that stage, but becomes a block in our path the second we need to move past it. This fleeting moment is required not only to eliminate that fear, but to dismiss all thoughts at all. Thinking, at least for me, is an energy-intensive activity unto itself, and there come times when we cannot afford to expend effort on our thoughts, and must instead rely on everything else. Granted, in practice, this only comes to mean something as grandiose as I’ve established if the individuals in question possess an impressive and instinctual ability, which I very much do not. I do, though, think there is a larger experience that can be shared.

I’ve spent the last month in India with family, which has been a real treat. All this time, though, I’ve been looking forward to travel with friends that I spontaneously organised a little over two months ago. I’m quite stunted socially, for a whole bunch of reasons I neither fully understand nor can be bothered to go into right now, but I was very lucky to make good friends in my last years at boarding school, and I’m beyond excited to be travelling with them through Europe. The travel is itself an enticing prospect as, though I have been fortunate enough to have visited to some incredible places and gone on some fantastic journeys, this is the first one I embark on as an individual. I’ve had my share of travel with family, and I cannot wait to see what lies in store for me on a trip with friends.

This does relate back to the topic at hand, I promise. I have run the gamut of emotions this past week, and while things are now thankfully settled, I have noticed in myself an unusually developed reaction. I know I’m excited to go on this trip – I know that intrinsically, but it’s equally daunting. I haven’t been focusing on that part as much, and all the more power to me for managing that, but it has created a perfect storm of sorts for that countdown to begin. I am, at the time of writing, hours away from travel, and, in this prolonged moment before zero, I feel something akin to apathy but with a hint of oxymoronic excitement beneath it. I’ve felt all the important emotions in the time leading up to this trip, and now it’s just my responsibility to let go and let it happen.