Proceed without caution.

Throughout my World Literature class, we dealt with the the incessant battle between the notion of Beauty vs. Duty. We spent a great amount of our time discussing the idea of tangible divine beauty that transcends our cursory views on the topic and its effects upon our mindsets. Our professor gave us a simple, yet truly Daedalian, equation to try to help us traverse the rest of our days of battle: Love = Wound = Death = Heaven.

We later updated Heaven to include our temporal reality as we make it. This perception allows for us to not only work towards a terminus, but to use every waking moment to create our idealistic firmament with both feet on the ground. I sit here with virtually every forth coming minute for my avail and I count them each like the days left on a prison sentence. I've openly acknowledged my predilection towards Duty, but this may be bordering on complete ignorance towards the sanctity of Beauty. I am also fully cognizant of how vacillant I have been throughout my life. Any and all recognizable effort to change this has stemmed from the following excerpt on the multifarious forms of Pride:

Closely linked to this form of pride [pharisaical] is the pride of timidity, which stems from unreasonable fear. It makes us fearful of others' opinions, so that we cater to human respect. Under its impulse we fail to act when we should, because a groundless fear holds us to the bonds of a spiritual sloth that paralyzes our efforts and makes us incapable of determination, and so we let opportunities pass by unused.

We have all suffered from this. I realize this with every critique of my own work, both formal and informal. The bold, sweeping gestures I have envisioned get shelved in order to not gain attention from critics and classmates alike. After sitting in on a Design 1 crit, attending the Undergrad Pin-Up at University of Florida, and trying to develop my own process, I have realized how imperative it is to put it all out there and deal with any naysayers when the time is right and not a moment before. I have been afflicted by self-doubt for far too long and refuse to slow down my passions out of an unsolicited trepidation.

When your moments of introspection induce feelings of regret- not only from poor judgment, but also from sitting on your hands- you must belay such a condition and react to your apprehension with a mettle I believe is an intrinsic drive in each and everyone of us. There is no way to see what happens unless you make it happen. No, you won't always come out the victor and may have to face Odyssean trials throughout your lifetime, but that should be no reason to never become the fiery materialization of unadulterated passion. Whether your cathexis is temporal or transcendental, you must own every particle of that ardor. En avant.