by Larik Sonfar

Created on: May 18, 2008

Inspiration is not found in a protracted period of analysis and thought. It is found in the blazing passions of a moment.

As I lay there breathing heavily, I can experience the undeniable rush of passion surge within me. My hand, resting inadvertently on my chest, can read the rhythm of my heart. Its speed, its irregularity, its audacity, are all in sync with the beat of my motivation to succeed. But it's not just motivation, it's also fear. A fear of failure so strong that it paralyzes me. I hide and flee to seek refuge from its wrath but in the end it always comes back. I know that the moment I feel more determined, more capable than ever of achieving everything I strive for, my fear besets me more viciously than ever as well. I can feel the streaks of fear flash across my eyes. Even as they narrow and become tense in my resolve, they also cannot avoid succumbing to my forebodings. They waver, and when the fear reaches its height, they lose their clarity. For entire moments the world becomes to me an opaque fog. In it I lose sight of that light at the end of the tunnel, even if it should be right before me.

These moments reflect my life. In fact, sometimes I think these moments not only are the result of and create, but are my life. During these moments I feel like an empty beach suddenly covered by the ocean tide, infused with enough resolve to master the infinite; but then, just as quickly, the tide recedes, once again leaving me bare, alone, lifeless. In a secular world, the infinite is little more than a far-off fantasy, forgotten against the backdrop of the material. But mine is not a secular world. Perhaps I live in a fairy tale, mired in the call of the epic, because my dreams are of the unattainable. My deep lust cannot be sated with the reality that is within my reach, instead, it demands what is far from my grasp. And so I fear. I fear I will never attain my goals; I fear I will never become the man of my fantasized destiny. Its power to captivate me, to entrance me with the allure of the sublime, is perhaps precisely that what it is eludes me. And so I lunge blindly at this target. I allow the motivation to unleash itself upon the unwitting objects within my horizon.

Most of what I toil at isn't divine or profound. Much of it is a manifestation of the mundane: grade point average, class rank, SAT scores. Without doubt, these are stepping stones to later success, but that's not the only reason I pursue them. It is also because conquering these obstacles

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