(Video link HERE.) 233 viral videos from 2014 spliced together make quite a view. We turned the sound off and watched people leaping…dancing…flying…balancing…mastering…diving…risking…challenging themselves physically…

What about challenge? we wondered. We thought of the many difficult situations we faced this year that were internal and not filmable with a Go-Pro Camera: they were our private challenges.

And that reminded us of the incisive and liberating comment a reader left some time ago:

I believe we’re wired differently, and what seems sensible to some is incredibly risky to others…it’s all in the individual view of reality.

I’ve always preferred to experiment within the generally familiar and comfortable, being surrounded by an environment with lots of decisions already made (job choices, where I live with its paint colors, furniture, animals, even placement of implements and tools that stay in their assigned places for decades) which gives me an ability to focus on other things. What project for those tools to work, what book to read, whether to stay home today or go out into the world. With many decisions made, I have the time to focus on the others that are up for grabs today.

 

The leaps and challenges we take on can be as humble as doing something for the first time, introducing ourselves to a stranger, telling a friend a secret, apologising, putting a mark on a blank canvas,  grieving, taking care of ourselves: whatever we perceive as risky and a move beyond our comfort zone. And often, too, it helps to have a restorative base —whether living space, philosophy, religion, friends, whatever — which allows us to leap.

 

 

 

 

 

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One thought on “2014 Through Viral Videos: Our Takeaway

  1. This was wonderful to read. What a nice perspective on the subjectivity of risk, I loved it!

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