This morning I was reading about my comfort zone in Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels. It spoke of the challenge of living a life of possibility when I am stuck in my comfort zone. And then I read this:
The Prisoner (I)
My hand has one gesture left,
to push things away.
From the rock dampness drips
on old stones.This dripping is all I can hear.
May heart keeps pace
with the drips falling
and sinks away with them.If the drops fell faster
an animal might come to drink.
Somewhere, it is brighter than this–
but what do we know. (Rainer Maria Rilke)
It is dark, quiet and lonely in my comfort zone. Stutz refers to it as womb-like. That analogy is apt for some comfort zones. Initially, when I feel my comfort zone, it is warm and soothing. I can gently sway in the heart-beat-rippled pool. Comfort.
Sometimes, though, when I feel the pull of desire for something that is outside my comfort zone, this womb is a prison with water-smoothed walls. I’ve heard it said that change happens/comfort zones are breached, when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change. What a difficult place to be in! Perhaps that is why my comfort zone becomes like a prison: pain to stay; pain to leave.
Here’s a thought.
In the fantasy novel, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, the narrator, Kvoth, is a storyteller. He tells a story of a mythic hero, Taborlin The Great. Taborlin is held is a prison made inescapable by magic. Though, he wouldn’t be call Great, if he didn’t escape. How he did it was by calling the name of the stone and it fell away. He named the “thing” blocking his path and it no longer stood in his way.
“When he awoke, Taborlin The Great found himself locked in a high tower. They had taken his sword and stripped him of his tools: key, coin and candle were all gone….
“Now Taborlin needed to escape but when he looked around, he saw his cell had no door. No windows. All around him was nothing but smooth, hard stone. It was a cell no man had ever escaped.
“But Taborlin knew the names of all things, and so all things were his to command. He said to the stone: ‘Break!’ and the stone broke. The wall tore like a piece of paper, and through that hole Taborlin could see the sky and breathe the sweet spring air. He stepped to the edge, looked down, and without a second thought, he stepped out into the open air…
“So Taborlin fell, but he did not despair. For he knew the name of the wind and so the wind obeyed him. He spoke to the wind and it cradled and caressed him. It bore him to the ground as gently as a puff of thistledown and set him on his feet softly as a mother’s kiss.” (The Name of the Wind)
Back to my comfort zone…
Consider what it would feel like to name the pain or fear that is keeping us locked in our comfort zone. The unknown becomes the known. And the known can be made to fall away, or solved for, or made small and ignored.
Is our greatness waiting outside our prison? In time, they may tell stories of us too.