The line that divides

They always talk about lines that divide; about fine margins that differentiate. Genius and madness, ambition and stupidity, success and failure . . .

Most of us have encountered those situations where we feel the presence of such lines, taunting us to really test their limits or forever wonder – “what if”. Most of us choose to forever wonder because we lack the finesse to really define the line, to actually see it and thus we are afraid of crossing over.

That is the catch to be honest, you have to risk it. You have to risk madness to achieve genius, risk failure to be successful but there is a catch inside the catch. Some people cross so far over, so many times that you cannot call it anything other than stupidity. To top it all off they fail and fail miserably but they get up, dust themselves down and do it all over again chalking all previous failures to bad luck or someone else.

They never see the line and maybe never even feel its presence but through some misjudged notion of bravado they want to test its limits. The problem is you cannot really test the limits if you haven’t the slightest idea where the line is. And when you have to fall with these ‘perennial optimists’, every damn time it really irks. You can see it coming a million miles away but through the machinations of fate or fear of failure you are not in charge and all that is left to be done is to brace for impact.

Now for the real question, do you choose to go your own separate way or do you keep crashing with someone else. If you choose to leave then you are back to the first problem – risk failure for success. It’s all on you, no one else to take the blame; nowhere to hide with the whole world watching.

See the good thing about crashing because of someone else is that you never have to bear scrutiny. It is never your fault. No one will judge you – ah – the real reason we are afraid of pushing the limits – judgment. Very few of us are immune to what others think. There is always someone whose approval matters. Someone we want to take notice. As Sherlock Holmes said to Dr. Watson

“That's the problem with genius, John. It needs an audience.”

But with that audience, comes the possibility of judgment and not just any kind of judgment – en masse judgment. So not only do you have to be prepared for failure itself, you have to be prepared to wear the tag as well and that tag more than anything else is what makes us stop way over on the safe side of the line. We choose to spend a life in anonymity rather than risk ridicule. You have to risk it, there is no other way.