I allowed it by simply...

The pursuit of clarity is intoxicating. In both the positive sense, where it often resides, and the negative one, where it is rarely highlighted because:

• Who doesn’t want to be able to read the room with a hawk-like focus?
• Who doesn’t want to see so clearly that all their problems fade away?
• Who doesn’t want to get rid of the uncertainty that is driving them nuts?

— Me, me, me, please! #recognize

Ouff, that was fast. The “me” is so reliable. It surfaced even before you knew and answered the question for you. Did you notice? Sometimes we do, and most often we don’t. It is the automated default setting, and we kind of feel a relief because it is.

Yet, what happens if, just for a second, we entertain the idea that NO, I don’t want to read the room, NO, I don’t want to see clearly, and NO, for god sake, NO, by all means, let uncertainty course through me and wreck havoc.

If a shiver drove down your spine just from the absurdity of this NO, welcome to the first step of recognizing how the paradox of ambiguity vs. clarity will drive your focus to heights you have yet to imagine.

— Love me some magic. #understand

I do not understand. I know. “Me” is difficult that way. Somehow, you could even say it thinks it runs the show, but for whatever reason, it does not. Probably that is the problem.

I do not know, but this is what I know. One day the engineer in me could not accept being a shitty presenter. So it decided to hire a singing coach and decode this voice thingy once and for all.

And what a failure that was. The first hour was a mesmerizing cacophony of sounds where, thankfully, the neighbors did not call the police to shut me up. The teacher kept telling me you have a beautiful voice, but heck, if I could believe her.

This charade as such continued not only for one hour but two hours per week. And I could not have enough. The engineer was trying to dissect where the voice should go, what is a larynx, a head voice, a chest voice, or sounding too nasal — whatever that means! And, oh my god, it failed miserably.

But to my surprise, what happened magically and frankly without me noticing was that once the engineer disappeared, a clarity I couldn’t describe pierced through. It was uncannily vulnerable and authentic, so much so it was scary. It was why I continued, but, of course, I could not tell you all that back then. All I felt was a huge relief.

— Disappear, you say, huh? #accept

Singing for me was foreign. A landscape I had never thought I would ever traverse. You could say I was as blind as a bat. But like the sound waves guiding the bat, there was a voice acting like a beacon guiding my hand once I allowed it to do so.

And I allowed it by simply singing — not thinking or trying, just belting at the top of my lungs. That is how I learned, and darn, it feels so random. But is it? There was once in you a child that clumsily tried to touch fire. For it to learn, it had not to know that fire burns. If it already did, could it ever learn?

Let’s put it to the test. Focus, please. What do you see?

One horse or a group of horses? Mountains or clouds, for that matter? The relationship between clarity and ambiguity is like your perception playing tricks on you when what you see changes. Both are always present, yet we seemingly shift between them; one we put on a pedestal, and the other we fear.

Let the fear in and explore a dimension of clarity that goes beyond you. Clarity is nice, but not without ambiguity. Accept it, and its gifts are yours.

Until next time,
Carlo