And it will keep coming back until we give it an answer. Saying yes to a call tends to place us on a path that half of ourselves thinks doesn't make a bit of sense, but the other half knows our lives won't make sense without. We find ourselves following the blind spiritual instinct that tells us our lives have purpose and meaning, that this calling is part of it, and that we must act on it despite the temptations to back down and run for cover that will divide even the most grimly resolute against themselves. One part of you wants to awaken, one part wants to sleep. One part wants to follow the call, the other wants to run like hell.
Courage is joined at the hip with anxiety.
And whether these contrary exertions inside us feel like two gladiators tied together for a fight to the finish, or like the swimming bodies of yin and yang swirling around in the same fishbowl, the space they occupy is like an ecotone, a transition zone between two ecological communities like forest and grassland or river and desert. But they also exchange, swapping juices, information and resources. Ecotones have tremendous biological diversity and resilience. I've heard it said that heroism, or heroinism, can be redefined for the modern age as the ability to tolerate paradox. To hold two competing forces inside us at the same time and still retain the ability to function.