What We Have To Fear

“It’s not that we fear the unknown. You cannot fear something that you do not know. Nobody is afraid of the unknown. What you really fear is the loss of the known. That’s what you fear.”

• Anthony De Mello 
from Awareness

The older I get, the brighter the light that shines on my ignorance. So much I thought I knew has already been lost, proven wrong, outdated, or fallen out of favor. To let go of that baggage, the accumulated non-intelligence of many decades of modern life, is freeing in many ways. To begin anew is satisfying, for to begin anew is to disentangle oneself from knowledge and shame and memory, the very things to which we cling so desperately, the things we believe determine our future. In each moment we are presented with the opportunity to choose ignorance or curiosity over the thoughts we collectively label the past. One choice leads to fearlessness.