Potentiality & Magic

This afternoon I ran into a long-time family friend who recently graduated from theology school. She’s a true Appalachian woman – 60-something, raised on a dairy farm, no nonsense haircut that hasn’t changed since she was five –  you get the picture. Looking at her, you would never guess that her house doubles as a library, or that she just completed her Master’s and has written and published multiple books. Frankly, she’s one of the most intelligent, spiritual, and absolutely odd people I’ve ever met. 

Anyway, after we covered the conversational catch-ups (cataract surgery; colonoscopy), she told me that she’s been feeling out of sorts after graduation. The past few years of her life have orbited around school, so what happens when you take it away? All of a sudden, you find yourself floating in the void, no gravity to tether you to a purpose. 

That’s what the loss is, I think: a prescribed purpose. It’s the same flimsy concept that attracts some people to church. Like moths to a flame, it’s easy to be swept up by the instant fulfillment, distraction, and sense of identity because the personal responsibility of leading a satisfactory life is too much to individually take on. I’m not saying this is the case with my lovely friend; she’s weathered more years than I have, and seems to jump from one all-consuming interest to another. She’s also an immaculate example of questioning her own religion and finding peace with the answers she has yet to find. Our conversation was not long enough to determine the motivating factor of her late-life scholastic zeal, but what I am truthfully interested in is the aftereffects. 

How did this woman, who seemingly has such direction and drive, find herself in a parallel state to mine? I am a recent college graduate going through withdrawals. College was four years of cyclical pseudo purpose. Study hard, make good grades, work, party, repeat. 

Students are conditioned to follow the step-by-step guide that holds your hand from freshman year until graduation, no questions asked. The problem is that the guide ends there. 

What happens when the gravity of purpose goes away? 

What happens when you’re spit out into a world with nowhere everywhere to go? 

My theory is this is a more prevalent problem with creatives than, say, business majors, simply because there’s rarely a clear post-grad path for the artists. Take me, for example. My plan was to graduate, relocate (anywhere!), pick up a bartending job, and write a book in my off hours. Three months later, I don’t have enough money to uphold my moving plans, and I am living at home driving for UberEats and writing in the deadspace between pickups. I have frustrated and disappointed my best friend, who I was planning to move across the country with, and I have found myself back at the starting line over and over. 

Yes, this feels like failure. But when I voiced this to my friend, she responded, “I don’t think anyone should use the word failure. We don’t fail, we learn. Everything that happens has a great potential for your own growth.” 

I needed to hear that. I needed to recalibrate my brain, to forget the word ‘failure’ entirely. 

To focus on the positives: Not having a structured job allows me more freedom to pursue my creative interests. I can write and do art and dance! I have endless time for exploration, and I am so grateful for the space to create without bounds. At home, I can help support the people I love. And surprisingly, driving delivery has brought some zany characters into my life. Everything is inspiration. 

As the fear-response to a temporarily unstructured life turns obsolete, the world becomes your muse. You begin to consider the empty places in your life as unlimited potential. 

In The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra introduces what he calls “The Law of Pure Potentiality.” The idea is that we all hold a vast silence inside of us, and once we recognize it, usually through meditation, we can tap into the well of creative energy. The Plane of Pure Potentiality refers to this state of being, from which all creation can burst forth. The mental image of the plane mirrors what happens when we shift our thinking away from fear; it is what happens when we accept the unfilled space and the lack of structure, and learn to see these things as blessings. 

My mother always said there’s no such thing as boredom. It is from these quiet moments that great creations are born. 

I certainly don’t have all, or even a fraction of the answers, but I’ll leave you with this challenge. If you are overwhelmed with uncertainty, anxiety, or fear about the present moment, close your eyes and Be – just Be – with yourself for thirty minutes. Don’t speak, try to filter out the pain-monologue that scrolls through your brain, dig past this until you glimpse the Plane of Pure Potentiality. Exist in communion with yourself until the fear responses in your head become a whisper; exist until you feel yourself amplified. Have patience, it always comes.

We all harbor limitless creativity, but it is our responsibility to sort through our egoic thoughts until we find the silent space within. Failure, I’ve learned, is a concept rooted in the ego. Leave it behind, recognize that it’s a choice to allow the fear of failure to consume you. Embrace the potential that is yours when you make this choice. It is here that the magic happens. 

As always, thank you for taking the time to read ❤

With love, 

Siena