We are all experts at others' lives.  There are so many people who come to me for advice, a hearing ear, a different perspective, and more often than not they leave satisfied.  This is not because I have the answers, but because I often have the right questions.  And when the person seeking my counsel wants to know where to go next with their lives, the right question is, "What are you avoiding?  What are you afraid of?  Because on the other side of that lies your larger, truer self."

And so it is that our failures are almost always more revealing than our successes.  I don't speak of the times we pour our whole being into something, and it doesn't turn out the way we foresaw.  I don't think of those as failures.  Rather, I refer to the times when we allow fear, pride, or laziness to get in the way of something.  When that happens, it's a gift, a window for us to look through and ask, "Why?  Why was this the thing that I chose to avoid?  And what is on the other side of it?"

I suspect that we all do as I do.  That we all have moments when a simple thing that needs done, and wouldn't even require that much to do, triggers a schism in our consciousness, and we suddenly become two people.  One who knows what needs done, and one who doesn't.  A conscious, self-determined, methodical mind, and an automaton, whose full articulation gives the illusion of sentience.  It is this latter version of ourselves who takes over, blocking off the knowledge of her or his responsibility, and forcing the former version away in a locked cabinet from which it looks on helplessly.  "Who is this person who is not opening his email?  Just open the email!  Just write the cover letter!  Just make the doctor's appointment!" he screams, but his voice is muffled, and we pretend not to hear his pleas.  Perhaps we play another round of Candy Crush, or watch another episode of Sons of Anarchy, or eat another bag of M&Ms instead of doing the simple thing that the better version of ourselves would already be doing.

I am led to believe that those blessed with strength of will, in these moments, wrest control of themselves, break open the cabinet, and do that which they have decided to do.  I am not one of these for whom deciding to do something is as good as having done it.  My strength is not in will, but in insight.  And so that better version of me, powerless though he often is to wrest control, can at least, as he sweeps up the mess the automated version of himself has wrought, ask "Why?"

And the answer rarely has to do with the task itself, the actual thing being avoided.  The answer lies in what is so terrifying on the other side, that we not only don't open the door, we lock all knowledge of the door away.  I can't answer for others, although sometimes I can help them ask the question.  But as for myself, the answer is always the same.

And that answer is revealed in the nature of the tasks that trigger the schism, the sudden division between mind and body that leaves me a trapped observer sealed in a puppet, as it flails around with its wooden limbs and smashes things.  There are those who think of me as a strong determined person, because they have seen me set my sights on a goal, and neither rest nor blink until it is accomplished gloriously.  But these successes, these moments of resplendent glory all have two things in common.  They involve a tangible product--often an event, or a work of art or literature--and they are done for the benefit of others.  Likewise, the things that are avoided have something in common.  They have no external proof of their completion, and they are for me.  If only one or the other be true--if the task be a nebulous one for others' benefit,  or a concrete one for my own sake--then the task usually gets accomplished, but without the fiery determination that seems to have been channeled from another dimension.

But something purely internal, done for my own benefit, is the hair trigger on my avoidance.  The reason is simple.  On the other side of those actions is the fact that the only thing I want, or have ever wanted does not exist.  I'm afraid to even write it down, to invoke the desire that drives me to distraction, the absence of which is on the other side of every last tear.  Either there is no word for it, or that word is locked away where I can't see it, but I know what it would look like.  Alai kissing Ender on the cheek and whispering, "Salaam."  Jonathon stripping himself of his robe and giving it to David.  Roland and Oliver, baring their heads and swearing, "Je vos aim plus q'homme de mere né."  Enkidu, on his deathbed, proclaiming to Gilgamesh, "Once I ran for you, for the water of life, and I now have nothing."

Lest you think I speak of a romantic partner, let me disabuse you of that right now.  It could be that, it could!  One with whom to gird myself for battle, like the sacred band of Thebes, and rush gloriously together into the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.   But it could just as surely be a teacher, a mentor, someone who will tell me what the fuck to do, for god's sake, before I fall upon the thorns of life and bleed out.  Or even a friend, an ally, for the love of all that is good and holy someone who will not leave, who realizes what I truly am and doesn't run away, screaming. How often have I thought I found one or the other of these!  And how often was I wrong!

But this other half of me exists only in fiction.  And it is this truth that lies on the other side of every task I avoid.  There is no Enkidu, no Alai, no Jonathon, and no Oliver.  There is only me.  I am he who asks, and he who knows; he who protects, and he who relies; he who gives, and he who receives.  It is I alone who can fill the gasping void that drives me.  And that terrifies me.  The aching desire itself is infinitely more comfortable than the knowledge that I must satisfy it myself.  But what is known cannot be unknown.  It can be locked away, muffled, ignored, but never destroyed.  And neither can it be embraced, for to do so, to fill the void which I myself am, to satisfy the gaping maw of desire with my own existence, would be to fold in upon myself and cease to exist.