You Never Know

Your curiosity is fearless. The unknown is its natural and comfortable domain. Once something has been decided, once it’s known, your curiosity is no longer needed and moves on. It’s an explorer who cannot turn back. It never worries about what might happen next; it only ever wants to find out lies beyond the next turn or behind the closed door. Learning is the interesting part for your curiosity, the gold at the end of the trail. Turn it loose as you would a blood hound in the woods, eager to find the first scent.

Perhaps you know this already from your time at your writing desk. You’re never happier than when you’re hot on the trail of a story, wondering where it’s headed. How alive you feel, how unconcerned. This is why you write, for this crackling energy, for the surprise, and for how calm you feel when you push back from the desk afterward. Yes, you look forward to sharing the story, that’s fun too, but life really doesn’t get better than this.

For most of us the trouble starts when we’re not writing. There, uncertainty is the enemy, tied as it is to our safety. “What if?” isn’t the beginning of a story, but a warning. After all, you only want one outcome to any journey – to be all right, to be loved, to be well. But you know how it goes. Marriages end, businesses go broke, kingdoms fall. You’re a grownup. You read the news. When calamity visits, we rarely see it coming. Those are the surprises for which we’re quietly braced. You never know, we remind one another. You never know.

It's true, which is why the best remedy for anxiety or despair is to turn to my curiosity. It’s glad to be reminded that we never know. How boring life would be if it were otherwise. When life seems scary, when I feel as if I’m standing at the edge of dark forest, that is when I should turn loose the blood hound. Within any moment is the scent of an interesting path. Don’t worry where it’s headed. If your curiosity found it, you just follow. Fear, meanwhile, is for the uncurious, who believe safety and happiness is a point on a grid, rather than a direction. 

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com