To Stand on Your Own

Nobody asked but …

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

Amelia Earhart

It takes an unbelievable amount of courage to stand on your own, to unschool your children, to refuse to pay taxes, to practice civil disobedience, to hike the Pacific Coast Trail or the Appalachian Trail, to write in the box when a statist form states “Do not write in this box,” to go to the Moon, to face the Denali Wilderness, to travel the world in earnest, to march to the beat of a different drummer.

It takes huge courage AND a willingness to give up security.  Most are like the soldier at Gettysburg who buries his face in the mud to gain just a shred of security from the artillery shells overhead.  Most are like the acrophobe who, in high places, clings to any ledge, imagining cartwheeling into space as the alternative.

— Kilgore Forelle