Casting off an old, confining shell is, however painful, a necessary act for the lobster to be able to grow - as Rabbi A. Twerski points out when discussing growth through adversity. Using such as a metaphor for getting out of our comfort zones (or, in the case at hand, jumping from the heights of the tallest mountain, sans parachute, in hope of learning to fly) would be exactly fitting, but for two caveats: One, when doing so, we may not enjoy having the protection of a rock to hide under, with the metamorphosis due to take place out in the open, akin to rebuilding the hull of a ship in the maelstrom of a perfect storm, when the safety of the docks is not an option; And two, while the crustacean, as it undergoes the shedding of its old and growing of the new shell, has - probably - a good idea of how his new armour will look like, our growth process leads to an entirely unknown final state - wherein lies its terrifying beauty.
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Deciding to face such undertaking could be cast as the single most important question, defining our whole existence. I'll argue that, should the answer be delegated to reason and reason alone, then we are ultimately no different than a sophisticated, yet mechanical, and thus soulless, artificial intelligence. And there's no point of living // if you can't feel alive ...
... and no better way of feeling such than helping someone else find the same.
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The sun broke through the winter foliage on a cold December morning. Temperatures in Munich were almost as many degrees colder as the latitude difference to Iceland's capital. A thin layer of frost covered the cars parked left and right as I opened the balcony door, placed the fan outside, and climbed on the bike. Four hundred watts can cure almost everything.
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