NATHAN COLE

Letting go. That has never come easily to me.

I am not sure letting go comes easily to a lot of people, I can assure you it is not something I am graced with. From a young age, my life was about control. I didn’t need to control anyone else, or the things going on around me, but I needed to control myself. Emotions boiled up constantly inside me; passion, anger, fear. I wanted to control them, to subdue them so that they were no longer a distraction.

I wanted to be in control of myself.

I often felt disconnected with people around me, they felt different and I couldn’t understand why they behaved the way they did. This sense of isolation extended to the larger society and the world I saw, I didn’t understand humanity, it just didn’t make sense to me. Our treatment of each other felt so irrational in my mind; the constant fighting, picking each other apart, taking advantage of each other, and lying. It all just felt so self-destructive.

But, I wanted to be great. I wanted to be a contributor to the world and to be a step forward in the path of historical progress. So, with this in mind, I tried to control everything about myself, to put myself in a position physically and mentally where I couldn’t help but succeed. I wanted to avoid all those vices, distractions, and failures that had brought down artists and thinkers before me.

I exercised feverishly, working to have myself in a peak state of endurance and health. I read and studied everything I could get my hands on in the hopes of having the intelligence and knowledge to solve all the problems I saw before me. I would look at each issue that plagues humanity; war, over-consumption, environmental destruction, pollution, racism, and inequality, and I would think, that is something I have to solve. This is on me, I have to be good enough to figure these things out.

If this was a single-minded goal, maybe taking on one smaller issue and working towards incremental change, this might have worked in some ways. However, this approach also applied to the people I was around and the problems they faced. I would think if I can just be the perfect version of myself I can help them get through this. So I would try to be all things to all people.

The unfortunate side effect of all this control throughout my life was suppressing everything that didn’t feel right, any emotion that would upset the balance was swallowed down deep inside, again and again. Any sense of failure of the overwhelming goals I set for myself was buried inside. I was able to control myself to some degree, but it became harder and harder not to let things bubble to the surface. There is only so much we can suppress before it starts to poison us, to warp our mind and body and leach out to the surface. This constant suppression can start to manifest itself in anxiety and depression, or even worse, it can lead to lashing out with anger and violence.

Also, the outside world has a way of creeping in, people around you don’t operate by the same rules. Different relationships in my life would cause my approach to begin to break down. If they too established control, I would defer to them, I would manipulate myself to keep them happy. Doing this repeatedly throughout my life I began to lose sight of who I was, my habit of deferring to others became such a pattern that I had peeled away all the parts of myself that made me the person I was. I was no longer myself, I was just a husk. I controlled myself so that others could control me, then found that it was all I had left.

So I broke the pattern and the relationships that caused this. I worked to rebuild myself from the ground up and reestablish the person I wanted to be. This time though, it felt different. This time, I wanted to let go. I wanted to let go of that fear, the anger, and the self-consciousness rather than burying it inside hoping I was rid of it. I wanted to let go of my control, and be free in my mind and body.

In a way, our whole lives are about control. We are working constantly to manage our finances and plan for the future. Save for school. Okay, we have a degree, now get a job. Got that under control, now find a partner. Alright, married, done. What’s next? House? Children? Retirement? Let’s have a plan and follow through. What’s for lunch, what’s for dinner? Let’s follow these steps, let’s stick to our routine. Our life becomes about steps, taking them one at a time – slowly, methodically – making your way to the finish.

But life can be chaos, it can be unpredictable and messy. Some people try to contain this, to have a plan in place for all possibilities, and for some of them, it works. They so effectively control their lives that along with shutting out the reckless, the wild, and the dangerous – they also shut out the ecstasy, the spontaneity, and joy. They have a quiet internal happiness, of course, perhaps a self-congratulating satisfaction of how well they have executed their plan. But they miss those highs that come with a little bit of unpredictability. They miss those late nights of almost gleeful abandon. They miss those adventurous treks into the unknown. They miss the beauty of being surprised.

There is a reason you see people at wave pools or at the ocean shore taking absolute delight in throwing themselves recklessly into waves much stronger than they are. It is a beautiful feeling to be caught up and experience something much more powerful than yourself. To truly let go and let yourself be carried along with the torrent. For a moment, people get to give up their control and just experience something; without judgment, without a deadline, without rules. They just feel the power and beauty of the waves, and for a brief time, that is enough.

I have tried to learn this, to experience an adventure by letting go of control and going along with the thoughts, desires, and excitement of the people you are with. I have walked this line my whole life. Sometimes I hold back for fear of embarrassment or failure, but every so often I let go by throwing myself into the surf, hoping I would be picked up and tossed along with the waves.

Letting go of our absolute control on ourselves can be freeing, but so can letting go of the systems that control us. We are often scared of our own freedom, of trying to make choices without guidance, so we fall into the routines, structures, and systems of modern civilization. We look to religion, political parties, and social movements to direct us, to establish our identity. We let ourselves be controlled by these systems because they are safe, they are comfortable. The unknown can be terrifying. We can become paralyzed by our own lack of direction, so we look to religion or politics to show us a path. This is what happens when you only know the waves, when you have long ago given yourself over to that force. You no longer want to firmly plant your feet and have a look around, you want to stay lost in the waves.

There is a balance to be found here. We don’t have to establish absolute control over ourselves, but we also don’t have to give that control over to a group mentality. Our participation doesn’t establish our identity. Our belief in something bigger than ourselves doesn’t have to guide every aspect of our lives. We can let go of rules and have guidelines instead. We can be free to create something unique for ourselves. We can let go.