More questions. No answers yet.

Don’t worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come? –Rumi

Rumi, so wise, so funny, so prescient. So ancient. Often I’m not sure that Rumi is a 13th century Sufi mystic. How can words written centuries ago reach across time and sting, enlighten, urge, and inspire me? I’ve sometimes imagined Rumi is in his mid-20s with a thing for Hunter S Thompson, sitting in an apartment near some major university. He’s tapping out these poems with a wry grin and a cigarette hanging from his lips.

Particularly when he’s urging me to fearless steps into new experiences. How do I know this side that I am used to is better than the one to come? Rumi is asking me to don the stick and hopeful smile of the Fool. He’s asking me to traipse off to the edge of the cliff and trust that the landing won’t kill me.

Part of that journey has to do with redefining “the edge of the cliff” or maybe not even using crazy words like “stepping into the unknown” that begin triggering strings of past and collective memory of death and dismemberment.

What has made the unknown or an upside-down turned life something to fear? Why do we have to couch and clothe and carry it as terrifying? Is there no way to enter into uncertainty with joy and excitement?

More questions. No answers yet. But I would certainly like to attempt approaching the unknown, the new, the upside-down life with a smile.