Ambition

Hic Sunt Dragones. Here are dragons.

Cartographers use to write this on their maps, on the parts of the globe that were still unexplored. It was meant to be a warning to anyone who dared to go farther, dared to venture into the unknown. Funny thing about warnings is that to some they are cause for hesitation, while for others they are a challenge to be overcome. As Joseph Conrad so eloquently wrote; " I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but as far as it was possible for a man to go." The true heart of an explorer.

Of course, now the world is all explored & we haven't found any mythical creatures hiding in the darkness. Sometimes I think maybe the cartographers knew we wouldn't. Maybe the dragons they were referring to were not found in the dark jungles of Africa or the deep interiors of Asia. Maybe what they were referring to is found in the heart of man.

When we struggle to make our way it's not dragons that halt our progress, make us doubt & twice think. Its ourselves. It's our fears & our inhibitions. Not just our fear of what we might find but also our fear of what we really already know. To find that we are capable & to know what we are capable of.

Our real fear is never that we will find dragons lurking in the night, but that we will find ourselves.