in the gray zone...

There are only two kinds of people in the world--those who are alive and those who are afraid. Perhaps fear is a natural outcome of the wish to be in control. We all yearn for mastery. But mastery is always limited. Sooner or later we will come to the edge of all that we can control and find life, waiting there for us.

The wish to control floats like a buoy above the hidden reef of fear. More than anything, fear is the stumbling block to life's agenda. Perhaps it is only the things we fear that we wish to control. No one can serve life if they are unconsciously afraid of life! Life is process. When he was very old, Roberto Assagioli, the founder of psychosynthesis, reminded one of his young students of this: "There is no certainty; there is only adventure," he told the young man. "Even stars explode."

-from My Grandfather's Blessings, Rachel Naomi Remen, 2000