When did you catch fire?

My friend Mike Blair sent me an email commenting on a recent post, and asked me:

Do you recall the moment you caught fire?

To understand his question (which I love) and my answer, I need to share some more of what Mike wrote. (I've take some liberty in editing his words.)

I have long believed that each of us is born a sleeper cell of one.

For quite a few years, we are unaware of our mission; some people--perhaps many--never discover it.

We are born with a strong desire to keep moving--and examining and pondering whatever we encounter; some folks stifle this desire because of an environment hostile to growth--or mere laziness.

The people who are able to follow that deep imperative to keep moving and pondering, expose themselves to a large variety of experience and possibility and have a good chance of integrating a critical mass of information that will, quite suddenly, allow them to catch fire.

To catch fire means:

...to realize they have a specific purpose, that each, in his or her own way, must innovate, to push off from what they had accepted as reality, and, simultaneously, realize that where they had been was not The Big Show itself, but a necessary prelude to it.

He closes with the question:

Do you recall the moment you caught fire?

I don't remember "the moment" because I've caught fire repeatedly, to discover, later, that the fire had sputtered and died. Unnoticed. Because I do a great job of simulating a human being. No one notices, and I'm not there to notice.

Most recent is the experience that I wrote about and Mike responded to. Before that, I remember a series of waking moments -- because I am practicing. And at the start of the series is the moment of "waking up" on the Quantum of the Seas, on our way to our daughter's wedding in Italy, just after I'd read Sam Harris' "Waking up."

Recently, the flames have been burning more steadily, and some of my writing is evidence of that. The flames still go out, but for shorter periods.

I love Mike's two phrases. I will add "catching fire" to "waking up." And I will think more about what it means to be "a sleeper cell of one."