Ariadne's Thread
I didn't hear the words with any precision, but I grabbed what later proved to be a useful idea. The hero Theseus rescues himself from the darkness, from the maze, not the grand act of killing the minotaur, but by following Ariadne's thread -- the barely perceptable. glimmer of guidance in the dark.
At the time, my job search had been completely pointness. I was broke and was sending out 10 or 12 job applications a day, while working as a substitute teacher. I couldn't pay my bills. And I had started the job search from a low point to begin with: burned out, bitter. In short, I had started low and remained there.
The idea of Ariadne's thread stuck with me, and I would repeat to myself frequently, like a mantra. Just follow Ariadne's thread. There will be no grand signs, no burning bushes, no voices from above indicating the way out. No book written in gold ink. Just keep looking for that tiny thread and don't give up.
The approach reminds me of the Japanese concept of kaizen, which is a philosophy of smallness -- of incremental progress. You build companies, creative works, even desireable emotional states like serenity, not with revolutionary changes that come across like a cataclysm, but with continual seemingly insignificant adjustments that don't amount to much on their own. In the words of our age, micro matters.
I applied these concepts in other ways. Every morning, I do gentle qigong instead of lifting weights. I limit myself to 15 minutes instead of pushing for an hour. I meditate for 11 minutes instead of 15. When I'm short on time, I walk for 30 minutes in the woods -- a nice, quick loop. It is progress in accordance with nature at its most harmonious: a gentle rain.
When the new year began: that was New Year's resolution: follow Ariadne's thread.
I'm sipping a hot coffee and preparing to walk in the cold woods. Seven degrees farenheit. The skies clear and still.
