The destination is forever mysterious until they find themselves there

Are you familiar with the parable of crossing the invisible chasm?

The hero stands at the precipice, staring into the void, wondering how the hell she’s going to get to the other side without falling into the bottomless pit.

And then she realizes, oh wait, it’s a leap of faith. It’s not possible to tell whether going down this hole will lead to certain death or a new revelation. The only way across is to take a death defying step forward into oblivion.

But she better make her decision quickly, because the bad guys are gaining ground.

Now, as mythological and dramatic this parable is, it has relevance to the modern human experience. Regular people take leaps of faith all the time. Not only when it comes to life changing decisions about their relationships, careers or health, but also when it comes to their everyday matters.

I’ve always found the creative process to be the classic example of crossing the invisible chasm. Whether you’re writing a book, painting a canvas, filming a screenplay, or choreographing a dance, it’s still a staggering journey into the unknown.

The creator reaches into the darkness, uncertain of what will be received. They fling themselves straight into the void, sustained by nothing but trust, courage, and maybe coffee.

And the destination is forever mysterious until they find themselves there.

That’s certainly what songwriting feels like. I’ve been composing, recording and publishing music for thirty years now, and I’m not sure the process ever gets any easier. My lyrical skills improve, my tonal palette expands, my thematic perspectives deepen, and my chordal vocabulary gets more sophisticated, but it still feels like crossing the invisible chasm with every song.

Part of me assumes every song will be the last one I ever write. Or at least the last good one I ever write. There’s always the fear that I’m repeating myself, making bloodless and derivative schlock.

Which brings us back to the parable.

Action absorbs anxiety.

Sometimes you have to just start playing and singing something, anything, if only to see what comes out.

Because you can’t think your way into a new song. It’s a kinetic art form. And that’s the leap of faith. Every song has its own way of coming into the world, and every song is going to tell you what it wants and needs from you.

But you must be willing to cross the invisible chasm. Risking failure, humiliation, criticism, irrelevance, worthlessness, obscurity and annihilation, all of which are emotional equivalents to certain death. Those are just a few of the many bottomless pits you can fall into.

The interesting thing is, humans have such short memories. We very quickly forget that the further we wade out into the mysterious, the closer we come to the heart of life. There is always new musical ground to be discovered right there with the same notes we played yesterday.

And the vast majority of the time, it turns out certain death is an optical illusion and the path was there all along.

We were just not capable of seeing it until we finally took a step forward.

You almost have to think of it as video game. The player approaches a broken bridge on level three. Time and energy are running out fast, so they have no choice but to keep moving the story forward. But as they take a leap of faith over the abyss, rocks and bits of masonry magically float up from the chasm below, constructing pieces of the bridge before their feet, adding more as they keep walking. Until they finally make it across with ten seconds left, discover the buried treasure and rescue the princess. You have chosen wisely.

In what area of your life do you need to cross the invisible chasm? What leaps of faith have you taken in the past that make you curious about the mystery before you today?

Look, it’s true that failure, humiliation, criticism, irrelevance, worthlessness, obscurity and annihilation are all a possibility.

But then again, so are joy, meaning, connection fulfillment and enlightenment.

The good news is, leaping into the unknown is how we evolve as human beings. Each time we cross the invisible chasm, we evolve a little bit more.

And even if we don’t like every song we write, we can still that we wrote it.

What could you turn into something great by the very act of beginning?