Meeting the unknown

We may experience it differently. It's virtually in every lesson. "It" is that moment in a lesson where we arrive at an impasse. In that impasse we don't know how to act. We are at a loss as how to proceed. Mostly we don't like it and don't know how to like it. Mostly we'll do anything to relieve ourselves of its hold. Sad to say, most of the time, we do something in an attempt to distract ourselves from that unbearable feeling of facing the unknown. Our "self", found wanting, found ignorant, facing the unknown, shrinks, contracts, dis-integrates. So we reach for the familiar and do what's been done before. What would await us if we could hang in there with the impasse, with nothing to lose but a compulsion or two. Might that deliberate pause give rise to a fresh sense of self, a new means for action?…