When the time is just right, when that hierarchy of values has been firmly implanted within me—then I will jolt myself out of the desert. To do this, I will need to strike myself with the sharpest goad. I will need to have a brush with death.
And so I am going to risk my life. Somewhere, someday soon, unbeknownst to everyone but myself, I will take a nighttime plunge into black and icy waters. I will dive down to the bottom and linger there, motionless in the inky depths. There only my heartbeat and the slow, heavy rumbling of the deep will reach me. And the cold. And my fear, too—my fear especially. My fear will grow. And only when it has fully enveloped me will I submit myself totally to the deep.
Then I will die to myself and ascend to the surface, to be reborn into a new world (If I do in fact survive—it is winter and I may not. But it can’t be done without the risk).