The Play Of Potential

When you think of potential, what do you think of - something you are meant to fulfill or use up?

To achieve or attain?

This is where the idea of “dying empty” I believe stems from, as well as the idea of using up all that you’ve been given as a justification for living.

But you see, what are the odds that indeed we have the ability to use up all we’ve been given? To trade all that we have and to fulfill our potential?

Wouldn’t it be that at that point, our life ends? Wouldn’t our reality be subjected to meaninglessness if we ever attain full potential?

If potential is possibility, is it a state to attain or a realm of engagement?

The idea that we can attain full potential, die empty - is it actually meaningful in the context of our evolutionary state as sapiens?

When we achieve a state, do we seek to go beyond that state?

How can we even fathom what this state is? What potential is?

How can we categorically measure and determine what potential would mean to us seasonally?

A lot of questions to kickstart this conversation but can be summed up to this —The Play of Potential.

The seductive dance of meaning and purpose that opens us up to an ocean that can not be cleaned up. The vastness of a possibility that can only be constrained by mind. A definition that can only be limited by an actor. It is potential.

When you are born, potential is simply as it is - what you are capable of being. However, as we develop and engage with the world, when we speak of potential, it means differently.

In this essay; The Play of Potential would strip off your un-investigated idea of potential, it’s implications, the true essence of potential, it’s plot and how to dance creatively to ensure expandable genius.

When you were born, you were a blank canvas. Genius would be whatever you said it would be, potential would indicate the vastness of your mind’s ability to capture realities per time. It wasn’t influenced by opinions, recognition or other’s success.

You lived. Truly…In a world of your own. Your mind could wander. You could dream and pursue. Your heart was fertile enough to believe. It was upon the bricks of your belief, you created your fantasy - your desires and your preoccupation.

However, as you started to engage with the world, to excitedly communicate the depth of your creativity, to explore your interests and curiosities, to question—not out of rebellion but a willingness to know, your canvas started to get painted and tainted.

You’d become programmed to what potential is.

You’d see what is celebrated and develop new desire because it is inbuilt in our specie to crave attention and belonging.

You’d see the effortless competence of another and you’d lust for their corner of the world, shape-shifting to be them because you think you could too.

You’d learn performance that stifles potential as an excuse for dying empty.

To dance to the tune of potential’s play, we’d delve deep along this structure;

—> The Concept of Dying Empty & The Paradox of Potential

—> The Paradox of Full Attainment: Meaning or Meaninglessness?

—> The True Meaning of Potential

Dying Empty & The Paradox of Potential

The reality is this - regardless of what you do, how much you do it or how you do it, when you are on your dying bed, there would be a lot more things you could have done. In fact, if you truly lived that wouldn’t be a bother.

You’ve probably learned the concept of dying empty wrong..to mean to do all the things and use up all you have. You can’t. Potential is not finite and genius is expandable. To choose the limits of your potential as an evolutionary being is to stay within a frame Carol Dweck has called - “The Fixed Mindset”; the belief that your abilities and intelligence are static and unchanging.

As you grow, potential expands; new horizons are created, new frontiers are opened up. You don’t stay locked up within a definite perspective of potential per time. That perspective keeps moving and keeps creating more room for expansion.

Let’s take fitness for instance;

When embarking on a fitness journey, your initial attempt involves a specific number of reps and a challenging yet achievable level of endurance. This range, representing your potential at that stage, becomes the foundation for progressing to the next level.

As your strength is developed, it doesn't imply that the reps become easier. To surpass your celebrated success and authentically enhance your capabilities on the fitness journey, you must lift heavier weights or increase your reps. This new level introduces a distinct range of possibilities, entirely different from the previous one, previously unimaginable but monumental in the present moment.

That’s what growth is. That’s the play of potential.

That potential is an expanse that keeps moving. As you grow, it deepens. As you evolve, it expands. However, you can choose to lid this expanse and cup your potential.

Hence, when we speak of dying empty, it’s an irony. The essence is defied yet it’s meaning is left un-investigated. You can’t die empty. You can only die being.

To die empty is to suggest the attainment of potential or the achievement of possibility, that’s a paradox. You can only die fulfilled in your engagement, —fulfilled in your intelligence to operate within a continuum, to engage your realm of being and to self-actualize.

If your idea around this philosophy is rooted in finishing up your talents or attaining a static position of potential, you configure your path for intense performance not out of meaning but borne out of fear of failure and obscurity.

I think when we speak of purpose generally, we get more focused on what we leave than what we live and lead; forgetting that what is left is not defined by who is leaving but adopted by who is left.

When you think of dying empty in terms of emptying yourself, using up your potential - you miss the point of life, you trade childlike curiosity for performance, and adventure for arduous work. Stemming from a desire to be seen and known, corrupted by society’s program of what potential is.

If we’d delve into the essence of what the idealogy of “dying empty” should mean, emptiness would mean your ability to have operated from your realm of being. That on your dying bed you reckon the exploration of your interests, the adventure of your soul and the expanse of your genius.

If you do not die when you do, there’s still an expanse you can come into if you choose to. Potential is never finite.

The Paradox of Full Attainment: Meaning or Meaninglessness?

Meaning is not same as purpose. Although used interchangeably represents a different depth. Our quest in life is not merely to fulfill purpose but to find meaning and operate from a realm of being.

Meaning is context. It speaks to the idea that an engagement has context for your soul. That is, it is relevant to you as a HUMAN BEING. It represents a sense of childlikeness, of wonder and the willingness to gravitate towards what pulls at your soul —interests & curiosities.

Meaning is mind. And that’s not me making things up. The etymology of meaning traces back to the Proto-Indo-European root "meino," which is associated with the idea of thinking or mind.

Having a sense of purpose without a sense of meaning is similar to being a machine without intelligence. It is akin to ability without strength where your function is based on what you are able to do rather than what you are made to do.

Purpose is the impact we are called to make in the world. Meaning is the context of that impact. Meaning is the depth of purpose and the engine of pursuit.

If potential is unchanging, then your life begins to miss a kind of depth. Isn’t it intriguing to recognize that even in a fulfilling job or a thriving business, possessing everything one might need, there can still be a pervasive sense of an inherently profound absence? That is the soul’s quest for meaning. It’s not about achievement or attainment, results or rewards but exploration and curiosity; actualization and transcendence.

It’s not about what you want to do or achieve but touching the recesses of your own soul and carving a path that allows the nurture of your ethereal form.

Meaning emerges when life is imbued with a deeper purpose, resonating with the core of our being and intertwining with the dynamics of exploration and curiosity. It goes beyond the mere pursuit of external objectives or idolized greatness and instead seeks connection with the existential fabric of our existence.

Hence, potential is power. It is what and who you are capable of being if you’d surrender to that ocean of possibility.

The True Meaning Of Potential

I have seen all eight(8) film adaptations of the movie, Harry Potter, written by the genius J.K. Rowling and anytime I revisit any adaptation, it leads me on an adventure to deeply understand the mental form of Rowling when she wrote the book and after the various rejections she received. 12 rejections in all. That’s devastating.

You see, we can use the story of Rowling as a subject for motivation today but, let’s deeply look into the script of society we follow without question. Receiving 12 rejections could have meant there was something broken with her story she needed to look into. It could mean she had to “grow” because growth is equal to acceptance, awards & rewards.

Harry Potter was an unclassifiable body of work. From its genre, to length, to the story line —it defied conventional story writing. Penning down this essay, I have the liberty to express my thoughts on the rejections before Rowling’s success as “defying conventional story writing”. But, here’s the reality —when society can’t fit you or your work within a category, it’s not good enough. It’s not seen as unconventional because that would be flattery. It’s simply, not good enough.

How many times have you edited your form, work and ideas because according to what is acceptable in society, you are not good enough? Of course, this is not to suggest the careful arrangement of foolishness that could be presented as intelligence to not need edits. The context here is society to mean, patterned philosophies stifling the expression of genius.

The intelligence of society is how well it has been able to program what potential should mean to the masses. And we, craving validation, acceptance and recognition fall into this construct, struggling for prominence at the expense of true potential.

Rowling didn’t try to make her story more comfortable by reducing the length or dumbing down it’s narratives. Instead, she persisted. She saw the genius in her work, chose what potential would mean for her and played right into the net of bold brilliance.

Paradoxically, the simplest and toughest thing you’d do as a genius is to choose what potential would mean for you. To accept that expanse and surrender to that possibility. It is in this surrender that we discover the true depth and power of genius.

Potential is not confined.

Potential is expanse—An expanse waiting to be explored.

If we dare perceive and engage with potential in its boundless form, we can step into an era of bold brilliance and governing genius.

Genius is Expandable. Potential is Boundless. And, Mediocrity is the acceptance of anything below what you capture as potential. Not what is assessed by others or defined by society.

The Content & Comfort of Mediocrity

Have you ever been celebrated for something you did but was really you just giving the bare minimum? Or been in a situation where your dimmed light is supposedly brighter than the brightest of lights in a room? Resting in that state is mediocrity.

It’s like the example of fitness I gave above where, you acquire a level of strength and endurance but choose to remain in the same level of weights and reps. Even if you appear strong or are stronger than others, you stay fixed in a level of growth.

For some people, that’s safe. However, we must start to think of genius in terms of meaning first before mission. How can you gift yourself the freedom to BE? To express and expand your genius? To grow and to keep growing?

Society’s celebrated success should never be your metric for potential. It could be your cue for traffic; to put more eyeballs on your genius but not to accept as final. It should never be your pursuit. Only a traffic strategy.

Mediocrity is functioning at an average of potential per time. When you know how much you could be or do but choose not to for comfort, that’s mediocrity.

The basis of your assessment has to be YOU versus YOU as opposed to you versus what you could do that others do or you versus what is already done.

The difference:

You vs You: An awareness of what you are capable of in a season and choosing to take it a notch higher with every step.

You vs what you could do that others do: Births a false sense of pride and consistent lurking in a loop of confusion and meaninglessness. That is, when you see someone else function in their genius and exhibit the expanse of potential they have captured, you falsely believe you could do the same. It makes you mediocre because you can’t. You must uncover your genius, capture your potential and operate from a state of flow.

You vs what is already done: This is benchmarking yourself against what exists, what is normal, what is declining not what you seek to create. Choose to be the standard others measure against.

And while you cement understanding from this essay, remember…

In a world where you can be anything, Be Genius.

- Faith Ohio

Writer | Speaker | Thinker

To know more about me & my work: www.faithohio.com