Walking from Foster City to SFIA
Or, how to move from anxiety to awe
Why is this walk different?
It should have been an easier question to answer. I had never walked the Bay Trail from Foster City to San Francisco International Airport before. It was new, novel, an adventure that angled north and westward past Seal Point, where I saw no seals, and through Coyote Point Recreation Area, where I saw no coyotes. But I wasn’t looking for seals or coyotes. I was wondering why wandering about in a new, uncertain place ushered in waves of excitement and even awe at the adventure my life was on—and why new, uncertain stages of life with obstacles like building a business and paying the mortgage could inspire crushing anxiety and even terror instead of adventure.
What was the catch?
This was the question I wrestled with last May on the Bay Trail, which I discovered would take me from the restaurant where my boss and I parted ways to the hotel near the airport where I’d be staying an extra night because of a flight snafu. And I was glad for both the question and the time to walk the trail. California oatgrass grew in bunches like squat shrubs, and purple needlegrass waved in the breezes with their tall stems erect, much like caution flags on bicycles that bend and don’t break, but overall look very much pleased to be standing right where they are, doing what they are doing. Everything on land was brown except for the distant hills. They retained a deep blue or purple on the rim of a cloudless sky. From where I was, I could sense California’s unique ability to accommodate desert, cool interior, highland, steppe, and Mediterranean climates. It just took me 45 years to get to see it for myself.
The Bay Trail is sometimes paved, sometimes gravel. Cyclists zipped past me, outmuscling the coastal breezes whipping my hair into my face and eyes. I know from reading Dacher Keltner’s Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life that fear and awe occur in separate parts of the brain. It’s a recent discovery. Scientists have long thought that terror and awe were two sides of the same coin because we can feel awe when we see ourselves and our smallness next to the vastness of any kind, including expressions of great power in nature that can also inspire fear. But nature is only one source of awe. Keltner’s studies have identified seven other sources: human strength, courage, and kindness (moral beauty); collective movement; music; art and visual design; mystical encounters; encountering life and death; and epiphanies.
If uncertainty can inspire both feelings of great anxiety and exuberant adventure, could I learn to feel exuberant adventure in any uncertain space? Because being on an adventure is a helluva lot more fun than being scared shitless!
Eventually, I arrived at Coyote Point, where a bunch of 20- and 30-year-olds were playing a fun but non-competitive game of sand volleyball. I sat to watch. The teams seemed to enjoy trading players in and out to make room for whoever wanted to play. One of them passed by me close enough for me to ask what brought them all here. It’s a team-building event, they said, that their employer, a large pharmaceutical company, had organized. It seemed—beneath the 50-foot Monterey pines—a spectacular way to give employees the space and time to blow off steam, play, and eat.
I left the volleyballers slipping and sliding in the sand and found where the path joined another along the shore. It led past a boardsports shop and SPCA before it ran into what looked like an industrial section of town. Windsurfers in their expensive-looking bodysuits cut through the frigid water on my right, their arms gripping handles in the shape of a large circle that allowed them to turn the sail while still leaning butt-first into the wind. Their play with nature always looks like the sail was about to fly off into the universe if their hands slipped. One did slip while I was watching, but the sail simply flopped, much like someone who faceplants from a tree root. No glorious flight. No lift from the earth. Just a flop. A little disappointing, to say the least.
My path left the shore and cut through the industrial section where I encountered a bridge that was blocked off. If I were to encounter such an obstacle in Iowa City, I likely would not have questioned the scalability of the barricade. Being a law-abiding citizen is a value. But today is different, and I’m not in Iowa. I’m on an adventure, so I do what adventurers do: I fancied myself Indiana Jones and climbed the barricade, telling myself that if I don’t ever break some rules, I’ll never live.
Plus, what if my hotel really is just right on the other side of the bridge?
The tricky part about barricades is that you usually have to cross two: one to trespass and another to stop trespassing. Which is exactly what happens. And getting in is always easier than getting out. The way out for me is to climb a chain-link fence. It’s taller than I am, and I have to toss my backpack and shimmy over without ripping a pant leg. I do and am delighted to see that my hotel is just ahead, where the path once again joins the shoreline. Score.
It’s later that I realize my mind was making a connection between the question of how to face uncertainty and my choice to jump a barricade. I could have easily found another way. I would have been annoyed to circle back, choose a different route, yada yada yada, but the bridge looked walkable, and I was on an adventure of seeing opportunity instead of a roadblock. My context provoked a “What if…”
That’s when it clicked. Curiosity is the catalyst that moves us from fear to wonder. From seeing dead ends to off-roading. From seeing obstacles to stepping stones. Challenges give us the opportunity to grow.
Think about it. What if explorers hadn’t chosen to sail west to get to the East? What if Michael Jordan hadn’t gotten cut from the varsity squad in high school? What if Rosa Parks hadn’t decided to stay in her seat? And what if [insert scary context/event/choice] is an opportunity to have a different life? All of these obstacles were/are invitations to imagine different ways to experience obstacles.
I mentioned earlier that scientists now see that awe and fear are not two sides of the same coin. Spatially, they occur on opposite sides of our brain. See page 21 of Keltner’s book or the picture I’ve placed below. Curiosity—which for me is most accessible in the question “What if…”—is an invitation to rework the neural pathways that are accustomed to choosing fear and create new neural pathways that are more closely associated with admiration, interest, and aesthetic appreciation.
So, here’s your challenge: What are you facing today that would benefit from asking “What if?”
Choosing desire over fear,
Michael
