Skipping away from deadline pressure for a little while. I was asked (actually it’s re-occurring question) why I like lecturing. Often the person asking is concerned about their own lecturing. OK I must admit I enjoy lecturing and, based upon responses, I think that I am good at giving lectures. I was not always comfortable lecturing, in particular at the beginning of my career when I was new to it. The trick is to get rid of fear – this quote, for me, captures the main way to do so:
By embracing the inescapable, I lost my fear of it. I’ll tell you a secret about fear: its an absolutist. With fear, its all or nothing. Either, like any bullying tyrant, it rules your life with a stupid blinding omnipotence, or else you overthrow it, and its power vanishes like a puff of smoke. And another secret: the revolution against fear, the engendering of that tawdry despots fall, has more or less nothing to do with ‘courage’. It is driven by something much more straightforward: the simple need to get on with your life.
Salman Rushdie – The Moors Last Sigh