Revelation must be terrible, knowing you can never hide your voice again. – David Whyte

Publishing my book, I had the strange feeling of having crossed an invisible but very powerful threshold.

It was while signing copies at a small and very supportive gathering, that it dawned on me that the thoughts that used to be just in my head are now public and exposed to the world – and since I’ve lodged this work in every State Library in Australia, they’ll never again be totally private.

I had thought I just wanted to publish my words, to release my book into the wild, as it were, to allow it to find its readers.

So it never occurred that I might have been benefiting in some way from the obscurity of the drafting process.

Not that I want to hide my voice – far from it.

Nor that I’m expecting a million readers. Again, far from it.

But the knowledge that I now have one unique reader – you – with whom my words will perhaps connect whether I bid them or not, well that changes things somehow.

And it’s certainly a revelation to realise there’s no going back.

My book, Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, is out now. Please check it out.

Colourful koi fish swim gracefully in a pond, surrounded by a few scattered leaves.