"Living on the knife-edge of insecurity"

I just sat down for a quiet moment, and casually picked up today’s Guardian.  The actress Siân Phillips was being interviewed, and in answer to the question, “What’s the best advice anyone ever gave you”, she said:

“Saunders Lewis, the great Welsh poet, befriended me.  When I went to London and gave up my life in Wales, he wrote me a letter that said, “You have to live on the knife-edge of insecurity.”  And I thought:  “OK, that’s what I’ll do.”

I love the phrase, “living on the knife-edge of insecurity”.  It encapsulates what I see as the need willingly to accept the often frightening challenges life presents us with.