Existing is acknowledging the risks and submitting to them. Living is looking at the risks, and taking two steps back so you can get enough speed to hurdle over them and sprint off into the distance. Common sense says don’t do things you know could upset the impossible balance of life, but uncommon sense says if life was meant to be balanced, we would have no range of emotions, just one. Fine. I think it’s worth the risks to experience ecstatic, or overjoyed, or thrilled, or excited. I’m not insane- nobody wants to feel shattered, miserable or depressed, but life isn’t about aiming for those things.You look at a year’s worth of weather reports, and you will have a few days where the weather is notable, extreme conditions- hottest day in decades, heaviest rainfall for that month ever- those kinds of things. And those are the times you remember. Nobody remembers the endless mild and partly cloudy days that make up the tasteless tofu of normalcy.
People talk about old age as the sunset of your life. Maybe in terms of the cycle of life- sure, you only get one sunrise. But. For all the blue skies and cotton wool clouds of the afternoons that you experience, how glorious is the unpredictable spread of purples and pinks that comes in the end? Something to look forward to.
Risks are just that. An actuary or statistician can analyse and predict based on probability, but can they predict the variables that seem to drop in on situations that make things seem worthwhile. OK- they probably can and do, but you get the point. Being paralysed by fear of maybes and what ifs is no way to live life. Unless they are the kind of maybes and what ifs that goad you into experiencing more, stepping out of yourself, being stretched. It can be a little painful, disorientating, but when you look back and see the winding path you have taken, you can start to understand that for all your lack of control over consequences, life can be amazing.
It doesn’t happen every day, but sometimes I feel like taking an Acapulco plunge off a cliff face and feeling the rush of the cool sea air as I hurtle towards an ocean of new experience.
See you at the bottom.
Posts
True story.
ReplyDeleteI hear you and back you on that feeling totally.
Lets jump!
Hbubblesover
http://hbubblesover.blat.co.za
Yep- I'll help peel you off the rocks- promise :-)
ReplyDeleteerm, ookaay im right behind ya (jumping off the cliff) but ill have my parachute strapped to my back if that's ok
ReplyDelete@kambabe: No parachutes allowed. This is one cliff you have to leap off with no back-up plan.:-)
ReplyDeleteOMG this was beautiful, well put, you are an awesome writer, mate...i loved it..true, and your words not only put it together for us..but drew us a picture as well..i mean it...im reading more of what you write now..simply said amazing stuff..
ReplyDeleteas for me, afraid of heights so will probably not be jumping..im the one who expects death at the bottom. ... :-(.
Again thanks for posting on twitter so that i could read it.
@Anonymous #2 Lovely comments- thank you. *hoping you are in some insanely wealthy publishing company*
ReplyDeleteYour words, as always, are beautiful, eloquent and deeply moving. I am so glad that I found a friend that can't just live in the boring normal balance of emotion but is will to risk all for the great high, the quiet beauty or ecstatic joy. Sure we have plenty lows along the way. But I am ready to jump....Wheee
ReplyDelete@Sally-Jane: It's great to have a friend who isn't holding back. I second that wheeeeeeeeeee!
ReplyDelete