Alive

Apr 29 02:05 UTC 1996

M:  I used to say, "My goal in life is to be happy".  But that was too hard - 
    you can't arrange to be happy, and you can't maintain happiness once you 
    get there.  Really you can only be happy for short periods of time. 
    
    So then I decided my goal would be to be "comfortable".  Well, that's also 
    hard to achieve, unless I were to arrange everything carefully, and then 
    what would happen is things would intrude, and that would irk me, and I 
    wouldn't be comfortable after all.  I would be bored, too, if I had 
    everything arranged. 
    
    So lately I've decided that my goal is to be *alive*.

W:  That's it?  That's all you want, is to be alive?

M:  No, you don't understand - I don't mean "alive" in the biological sense.  
    I mean something much greater.

W:  Well, what, exactly?

The above is a conversation I had with my stepfather a number of years ago.  I 
have been trying to answer that last question ever since.  Here are some 
things I have come up with: 

Alive means animated; things are happening.  The cosmos are astir locally - 
the world is agitated near the center of the aliveness.  An alive person has 
ideas, and dreams, and imagination, and love.  An alive person grows and 
learns and cares. 

Alive means being part of something bigger; having tendrils that reach out to 
other centers of aliveness and send energy back and forth.  When aliveness is 
really strong in someone, I mean just oozing out of her pores, you can feel it 
just by being in the same room.

We all have worlds that we inhabit, by which I mean the set of people we meet 
and places we go and ideas we entertain.  An alive person keeps his world 
large, and expandable, and always keeps in mind that there is plenty of room 
to expand into.  Because none of us can understand the whole universe; all we 
can do is travel through it like an ant through a museum.  There's always 
unexplored territory.

Alive does *not* mean happy, or harmonious.  Alive people are not happy or 
comfortable all the time.  If you are alive, you are buffeted by the waves of 
agitation around you.  That means you'll sink low and fly high, get angry and 
get passionate and get hurt.  You will love, and probably hate, sometimes 
succeed and sometimes fail, but above all *make things happen*.  To be alive 
you have to piss some people off, and fight for what you believe in. 

When something bad happens, an alive person experiences it, and feels it, and 
allows it to move her.  She places herself before the winds of badness and 
says to them, "Do your worst, you bastards!"  Then the badness does its worst, 
which is rarely fatal.  And the alive person picks herself up, dusts herself 
off, shakes her fist at the winds and screams her defiance.  Then she begins 
over again, knowing that the worst is past and it's time to move on.  Someone 
who spends all her time avoiding bad things ends up afraid, and dead.  How can 
you appreciate good things if you don't see the bad ones?  Pleasure and pain 
are two sides of the same coin; they are both part of being alive. 

I think a lot of people are walking around mostly dead.  They carry death with 
them like a cage.  It shows when they do the same job for years on end when 
they are bored to tears by it.  It shows when they obsess about bad things 
that have happened, and don't move on.  It shows when they resent it that 
anyone else seems to be alive.  It shows when their lives get so full of 
duties that there is no time or energy for anything else.  It shows when they 
just don't care about anything. 

Here's part of a poem I like a lot; you can find the full text in 
/u/aruba/.plan :

we're anything brighter than even the sun
(we're everything greater
than books
might mean)
we're everyanything more than believe
(with a spin
leap
alive we're alive)
we're wonderful one times one

That's by e. e. cummings.  You can see what he thinks of being alive: it's 
brighter than the sun, it's greater than knowledge, and it's "everyanything 
more than" belief.  I think he's right.

response 4 of 79:

Apr 29 15:56 UTC 1996

This item is linked from Reality 27 and Agora 66, to
Intro 16.  Type "join reality" at the Ok: prompt for
discussion of life, the universe, and all that.  Or,
type "join agora" for general discussion.

response 6 of 79:

Apr 29 16:07 UTC 1996

   A wonderful item, Mark.  I know what you mean.  For lack of a
better word, I've called that quality "sparkle".  Some people
have it, and some do not.  Anyone can get some I think, but most
never do.

   I remember a friend in the 2nd grade who had it; I have lost
track of her these days, so I can't see what she is like now.  That
was my first experience with this concept.

   Didn't Shakespere say in a play (cleopatra?) "It is possible
Octivian, that when you die, you shall die without ever having
been alive at all" ?

response 8 of 79:

Apr 29 18:36 UTC 1996

Reminds me of a quote...

"You're closer to birth then you are to death...
    Act like it!"

response 10 of 79:

Apr 29 23:47 UTC 1996

Re #3:  Michael, in what work does Thoreau describe what he means by "awake"?
I'd like to read it.

Re #6:  STeve, I can't find that quote on my Complete Works of W.S. CD, but
it's a good one, wherever it comes from!

response 12 of 79:

Apr 30 05:11 UTC 1996

Flem, I think that was Sir Martin Riggs that said that from Braveheart

response 14 of 79:

Apr 30 09:29 UTC 1996

i will always regret leaving that particular e.e. cummings poem
out of the impressionistic systhesis paper (included PCezanne and Monk
for impressionism in other forms). First reason was space, stupider
reason was that i didn't quite comprehend it as a Sr. in high school
a while back.
  
Thank you for reminding me of it.
  
Regardless, even having left it out, i have tended to be "alive" in
that sense most of the rest of my existence (to the dismay and tsk-tsks
of many). They can suck swamp water, i live with a spinleap now and then.

response 16 of 79:

Apr 30 14:55 UTC 1996

I've always though that the phrase "variety is the spice of life" is mostly
misunderstood.  Spice is nice, but a meal made of nothing but spices is
neither nutrious, nor satisfying.  Before you can spice up your life with
some variety, you ought to have something to put the spices on.  Sure, seek
new experiences, but you ought to establish a basically sane and comfortable
routine too.  So long as you don't let yourself get stuck in it, routine can
be a real pleasure.

response 18 of 79:

May 1 15:50 UTC 1996

But my CPU *never* get's turned off... :)

response 20 of 79:

May 2 03:18 UTC 1996

Well frogive a new person for being rude, but I think this is a crock.  What
matters to me is that people respect me, and the way to get their respect is
to work hard and do what's required of me, and *then* show some imagination,
perhaps.  Nobody respects people who flit around and have ideas but don't do
any work.  The world would be pretty fucked up if everyone were like that.

response 22 of 79:

May 2 11:05 UTC 1996

(Scott suggests that devo read the "Math Item" if he thinks aruba just "flits
around")

response 24 of 79:

May 3 03:11 UTC 1996

Re #22:  Thanks for saying that, Scott, but I should make it clear that I
never meant to imply that the definition of "alive" applies to me very well.
I am, according to #0, mostly dead.  Being alive is an ideal I strive toward.

I'd like to hear more, devo.