A Loud Scream

OK.. So, maybe, it is morbid. A morbid subject, that is, and yet, it is a reality. I keep thinking about the lives we lead, and I keep returning to the fact that we certainly know how to exist. It doesn't take very much. Just eat and sleep, and the body keeps going. Gosh... Is that all? THAT sounds morbid to me. What I'd like to know is how to live! Where is the manual on that? Food and sleep certainly won't cut it.

Here is a visual: you're doing an exercise, you're holding your breath, you're red in the face, you're exerting yourself to the extreme. Well, sounds like our everyday life. We are in the process of some activity, red in the face, pushing ourselves to the limit daily, and forgetting the simple act of breathing. How to exercise, if the breath is not moving? Forget about living! Existence is about to end, too.

This preoccupation with existence has extended beyond the daily grind and into the end of life. We are very good at keeping ourselves alive, except we're the walking and, sometimes, talking dead.

We exist for the most part with a few moments of aliveness. We want to feel alive, so we turn to the numerous activities and people who provide us with the glimpse of it. Naturally, we want more, and so we cling, we hold on for dear life to that one place, person, or thing that, at one time, gave us a taste of freedom. We squeeze it so hard, we deflate it of its breath, we suffocate it. It now barely exists, and.... so do we.

Time for a visual: two dancers rehearsing for a performance, creating the choreography, memorizing the steps, stepping on each other's toes, falling and getting up, crying and laughing. All effort and drama associated with it for a final performance which length is shorter than a commercial break. The question then is "aren't we all rehearsing for the next big thing?" The next promotion, the next baby, the next trip, the next dinner.... Except that there is no rehearsal time for the big event. It is ALL a big event. Rehearsing is just existing for the few moments of aliveness while breathing has to be at all times. Has to happen. Has to.

Because the sun rises daily, and the earth rotates daily, and the moon shines daily, and the birds sing daily, and the tides shift daily, and we're all in this together. And I want to be alive, and I want to be with what is alive, and this is why there is a loud scream coming from this direction.