To Be Alive
Abstract:
To be alive is to not only want fulfillment but is likewise to want pain. We lovers of life are lovers of pain as much as we are lovers of joy; we have a sickness. We willingly subject ourselves to periods of anxiety and pain, those dreadful low points of our lives, all so that we may experience the euphoric high of happiness. We are drug addicts.
Table Of Contents
- If so you live, then want you do
- To Live Is To Want
- If so you live, then pain you want
- To live Is To Be Masochistic
If so you live, then want you do
To Live Is To Want
To be alive is to embrace a wondrous gift. It is to see diversity upon the surface of a book, as said book buoyantly displays ideal geometries covered in a psychedelic spectrum of colour; it is to yearn and hunger for sentiments of joy and elation; it is to feel the air flow smoothly between the gaps of our fingers as we jaunt through nature. To be alive is to want.
When we arise in the early mornings, in a state of indomitable hunger and unbearable thirst, we want nothing more than a hardy meal with a days worth of water. To put a muzzle on our nutritional urge as it plea and bargain with us via the language of satiation and sustenance. Those pains be loud, so we pursue their want. But we pursue their want to then be bombarded by the demands of hygiene and fitness, as we so want a pain and infectious free life. Wants roam freely throughout the morning.
But come around the clock, as we so do, and the evening has dawned upon us; accompanied along side the evening sunset comes rising over our eyes: wants, though that be no surprise. In an ever so reliable fashion, that is, as time goes, so to do more wants arrive. Evenings bring with them a will: a will to engage in festive conversation with friends, family, and colleagues; a will to scan in linear fashion, left to right, the many pages of our favourite authors; or a will to sit attentively before a film and become lost inside a fantasy world. The evening dawns the more personal wants of the world, nearly always.
Alas, the fall of night returns us from the hectic and chaotic noise of daily life to the calm and deafened mood of darkness; diminished and reduced, pains of hunger and urges of thirst; entertained and fulfilled, the wants of social life and interpersonal dynamics. But untapped and prepared, the wants of a another sort. The new sort arise when the others which so occupy our lives throughout the dynamics of daily life fall silent. Awakened by night fall our passions for love and romance become. In late hours and dim light, we want connection between our soul and another; we want intimacy between our ears and composers; we want nirvana from introspection and meditation. As these yearnings echo throughout the chambers of our minds during nightfall, we are reminded of a simple truth: to be alive is to want happiness.
If so you live, then pain you want
To Be Alive Is To Be Masochistic
To be alive is to embrace a treacherous pain. It is to see a diversity of wounds, some of which convey the inevitable destruction of our most beloved possessions; the running of blood, the stains of death. It is to be alone, cold, and neglected; it is to be unfulfilled and unsatisfied. To be alive is to embrace an existential masochism.
When we arise in the morning, we may hear the day beckon to us: get up, we have obligations to attend. The income we use to not only feed ourselves but also maintain some standard of living demands a perpetual effort. If one stops, so will the other. Thus, we cannot remain frozen in bed, despite any immutable anxieties or horrors which ring through the halls of our consciousness, as life seldom waits for us to start with a proper footing. We are expected to move in all circumstances, and the morning is no exception.
Then come evening, a time traditionally associated with relaxation and rest. Though many will find some peace and relaxation herein, almost all will experience pain and anxiety as well. If we woke early and plagued by anxiety, then so returns our anxiousness; only to force us to endure yet more baseless concerns about the world. If we worked long hours throughout the day and have endured much stress, then the evening holds for us nothing but the bloody aftermath of a war zone; we have been given the opportunity to drag ourselves through the battles of work via mental simulation. And if neither anxiety nor stressful work be the concern, then life shall find something for us: whether it be the chores of home life or the decay of health, treachery lurks only moments ahead.
But we may have a glimpse of freedom at some time; a moment of pain free existence. There be moments between the evening and night that we cherish. Our favourite television shows can bring us to laugh; our friends may have said something funny when we saw them; or, our dinner may have been particularly tasteful that day. But this be only a glimpse of freedom.
Rushed back into our minds, however, after the distractions have dissipated and become quiet, anxiety, fear, and uncertainty so will. Regardless of our best of efforts to rest gently our heads on a pillow, in hopes of having a lovely dream, we cannot. For upon contact with a pillow, in ruthless nature come our neurotic obsessions; that unenjoyable wave of fixation upon pain, suffering, and hurt. The sound of nails running down a chalkboard, the sight of flesh being peeled from the bed of a nail, and the development of a pit inside one’s stomach are what most aptly characterize the late nights. We become imprisoned to the neurotic portions of our minds. We are crippled and brutalized, left to either blankly gaze upon the ceiling above our beds or scream endlessly into the face of our pillow.
It is here, in this internal hell fire of neurotic thoughts, wherein which we are repeatedly dragged across the open flame of obsession to be seared and scorched, that we become all to aware. That is, the moments where we are most aware are the moments where we feel the most. And pain is felt to a much greater degree than joy. So when pain comes to knock on the door, we are aware; we are aware that life is a cycle of suffering as much as it is of joy. We shall be covered in burns and scars by the end of it all, even if there are smiles in between each moment of torcher. We are aware: to live is to embrace an existential masochism.
