“Believe me, the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is – to live dangerously.” – Nietzsche
I’m scared of the dark. I’m scared of the dark, mushrooms, violent images, cooking, failing, putting pictures of myself on my blog, and so much more. But another thing I have been scared of is quotes like the one at the top of this post: quotes that make you think that in order to live a “wild and precious life” (Mary Oliver) you have to throw caution to the wind, bite the bullet, and streak naked through your life. Talk about scary!
But this morning a light went on. In the spirit of my red year, I have picked up Sera Beak’s The Red Book again. Nervously reading it (it feels like a streaking naked book!) this morning, I suddenly got it. At the end of the introduction Sera writes:
“Ask yourself: How intensely do I want to exist?”
Click.
Yes.
Crap.
It’s not about causing trouble or being naughty or being dangerous. It’s not about shaking other people up, or pushing societies’ rules, or reciting poetry in your pajamas standing on your head on a busy street corner while blowing bubbles out of your ass. It’s about how intensely you are willing to experience your life. It is about the choices you make in every moment of every day of your very own life. It’s about being conscious.
I am ashamed to say that I have been consistently choosing the least conscious, and therefore easier option lately. But is it easier? In the long run is it easier to choose easy and then live with regret and self condemnation or would it actually be easier to make the more difficult choice and live with self esteem and pride?
How intensely do I want to exist? How can I live dangerously on my own terms? What am I going to do with my own wild and precious life? I’m not sure. I am going to sit with those questions for awhile and see where they take me now that I am not afraid of them anymore. At this point even baby steps feel gloriously dangerous.
“Ask yourself: How intensely do I want to exist?”
