"Life is too important to be taken seriously" - Oscar Wilde
As you know, I've been thinking a lot recently about the manner in which I should live my life - not so much about what I'm doing, but how I'm doing it. Recently it seems, I've learned the value and necessity of courage, and realized that perhaps the greatest danger to leading a fulfilling life is fear. So often it seems that fear drives people into complacency, because the routine and familiar can instill a sense of control. It's like the NIN lyric, "I believe I can see the future, as I repeat the same routine" - it's easy to tell the future if its the same thing every day. But knowing how your life is going to turn out isn't the point of being alive.
It's with that in mind that I've come to respect people who can live fearlessly and, one could even say carelessly, because they'll never have to suffer the regret of missed opportunities. I might even go so far as to say that death is a very small thing compared to a life lived in fear of really living. Better to be constantly at the mercy of life in all of its uncertainty.
I know someone who likes to burn the candle from both ends and is often the subject of concern from friends and parents, and many people would say this person is deeply troubled. While I'd probably agree with that assessment, I think I admire the fact that this person lives illogically and seems to be completely off the rails. Part of me believes that life is best lived close to death, or at least uncertainty, because taking one's life too seriously may be missing the point of being alive.
I know I'm grasping at a lot of complex ideas, and I'm sure I'll come back to all of them, but if this post has to be about one thing, it would be my admiration for courageous people, and people who understand what really matters in this life.
Ask yourself: what is there to be truly afraid of in your life? When is fear healthy?
More later,
Bryan
5 comments:
“Peter, you’re scarin me.”
“Good! Embrace the fear. Dance with me Louis. Dance the dance of Life.”
Though at a functional level fear serves as a survival mechanism. Someone who lives fearlessly or even carelessly lives foolishly. To be fearless, literally devoid of fear while admirable (maybe) and somewhat romantic leads only to demise. Fear serves primarily as a warning. Fear serves as a reminder that maybe one shouldn't rush boldly into the dark lest one find something dangerous, deadly, or harmful.
Now i'm not saying that risks should not be taken. I'm a big advocate of acting without fear, but thats different than being fearless. Fear serves as a warning so acknowledge the warning and consider it in judgements. (I don't mean to preach, but i cant think of another way to put it.) Being fearless is a strict defiance of probability. To ignore fear's warning will only mean that eventually when the warning is justified, it will fall on deaf ears.
So that is when its okay to be afraid. Oh and what you really have to be afraid of is fear itself. Seriously. I never say things I don’t mean.
I by no means advocate listening to fear for any reason. I was just hoping to score the extra credit by being first with the right answer (again I mean the things I say). Fear exerts too much a controlling influence over too many lives. Certainly defiance of fear is exciting. And who wants to live a boring life? People who let fear control their lives are dull. Live with reckless abandon is what I say. But then I have the blind faith in the cosmic safety net that other seem to lack. Fanaticism makes fearlessness easy! :-)
Fearlessness is a young man’s game. Distance from death allows death to be ignored and thus the fear of death is eliminated. Being young allows for distance from other things that would be cause for fear as well. Jobs, bills, etc are far off fantasies that can easily be ignored when a person is young. Thus, when people transition into their junior/senior years of college they suddenly become enamored with anxiety (read fear) of what they will do with their life. The imminent prospect of having to provide for themselves spawns this new fear of what to do with their life. This is why children are carefree. Everything is so distant from them, there is no way they could possibly fear it.
The trick about the whole fear thing is to remain forever young. Just because you are suddenly aware of something doesn’t mean you should fear it. Ie death. This country’s obsessive fear of death is ridiculous. People live perfectly fine lives until a certain age when they notice their bodies wearing down. The thought, “I’m old,” flashes across their mind and suddenly death stares them straight in the face, and they freak out accordingly. Point is death was always there, no need to freak you when you become aware of it.
I realize as I’m writing this that I’m now promoting what might be considered opposing viewpoints. I’ll reconcile them and then be off. Fear is a necessary part of life. Fear of pain teaches children not to touch a hot stove after the first time they burn their hand. Without this fear, childrens’ hands would be mutilated. However, there is other fear that can be defied. Fear of death is a good example because no amount of panic will stop its inevitability. In the end (it doesn’t even matter?), fear is just another emotion. Emotions should not dominate any logical decision making process, but they give critical information. So heed your emotions, but don’t let them dominate you is all I am really trying to say.
brb
From a Slate article on weightlifting, of all things:
"In Japanese, this aesthetic is called mono no aware, the contrast between extreme beauty and perfect death."
You know my feelings on living a razor's edge away from death - I used to wish for it, idolize it to the point of nauseating repetition There's also, of course, the exquisitely French notion of orgasm as a little death. A crowning summit of feeling, not unlike the ultimate consummation of the end. I realize this is all very Romantic and perhaps somewhat difficult to implement in the context of my rather mundane existence, but my very dearest wish is that it were otherwise.
In response to the somewhat wet-blankety post above, neither I nor my friend mentioned in the post have ever been noted for prudence. But there are years of my life that I regret wholeheartedly, years that I consider lost now. I didn't have the guts to explore, or to seek out pleasure or pain. So many missed opportunities, so much lost time, where instead of living on the knife's edge, I cut myself off from a moving, dynamic world and refused to develop. I've come to discover that without some misery, happiness means nothing.
Fear serves as a reminder that maybe one shouldn't rush boldly into the dark lest one find something dangerous, deadly, or harmful.
Yes, it does. But I would argue that to live one's life dodging all that might be harmful is the surest way to sever those parts of you which are most valuable. Valuable is an inadequate word, but I'll stop before I wax any Nietzsche-er.
I would argue that to live one's life dodging all that might be harmful is the surest way to sever those parts of you which are most valuable.
I'm sitting here reading and re-reading this statement, but I can't figure it out. I think its because i don't know (nor have desire to know) which parts of me are most valuable. I agree with you I think. Pain avoidance is at best really boring. And living in constant terror brings just that a life of pain avoidance.
At the same time, I'm in no hurry to run around masochistically (sp?). As I was talking this out with my brother this morning, he made the comment that fear is just another form of control. I'm haven't given this a lot of thought but it sounds right.
I don't subscribe to an absolute set of values (or any). So today I say charge recklessly into the howling dark and never fear.
(and i mean it)
do we remember hearing that fear is the opposite of love?
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