Life, as novelty, and the dangers of it
I am in love with life.
That is what most people who have things aligned would probably say, anyway. But let me make that clearer;
I am in love with life, sometimes so deep and so profound that I’m scared I’ll get lost and drown. It’s during those moments when I lose a grip on my ability to impose limits or to create emotional spaces. It probably sounds crazy; or too intricate. But I assure you it isn’t.
I have learned to ‘see’ certain patterns that repeat themselves on a cyclical basis. One of these patterns includes me, enjoying my life, seeing myself realistically as exactly who I am, not less not more, and having a sense of stillness.
And through this stillness, I simply know (deep deep down know, like an urge) that I need to get lost; and lost I go: in a myriad of thoughts, of emotions. I fall in love with moods, I fall in love with words, with myself, with my mind, with other minds, with ideas, concepts, interactions and aha moments. I fall hard for the prospect of what my life could become if it wasn’t like what it is already.
And there’s an issue with that; it creates a false sense of reality and it idealizes possible scripts of life. The idea that novelty is an all-escaping solution to the current status-quo, just for the sake of exchanging what currently is, can create instability, dissatisfaction and longing.
To put it into simpler terms, I start believing that the grass is greener on the other side of life only because I convince myself that it has to be!
And in the process, I used to wonder and walk, blindly searching, yearning and clinging my life to anything that was not what I already am/have. That led to some dire mistakes, some that rendered deep wounds on the Self, on the image and perception of Self-worth and some that made me behave like an asshole to the people I love.
Giving in to the mirage of novelty might look appealing, like wanting to take a bite out of a moist and deliciously-smelling chocolate cheesecake (who would refuse that!?). But then again, you might get lost with your face stuffed deep into the cake, fingers sticky and mouth full of food, barely being able to breathe while your stomach cramps and aches. All the while feeling like you ain’t able to stop, not even for a second, being convinced that that is what you wanted all along and finally! it’s here!
But mirages like that have the tendency to get you lost, hard to get back on track (almost impossible at times); once the cake is done, you will feel sick, dizzy, nauseous with what you’ve done and now the rest of your food you cooked for the next few days looks appalling, not appealing.
Discarding the cheesecake analogy, and going fast forward to a full-time commitment to go through therapy for the past 16 months or so, I managed to change the monologue when it comes to falling in love with life.
It’s nice going deep into certain states; I can presently harness that especially in meditation; It’s also nice when you develop certain ideas around what your life could become but once I feel I get too drunk on that emotion I immediately get the sense that’s too far gone for me and I stop. Even if this process repeats itself for a dozen of times per minute.
I also appreciate when I see things that are new; I recognize them and I accept the idea that “new” is something I tend to associate with “danger” and danger is deeply ingrained in my brain for liking. I get dopamine hits when I go into dangerous instinctual situations and this is something I’ve learned to accept and temper.
Fantasies are nice and they add spice to one’s life, but allowing fantasies to build up, take shape and create concrete reality will always devour some part of the soul, if not entirely.
Having the urge to feel lost in the unknown, to discover new thoughts, new ideas, to discover a new “me” will be there and continue to be there, unrelentingly pushing my mind to research the question in matter.
But if the chocolate cheesecake is being presented to me with a gorgeous description, accompanied by a tantalizing smell, I now know I get three options:
- I eat the cake, entirely, without boundaries, having at it until it’s over, even if that means going past any physical and physiological cues of satiety. (what I used to do)
- I don’t eat the cake, push it away from me, looking at it sad and feeling unsatisfied for not being able to eat it. (what I thought I should after it struck me option one wasn’t good enough)
- I look at the cake, I smell the cake, I enjoy and purr at the thought of how it would feel to eat it, but silently pass it over, feeling empowered by the choice to say “no”.
I recently learned creating boundaries to the mind (or any physical boundaries for that matter) is as simple as pulling the hand brake on a sports car; yeah, I might have a roaring engine and I might hate red lights but I can still stop the car in time, before a collision.
You simply need the clarity and determination to chose boundaries over any chaos that might arise from getting lost into the eternal, recurring and insisting alarm bleep that goes “but what if?”.
