I can still recall how great it felt as a child to perceive natural features like a forest, a river, a dark cloud, or rain. I also felt good at the thought of any stories or games or music. This way, I had a taste for aesthetics and fun.
Those feelings started fading away from me as I grew up. First the aesthetic disappeared and then fun. Dark clouds and rainfalls turned into environmental phenomena that turned me gloomy; rivers were nothing fascinating; trees and forests turned boring. Later, the stories and music I enjoyed stopped being fun and here I am today. There are glimpses of beauty and joy — but sporadic and vague.
I didn’t grow up, I grew dull.
A lot of factors are responsible for this change: the practicality of life, the conscience of adulthood, depressive thinking, anxiety, all have played their respective parts. Very well, in fact.
But this afternoon as I stared out of my window at the impending dark clouds and glimpses of blue sky, I — after a long time felt alive. A feeling bubbled inside me that took my thoughts to the fond memories of childhood, the beauty of the sky above, the fascinating that my future can be, the importance of feeling and the beauty of life itself. I wanted to cry. It was a powerful feeling. Although the feeling didn’t last long it was enough to remind me of what I had been once upon a time and what I have been missing in my life all these years.
We get worried about ourselves a little too much — that’s the issue I think. We get too caught up in what/when/why/how we should be/do which turns us into mere pendulums. There’s success and failure. There’s either excitement or frustration. While that is okay for survival, I don’t consider that to be a life lived. I have stopped considering it to be a life felt. I don’t think a life not-felt is a life understood.
There are such diverse things inside and around us and we have this amazing ability to feel each and every one of those. Some of those are tasteful, some disgusting. Yet we get to know their nature through this ability of ours without having to get physically intimate with them. But we don’t do it. We are too eager to grow up. To mature too early. We want to do things faster. What we miss in all this is life. We get successful, but we overlook life.
Q: What does it take to feel alive?
A: A little reminder once in a while that doing is the means and feeling is the end!
