push and pull. limits and compromise.
I've been thinking about the concept of limits and compromise, and how that affects the way I live my life. I got on a plane to Minneapolis for my first vacation in over 8 months. A few seconds after sitting down, with no indication whatsoever as to who I was or what I was thinking about, in the instant of initiating my mindless vacation by unwrapping my blanket and ordering a tomato juice, this guy sitting next to me says,
"So what are your plans?"
I looked over at him with a mixed glaze of: are you kidding me? what did you just say? i don't know. i don't want to talk about it. do you have ideas? why are you asking me this? i think i'll just stare out this window and pretend i didn't hear you...
He started talking without any response from me... And giving me advice! How odd!? He went on a maybe 10 minute diatribe about what he thinks I should do with my life. He knows NOTHING about me. I'm not joking. He recommended pushing the edge. Trying something totally different from what I have done. Then, he started breaking down advantages and disadvantages of different regions of the world. He travels all over the world for business, and has strong opinions about all of these places. Then, he ended his soliloquy with this sentence, "But, my opinion is worth what you paid for it. Absolutely nothing. What's your name, anyway? What kind of work do you do?"
I almost wonder if this was one of those insomniac moments, like in Fight Club... It didn't really happen and I just hallucinated it... I don't think so, but it's possible.
Well, needless to say, he ruined my blissful mindless plane trip. The obsession continues. At least he was a really fascinating person (or insomniac hallucination) to chat with, though, as plane buddies go...
I've noticed lately that there seem to be two extreme personality types of the spectrum of the "life experience."
#1. Edge. Always moving, changing, experiencing, pushing.... Living every moment to such an extreme that it is perpetually exhausting to keep up, even just by keeping track.
#2. Comfort. Living on a sofa of existence. Everything is here, nothing can go wrong because if anything does, someone will come to the rescue. Everything is familiar. These types seem to be only vaguely and peripherally interested in exploring the boundaries of who they are in any way..
Like most spectrums, I am finding myself somewhere in between.
I feel like I have lived my entire life as mostly #2, and now since moving away much more like #1. I was pretty comfortable before, but living on the edge is addictive, compulsive, intriguing, and there is always more and more and more.. There is always something further or different to do, and nothing is ever quite satisfying. I feel that since I started wandering down this trail, I am constantly searching for more.
I watched the newest version of the movie Powderwhore recently, and there is this scene in which one of the athletes is describing the skiing they are doing in Alaska.. He is talking about the fact that he has always dreamed about lines that are "Sicker." "Steeper." "Gnarlier." More snow. More cliff. And when he reached the top of the lines they hiked to and skied in this movie, he thought, "Whoa. This is it. I found it. It may even be too much"..
This guy finally reached a point where all of this extreme living on the edge was finally enough, or almost too much. How can anyone go back to real life after an experience like that?
It's a pale comparison, but just since being in Utah, I have become kind of a ski snob! "The snow wasn't very good today." "Conditions were a little off." Ha! I am spoiled for life after skiing here for 2 years.. How will I enjoy skiing anywhere else now? I still think it is totally worth having skied some of the best, even if it taints other experiences, but it costs something. It actually costs a lot... It costs losing every other place that just isn't "as good."
I wrote this a long time ago, after I fell in love for the first time.. And I started to think about it when I was reflecting on this whole idea..
...but now my walk is full of passed time. the streets everywhere are thick not with heat and humidity, but with the sadness of runaway memories. every street corner, every view, conjures the pain of a happy time. and suddenly, the careless strolls that I love are more like memories of my careless strolls, and how wonderful it felt then. such a bitter irony to realize that by sharing my life's pleasures, I was submitting them away so that alone my pleasures are no longer complete. who could have known that a sudden stop and quick kiss would forever ruin that store front for me, so that each time I see it I remember? that bottle of wine now always reminds me of the sky that night - the stars and the moon, the crisp air. places sound like our conversations, food looks like what you wore, sounds feel like touching you again. will this ever go away?
Years later, I now see that when I find and lose something real and special and more, not only does that feeling of loss never go away, but it actually redefines what I am willing to settle for in life.. I redefined my Nadir. And my Limit. Over and over.
"In mathematics, the concept of a "limit" is used to describe the value that a function or a sequence "approaches" as the input or index approaches some value. The concept of limit allows one to, in a complete space, define a new point from a Cauchy sequence of previously defined points."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_(mathematics)
"Especially in the study of dynamical systems, a limit set is the state a dynamical system reaches after an infinite amount of time has passed, but either going forward or backwards in time. Limit sets are important because they can be used to understand the long term behavior of a dynamic system."
Man, I loved calculus... it is so fascinating. I really do miss that part of my brain... Medicine beat the hell out of it. I studied math all the way through college, and now I have to use my damn iPhone to add stuff up.
Anyway, I have this friend who is a dedicated "edge-dweller" who seems to be finally reaching out for some ease and peace and comfort in exchange or at the cost of less push and less extreme, but finding the space really challenging to fill with "ordinary"... Almost like he is having to retrain himself to settle and calm...
The reason I am thinking about this so acutely is that I do think it may be possible - and I am saying this in an entirely theoretical sense - that you can push the boundaries a little too far.. or live on the edge a little too long.. like just long enough to develop a sense of desire that can never be satisfied.. Maybe if you push hard enough on the tight elastic bands holding you in, you stretch them so far that when you let go they are loose and there is all this empty space that you wind up trying to fill with cotton balls...
The cliche says, 'It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all"...
Intuitively, this is obvious. Of course I want to experience something so wonderful, even if I lose it... Those experiences are what we live for. I can relate that cliche to almost any life experience.
But, on the other hand, maybe all this pushing for more eventually comes at too high a cost. Perhaps if I become addicted to living this way, I may live an existence in which I am experiencing everything with greater intensity, but only at the potential risk of suffering with more pain and emptiness when I lose it...
It makes me wonder which is better..? if I should not push so hard in the first place.. or whether maybe I should just never stop...
I think there could be a good solid argument either way.
------------------------------------------------
"If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise."
-Robert Fritz
Comments
Post a Comment