I refuse to lead a "normal" life.
That is most probably the most faulty, reckless thing I could ever possibly do.
"Normal" is defined by what society has created to be the picture-perfect road to living a substantial, dare-I-say mediocre life. "Normal" to me- roughly speaking/writing- means going to school, getting a job, getting married, having children, rearing them, dying.
Life should never be sedentary- regardless of the fact that we are maturing and "growing up". So why do we always move towards a very perplexing and pre-defined path throughout life?
The more people I meet from different parts of the world, the more I feel like life is bubbling and brewing, offering more adventures, much more mystery and intrigue. My experience invigorates me to meet more people, to do even bigger, selfless things in life, and to live a life that lacks pattern, routine, and the loss of youthful enthusiasm or spirit.
I asked a random group of strangers what they thought the meaning of life was, answers varied: to procreate, to find love, to garner success.
Why so limited? We should live it up and live it all. We should live life in the way that makes us truly happy. Then again I suppose, "happiness" is subjective.
Whatever excites us should be in the daily grind of our everyday lives. We should try to live every moment moving up and on, learning more things about ourselves as individuals, about our capabilities, about our future, about how we best interact with others.
My life moves in 3's. 3 years in Colorado, 3 back in Glendale, 3 in Berkeley, 3 in law school, so on and so forth. I'll probably have 3 kids (twins + 1), 3 different careers (lawyer, judge, president), and 3 husbands (just kidding).
But all of this doesn't matter anyway,
2010 here we come :)....
In other news, it's quite intriguing how Al Gore and Tipper decide to get a divorce after 40 years of marriage, which included Tipper's melt-down depression and their son's near-death car accident that shook the family up. After so many years, both decide to mutually call it quits.
Most people, and by most I am referring to Armenian conservative, elitist, post-soviet union married couples (who don't believe in divorce), critique this decision and say that the couple should merely stay in the marriage and embark on their own respective relationships since they already have devoted 40+ years of their lives to each other. Though I myself do not believe in divorce (only in dire and drastic situations), I would have to interpret this decision as Al and Tipper's determination to seek that which make them happy.
So here's to being happy. Here's to living a life that brings us smiles- the warm fuzzies. Here's to feeling magical.
~ro
p.s. I hope I receive a total of 3 comments. :)
3 comments:
IMHO --
1: I've always wondered why people are so keen on finding a "meaning to life." I think it's probably an innate curiosity. I've always thought it's this curiosity that was the impetus for the creation of religion(s)...but that's another entry. There is no "ohhhhh" moment where one realizes the meaning of life. "The meaning of life" will always vary from person to person...so to ME, the life experience (the good, the bad, the delicious, "the fuzzies," etc...) is what it's all about. Because there is one guarantee...we're all going to die sometime (in the literal sense, though some people figuratively die all the time as well). So in a way, the meaning of life is to be born and then to die...that is life. To experience life is another question all together, and one you refer to in your travels/experiences. Really we should ask "what is a fulfilling life experience." And you suggest: "to be happy" however it may be for the individual. I like that... :)
2. Divorce eh? There's just no way of knowing how people will change or what they will change into unfortunately...sometimes they change to compliment each other beautifully. To divorce, is such a life changing thing, that it should only be left for dire circumstances. I never understand it when people do it under amicable situations (selfishness usually) especially after being married for soo long, just makes no sense, someone must have hurt the other person pretty badly. "mutually call it quits" seems very unlikely to me.
I just think it's really important to marry someone you're friends with (or can be friends with)...because passion comes and goes, and awe comes and goes, but friendship is something that is everlasting...you see it in toddlers and u see it in very old people, and you feel it. Want a divorce deterrent? I says, look for friendship and make it part of your barometer when considering a significant other, or falling in love, or ideally both.
3.
Here's comment number two. :) Stopped by and glad I did. To braindead to properly comment, but really enjoyed this post.
A third comment was inevitiable. The fact that I am reading your blog and writing to you three days after you dropped me off at the airport might be a coincidence. Numerologically speaking, 2010 is a 3. July 14 adds up to three. There are other 3's in this scenario, but I will leave them to the imagination. I am reading your blogs and thoroughly intrigued with your shimmying. Leading a normal life is for normal people. This is okay. Some people's DNA and their environment allow for this joy to overtake them. But, once you get the stories of these truck drivers and housewives and landscapers who live their entire lives in one place, with one mate and family, going to the same corner bar for dinner on "going out" nights, you find out they are anything but normal. I rode Amtrak to Seattle from Portland last spring and saw this amazing scene of a snow-capped mountain peak in the background and millions of yellow flowers (I thought they were daisies...everything that I can't identify is a daisy to me, though they could have been daffodils or orchids or something else) spread out forever in every direction. They were just lightly dancing in the chill Washington morning, faces to the heavens, a sea of yellow leading to this mountain. There was a tiny little farmhouse in the back of the field. I thought what a lucky person it was that grew up with this to look at every flowering season. Growing up on a flower farm. That is poetry. But, like I did when I was a kid growing up across from miles and miles of cornfields in Ohio, some of those kids were content living on a flower farm for the rest of their lives. But others, like me (and from what I gather from your posts, people like you) want to get out and see what life is like for people who wake up with the ocean as their backyard, or the Rockies, or the Boston Harbor, or the Chicago streets or Southern swamps or...? There is beauty everywhere. Some are content reading about adventures. Some are happy seeing pictures of others' adventures. I seek to create a world that is uniquely my own, collecting stories and images along the way. There is no normal, only levels of sameness that we allow to enter into our worlds. We have the power to change our station. We have the power to meet people from different walks of life, different ages and races, and allow them to share our normalcy with us.
-matt
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