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Living or surviving
Jun. 7th, 2004 11:58 pmA few things lately have led me to think a little more about how I live my life. During tonight's training session, Master Liu suddenly put a voice to many of last night's thoughts, on being healthy instead of doing a random collection of more-or-less healthy things. It's always a little odd when someone else starts talking about the things that were in your head...
There's a world of difference between living and surviving. Sometimes, I slip back into survival - it seems comfortable, once you reach it. It's a fake plastic version of life though; a listless, restless state of unease, and I'm glad I've torn myself away from it again.
Survival, to me, is what happens when you let your life idle - eating because food is there (not caring what it is), sleeping because there's a break between days, travelling only as far as needed to reach the next task. It keeps blood moving (sluggishly) through your veins and air in your lungs - but that is not life.
Living is when you can feel that you're truly alive. It's the sense of place you feel when you know your boundaries; when you have found your limits and explored what you are capable of. Sometimes, you can tap into it from something else - in a quiet moment walking though the gardens, or surging through a crowd. I've done most of my growing alone, though, and in solitude I centre myself most easily.
Sure, it's harder than baseline survival. It hurts more - with that awareness of how I work, comes an all-too-keen realisation of all the things that don't work well enough at the moment. With my eyes closed, I can pinpoint each part that's out of balance - but it's the only way to really fix anything. So, I strap my weak ankles; pay more attention to stretching the knees that never quite grew up when the rest of me did; change what I'm eating if I don't have the energy I used to.
After a while, the extra thought becomes routine, and it becomes easier to keep going than to slip backwards. That moment is the time when things start to work, but it's the point where I've stumbled too often over the past few years. When you think you have dragged yourself up, the first moment of complacency can be the last - for me, it's almost a tradition to lose focus for a second, and injure myself enough to bring everything tumbling down. I've learnt from each fall though. Now, if I'm doing anything, it has my full concentration. I've made too many stupid mistakes before now...
There's a world of difference between living and surviving. Sometimes, I slip back into survival - it seems comfortable, once you reach it. It's a fake plastic version of life though; a listless, restless state of unease, and I'm glad I've torn myself away from it again.
Survival, to me, is what happens when you let your life idle - eating because food is there (not caring what it is), sleeping because there's a break between days, travelling only as far as needed to reach the next task. It keeps blood moving (sluggishly) through your veins and air in your lungs - but that is not life.
Living is when you can feel that you're truly alive. It's the sense of place you feel when you know your boundaries; when you have found your limits and explored what you are capable of. Sometimes, you can tap into it from something else - in a quiet moment walking though the gardens, or surging through a crowd. I've done most of my growing alone, though, and in solitude I centre myself most easily.
Sure, it's harder than baseline survival. It hurts more - with that awareness of how I work, comes an all-too-keen realisation of all the things that don't work well enough at the moment. With my eyes closed, I can pinpoint each part that's out of balance - but it's the only way to really fix anything. So, I strap my weak ankles; pay more attention to stretching the knees that never quite grew up when the rest of me did; change what I'm eating if I don't have the energy I used to.
After a while, the extra thought becomes routine, and it becomes easier to keep going than to slip backwards. That moment is the time when things start to work, but it's the point where I've stumbled too often over the past few years. When you think you have dragged yourself up, the first moment of complacency can be the last - for me, it's almost a tradition to lose focus for a second, and injure myself enough to bring everything tumbling down. I've learnt from each fall though. Now, if I'm doing anything, it has my full concentration. I've made too many stupid mistakes before now...
