Why is it often only crisis that brings us to our knees? When life beats down, obligations come a calling, health deteriorates or personal relationships fail we finally surrender and ask our own soul, and perhaps the sky, God, or a therapist for help. It is in these times we realise that years of unexpressed/unexplored feelings are marching towards victory and our mental and emotional defenses aren’t going to hold any longer. But where did these defenses come from? And what was so terrifying about feeling that we had to construct them in the first place?
When I am feeling strong, when I am in my warrior self and have the energy for all of life’s outer tasks I often find myself missing the times of my greatest sensitivity, when I’ve been tired and raw with my heart unravelled in my open palms in search of peace. These times are uncomfortable, and we are raised to believe that happy means good and sadness is bad. I prefer the word sensitivity to sadness, because I am coming to find that when I feel this way it is because I am resonating with life, sometimes its my own and the obstacles on my journey and sometimes it is the old lady's next door watering her plants and my contemplation of her fulfilled or unfulfilled ambitions. And it is this kind of essential compassion that is the delicate and passionate art of a life well lived.
As artists we strive for this kind of emotional overload and rough sandpaper-against-our-skin sensitivity. Its where we get the juice from. And the patrons of our art come because they want to feel through the work they see or hear or read. We all want to feel. It is my mounting belief that by judging some emotions and rewarding others we are creating a/contributing to an already existing paradigm that blocks everything up, only allowing the most extreme circumstances to break the dam.
I crave the heart of it all. I yearn to rub up against the magic in all things. I want to live from a place of greatest sensitivity. My idea of the good life includes, belly laughs and heaving cries, smiles that hurt my face and hugs that break my arms. And if that means some days where I feel like I’ve had the shit kicked out of me then so be it. I’m not waiting for another quarter life crisis to find out that being repressed and British ain’t for me.
Post Script: In the glorification and condemnation of the extremes we tend cling to the times we remember as being the best or the worst. Free in the present moment to feel whatever comes to pass means that life will find its rhythms in the expression of this life and I won’t need to hold on to know that I am alive.
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