LJ idol season 10 episode 1: I need the struggle to feel alive

[pixietastic]

LJ Idol Season 10: episode 1 I need the struggle to feel alive

When we talk about character, we almost never admit to being the non-player characters or the side kick of the world.

No one wants to be Robin when they could be Batman. Mazda, the car company, told me in the late 90's that on the road of life there are passengers and there are drivers. I'm sure the implication being that you would want to be in control, be the driver in your life. I've always liked that analogy and firmly consider myself a passenger. Somehow while trying to sell their slightly overpriced imports I don't suspect that a life motto of obscure self depreciation was one of their goals, however, I have most definitely adopted the catch phrase as fitting.

I am a passenger. I want to be taken along for the journey, I don't even much care about the destination, for me the destination is always the journey. I want to be swept up into the moment of someone elses hurricane, and I've consistently surrounded myself with the unfathomably unstable fire of the directionless drivers. It's been a glorious series of mistakes and plot twist, turns and valleys. In the end, covered in mud and debris with too many bags and not enough space and too much and too little all at once, I've carved out a life of excitement and stagnation, waves of stability created in eye of the storm I shamelessly intentionally ran towards instead of away from.

I've clawed my way up to the top of the crumbling forest floor reached the peak of that ecstatic existence only to stare into the face of a cloudless sky, awake and awash in wonder and think "ok, now how do I get down". At the top of that hill, when your fingers can point to the sky and almost rip down a star, the only down if one cannot fly is to fall.

But even the fall is a glorious free fall, a sky dive, those 30 seconds after you jump off the high dive before you hit the water where the ohshit meets the ohyes. Those moments are equally as triumphant and steeped in longing and remorse as those victorious climbs to the top.

Those are the moments, the ones I breathe for. Built on the backs of whatever needed doing, a life of running to be safe, to be stable and secure. And I find myself, here, not in a cafe in Paris on some wild adventure as I'd imagined, but just here, in warm glow of the faux firelight at a coffee shop, in a city, that is every coffee shop, in every city. Stagnant. Slowed. Stopped.

Physics says that an object in motion will stay in motion. So what happens in life when you hit a place of stagnation. When you're flying standby, waiting for you life to pick itself back up? Or worse, simply an observer of your own existence? When you can't find the forest or the trees or even see the mountain on the horizon? What do you do to stay alive in the face of complacency?

By far, safety is the biggest hurdle I've met.

Comments

[marlawentmad.livejournal.com]

I relate to this so much; as an anxiety sufferer, I often struggle with stagnation. There are so many beautiful lines here. Brava!

[yuniebaby.livejournal.com]

This is phenomenal. I love your word choices and the way your sentences flow and really dig the rise and fall to it in its entirety, which mirror the conflict of excitement vs stagnation.

[eternal-ot.livejournal.com]

This is Fantastic! Superbly crafted, each word makes you pause , take the meaning in and then move on or maybe come back read again. Well written indeed. Kudos! *Applause*

[ellison.livejournal.com]

Ooh so well done! Awesome metaphor. Amazing last line, too. And I love the unexpectedness of "there are passengers and there are drivers," leading to "I'm a passenger." That made me laugh. Also, I remember those commercials, so you instantly made me think of watching them in my home as a child! Anyway, I really enjoyed this!

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

I liked this very much-- the concept, the phrasing. Being a passenger by choice is unusual, but if it's more the worry and risk of setting the direction, I think a lot of people might feel similarly.

[murielle.livejournal.com]

I like this. I left ke this because it speaks to the soul that wants to smell the roses, watch a sunset, be still and surrender to the beauty all around them, right where they stand.

It's all about choices.

[my-name-is-jenn.livejournal.com]

I've always been a passenger, too. For now, it suits me. Maybe one day I'll be a driver.

Absolutely love how you wrote this.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

A really interesting angle on this thought that I hadn't really considered before, although at Clown College we really made an effort to view the classic silent film "Safety Last!" by Harold Lloyd, which might have related if I thought about it in that way.