A lot of the time it feels as though everything I do comes from a place of fear.
Fear of loss, fear of embarrassment, fear of losing love, fear of death (especially people I love) and, perhaps ironically, the most intense fear: the fear of not living in a loving way.
I say 'ironically' because it really seems like this fear itself, actually all these fears, are the very thing preventing me from living in a full, compassionate, loving way. Because how can you truly love someone else in that ultimate, generous, unconditional, no-holds-barred sense when you are constantly fearing that it won't be returned? Or always worrying about that inevitable time when it will come to an end (as all things do)?
I'm always reading amazing, heady words that fill me with an almost drunken fervour towards the beauty in the world; in nature, in people, in everything. I love those times when I feel completely in awe of life- they are the moments when I feel the closest to something real and true.
But the flipside of it is an intense sadness that runs pretty deep. It's sort of like a shocking realisation that I'm not actually trying to live in an actively loving way towards the people closest to me, let alone others. And it feels horrible.
In "This is Water", by the incomparable David Foster Wallace, there is a sentence that I love that I wish I could somehow imprint on my mind, so that every time I went to think something, these words could be hovering over my thoughts:
"The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able to truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways everyday."
2 comments:
I love that sentence, it's written on the inside cover of my organiser!
I get that feeling sometimes. It's now a cyclical thing I know will just continue to visit in the form of doubt and anxiety. I'm often plagued by the fear that i'm 'wasting' time, which results in me trying to do everything I can as quickly as possible. Ironically, time passes really quickly because of this.
It's written on the inside cover of my journal too. Cousins, or TWINS? :)
I think we were talking about this the day we went to the gardens. It definitely is a cyclical thing for me too..I'm thinking if maybe I just accept that sometimes I will feel like that it won't be so overwhelming.
ps nice holga :) x
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