…to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
I’m aware today how easy it is for me to not live everything – particularly in my writing; to stay in abstraction and keep from revealing the grounded-in-story thoughts, questions, and emotions that exist in the grit and grist of my life.
Writing is a space in which I can both disclose and discover, reveal and revel. The challenge is finding and maintaining balance; to live (and write) everything. I know my tendency to stay in ethereal, philosophical, idea-based realms vs. landing, articulating, and living those very concepts in the day-to-day truth of my life – past and present.
That said, I have definitely made movement. It used to be that I (un)lived nearly exclusively in those ethereal, philosophical, idea-based realms – not willing/able to viscerally, acutely feel my own emotions: confusion, frustration, rage, grief, disappointment, sadness, fear, loneliness, insecurity. They terrified me. I terrified myself. I was confident that if I began to let out any of what I felt inside (no matter the form of expression) that I would be totally consumed by and drown in my own tears – taking down everyone around me, as well. (Another post for another time.) Living everything…
I’ve got these tears from a long time ago.
I need to cry thirty years or so.(John Hiatt, “Thirty Years of Tears,” Stolen Moments CD)
Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.
(Dread Pirate Roberts, in the movie The Princess Bride)
“And the point is to live everything.” I’m not doing so perfectly, but I definitely do so more and more of the time. And for that, I’m grateful. Still, miles and miles to go…
I want to be able to write everything – grounded in and revealing my story, the “live everything” story: the suffering and celebration, the despair and hope. That doesn’t feel safe.
Living safely is dangerous.
(Frederick Nietzsche, in Irvin Yalom, When Neitzsche Wept)
More and more I’m OK with this. I’ve learned I won’t drown.
Maybe, at least for me, that’s why faith matters. I need it in order to continually live everything, to be confident that I’ll float, to continually let go of safety and embrace danger, embrace risk, embrace myself. E.B. White said, “Writing is an act of faith.” I agree. But so is living. And living it is what lets me write it.
Living. Writing. Faith. Everything.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Love this quotation, and as you know it is much on my mind these days.
Thank you for these honest and beautiful words.
Lindsey´s last blog ..Safe
Stories are everything, to me at least. they’re almost always the reason I do anything.
I remember once telling a friend a story, which turned out to be my life story, and when i finished he said, “Dude, that’s an AWESOME story.”
My life is an awesome story, unique and twisted, divine and tragic, joyous and heartbreaking, sublime and disjointed. Ultimately, its telling. Its who I am. It is the sum of parts that I am greater than. It IS everything.
Paddy´s last blog ..Star cursed lovers
YES, Paddy. You’re on it – and living it: story is everything!
Ronna, my reaction to each of your posts is to yell, “Yes, yes, yes!” to my computer screen. Now I just need to find the courage and self-belief to act on all of the concepts. So keep on inspiring me – please!
I read Lindsey’s post this morning and have been reflecting on the idea of faith ever since. To me the idea of feeling safe can come from faith – but, as you point out, we also need faith to challenge ourselves to “live everything.” Faith as the foundation of feeling safe and feeling fulfilled.
Kristen @ Motherese´s last blog ..The Days are Long, But the Magic is Momentary
Love that you’re here, Kristen, and responding. SO affirming to me, of course, but also super-grateful that the subsequent thought enables you to even more profoundly reflect on and “live everything!”
This was submitted to my Weekend Wordsmith blog today, and I think you would enjoy reading it:
http://swapnap.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/she-2/
Here’s the link to Weekend Wordsmith, where a link to her work will appear under Friday’s prompt, “Button,” as soon as Rich (my helper) gets around to it:
http://weekendwordsmith.blogspot.com/
Bonnie Jacobs´s last blog ..Invisible Image ~ a meme
So, so beautiful, Bonnie. Thank you! Perfect.
It is always important for me to remember that living everything, living in the moment is about being open. To understand that peace sometimes come when I am willing to experience whatever is present; pain, joy, struggle, serendipity. I wish for you peace.
Julianne Fuchs-Musgrave´s last blog ..As I Do
Thanks, Julianne. I agree: being open. Sometimes far easier than others, but always gift…in time.
Ronna–Once again, I enjoyed your thoughts. “Living everything”…I love this. So often I succumb to holding myself back, living in fear of the criticism of others and hiding from the criticism I dole out on myself.
I also have been reminded of something Eckhart Tolle said in “The Power of Now”: “Many expressions that are in common usage, and sometimes the structure of language itself, reveal the fact that people don’t know who they are. You say: “He lost his life” or “my life,” as if life were something that you can possess or lose. The truth is: you don’t have a life, you are life.”
Perhaps “living,” as we speak of it, is not what we are intended to do, but moreso, simply learning to BE. A matter of semantics? I’m not sure. I simply know that I have spent way too much time living in fear of constant criticism. This is one bit of “everything” I’d like to stop living and bury once and for all!
Coral´s last blog ..Criticism Is a Habit
Thanks, Coral. ‘Love the reminder/call to “be.” And even so…it’s a process, is it not? Something we know, hold on to, move toward…all the while acknowledging the other voices and patterns and history that keep us strapped down. There’s something in the acknowledgment of both, indeed of “everything,” that is both impossible and the only thing possible…
I read this yesterday and couldn’t find the words to write in response. I am still not sure I can do more than Kristen’s “yes” but I am trying. Your words move me more than I can put down today.
Nicki´s last blog ..Road Trip – Planning Begins
Yes. And thank you, Nicki.
Terrific quote and your words are beautiful. Living the questions is something I’ve grown more okay with as I’ve gotten older. Becoming a mother certainly helps. I am by no means where I’d like to be as far as living everything but I’ve lived enough to know that without pain, I won’t know the meaning of joy, which makes me appreciate the pain, though not nearly as much as the joy. And this quote also reminds me that this is the time of my life. It will be over at some point, but until then, this is the time to savor every taste.
So beautiful, Belinda. And perfect timing. I read your comment just shortly after I hit “publish” on tonight’s post…and many thoughts about the juxtaposition of joy and pain. Thank you.
Well written, Ronna! Humans are very good at developing concepts of past and future, but we do get trapped by them, that’s for sure.
One of my favorite expressions is “life is a film, not a photograph”. It helps me to live in the moment to remember that, no matter how strong my feelings are now, my now will always change. And, like a trip to an enchanted land, there’s no telling just where it will go next, if you let yourself see all the different unbeaten paths through the forest.
MPositive´s last blog ..What about when somebody just doesn’t make sense?
I love the idea that in far-earlier understandings of life, reality was not nearly so linear – past, present, future. People could live more ably in mystery without demanding answers or “still life.” And, to borrow from your metaphor again, that’s the beauty of film: we don’t know what’s coming next, but we do know it keeps moving. Thank you.
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