These are the BIG questions and one person's answer won't resonate with another's. To me the most important thing is that each of us is as clear as we can be on what the answer is, or we are doing the work, moving inward to find it. Our answer to why we are alive lives inside each of us, and searching for it on the outside leaves us on constantly shifting ground, as you so wisely pointed out in your essay.
I will have to give my answer more thought but I know that a great deal of why I want to stay alive is to continue to uncover the layers of me, or rather to peel away the layers that life has laid upon me, to keep moving internally, to discover who I am, what that essence is and live from that place in all of my actions.
Thanks for reading this piece and for taking the time to reflect and comment, Donna! I so appreciate the engagement on this topic. I agree that each person will have a different answer, and I am pretty sure that each of us has an answer to this living inside of us, although I do doubt even that at times. It seems that these sorts of things like to remain mysteriously unknowable.
Your description of wanting to stay alive to uncover your truest essence by peeling away the layers really resonates with me. I'm so glad you enjoyed this post, and if you do give this topic more thought, I invite you to come back and write a bit more if you'd like.
Thank you for sharing this powerful and vulnerable post. I recognized aspects of myself in the reading; especially, that inner emotional washing machine in which all the feelings bleed into each other and reduce once vibrant clothing to grey sackcloth.
If the question is 'Why continue living?' then my honest answer is: I don't know.
I don't know what it is within me that pushes back from hosting the thought any further when it arises. Maybe it's the same part of me that steps back from a high cliff or roof edge when I feel that strange and scary impulse to jump. Or keeps me driving straight down the highway, when a similar urge bids me to crank the wheel towards the ditch. "What would happen?", it coaxes. "Everything. Over."
Although the thought doesn't come very often for me, I have grown to recognize it as intruding during times when I'm feeling marginalized from myself. I've given my attention away to people, situations, or beliefs that deprive me of my vitality - leaving me feeling lifeless and without an apparent exit. "It would be so easy." Yet soon after the thought, I get this vague awareness that the idea is not trustworthy. And so I'll shoo it away like a hornet in my livingroom. I pretend that if I don't look at it, it won't get me. That seems to work because I then forget about it fairly quickly. Makes me wonder if one day I'll find those thoughts, all dried, withered, and piled upon each other on my soul's window sill...
I don't know why I continue living. To be sure, a choice to keep living is being made. But I don't honestly know who or what is doing the choosing; just as I don't really know who or what is behind that flickering urge to fall.
There certainly does seem to be an urge within us to live, if for no other reason than just that, to live. Especially when we compare our very rational fear that protects us from falling off of cliffs to what we see in nature - life just wants to go on living, doesn't it?! The bare winter trees grow leaves anew each spring, the robin can't help but prepare a nest for the young about to hatch. The energy always seems to be there to keep the whole machinery going, despite the pain and suffering it usually involves.
Those thoughts mostly do come when we are disconnected from ourselves, don't they? I like how you point out that that happens when you've give your attention away to things that suck the vitality out of you. Yes, this feels very true for me as well. What a relief that this hornet-thought is fairly easy for you to swat away! I wonder, though, what might happen if you did look those thoughts straight in the eye. That is mostly my intention with this piece, to just look at it head on. These thoughts are pesky little boogers to me, not so easily shoo'd away.
And I wonder if this urge to fall is the small, human mind caught up in suffering and if the urge to keep living is the divine mind - that part of us connected to something larger than ourselves, our tether to the cosmic mystery. The age old "angel vs. devil" voices that we have on each shoulder. Who do we listen to? And why? I wonder.
Thank you for your honesty in saying "I don't know". That is a very vulnerable and ripe place to be. A precious thing to hold delicately in your heart - the unknown.
My deepest appreciation for your thoughtful comment, Marc. And for your felt presence in this space 🙏🏼
Hey, I like your question about looking at the hornet thoughts. I do that with pretty much every other kind of thought *except* those. I think that, for me, they is something forbidding about them that I impulsively want to turn away from them. Kind of like when I see some mean looking dude staring at me from across the street, so I just keep walking with my head low.
Hey Rebecca, sat with you for these ten minutes....
There can be another reason why nobody answers your relentless asking why. I think it is because a why question cannot be answered from within this life, or from within the friendship, or from within the love, the hate, the piece of music, the process. The why is a gift that comes after. The why of anything is too big for holding when you are still in that 'thing'. I cannot know you from within the limitations of my being. So, I try to stop asking. To ask how instead. And how also has no answer beforehand. The how does reveal itself when I decide to engage. To find out for myself and not demand that anyone els answers it for me. I wouldn't be surprised, that is also the why. To find out. And I will try for as long as I can. Until it ends. And then maybe I'll find out.
Dear Bertus, thank you for sitting with me and taking in my words. I love when you said, "The why is a gift that comes after. " It makes sense that the understanding of a thing cannot come while I am still within the thing itself, whether that be life or something within life. And that maybe the shear engagement with it is the path to the how and the why, things I cannot know beforehand but get to know as action is taken and as things unfold. I also see that the why could be the very act of attempting to find out for ourselves what the why is! A fun paradox there. Reminds me of Coehlo's The Alchemist and how the thing we are seeking is here all along. Thank you again, dear one 🙏🏼
I'm here. Looking at you in the eye of your words. Being present and letting you in. You make something beautiful out of anguish. In a messed up world, with, as you say, parents who didn't get what they needed, we sensitive ones get squashed. I think I'm here to heal. And through healing, to give and connect. I think the drive to heal is innate. That's how it feels to me. An upwelling that can't be contained. Let it flow, let if pour out all over and make a huge mess. I appreciate you. I'm so glad you're here in this world, Rebecca.
Thank you so so much, Marian! Your words are a balm to my soul. I appreciate you, too. Your presence in this world is certainly making a difference, whether you are aware of it or not. Healing, connection, giving and receiving. Yes to all of these! And here's to pouring it all out on the page 🙏🏼
Really interesting post - not read anything quite like it elsewhere on Substack. For me the good outweighs the bad - all the time the emotional and personal barometer keeps stacked this way all good. When bad constantly overwhelms bad - that could be a time of more challenge in this whole living malarkey. Thanks for writing this, I just subscribed.
These are the BIG questions and one person's answer won't resonate with another's. To me the most important thing is that each of us is as clear as we can be on what the answer is, or we are doing the work, moving inward to find it. Our answer to why we are alive lives inside each of us, and searching for it on the outside leaves us on constantly shifting ground, as you so wisely pointed out in your essay.
I will have to give my answer more thought but I know that a great deal of why I want to stay alive is to continue to uncover the layers of me, or rather to peel away the layers that life has laid upon me, to keep moving internally, to discover who I am, what that essence is and live from that place in all of my actions.
Thanks for a great post Rebecca!
Thanks for reading this piece and for taking the time to reflect and comment, Donna! I so appreciate the engagement on this topic. I agree that each person will have a different answer, and I am pretty sure that each of us has an answer to this living inside of us, although I do doubt even that at times. It seems that these sorts of things like to remain mysteriously unknowable.
Your description of wanting to stay alive to uncover your truest essence by peeling away the layers really resonates with me. I'm so glad you enjoyed this post, and if you do give this topic more thought, I invite you to come back and write a bit more if you'd like.
I agree that our deepest inside is likely mysteriously unknowable (I also love those words)!
Thank you for sharing this powerful and vulnerable post. I recognized aspects of myself in the reading; especially, that inner emotional washing machine in which all the feelings bleed into each other and reduce once vibrant clothing to grey sackcloth.
If the question is 'Why continue living?' then my honest answer is: I don't know.
I don't know what it is within me that pushes back from hosting the thought any further when it arises. Maybe it's the same part of me that steps back from a high cliff or roof edge when I feel that strange and scary impulse to jump. Or keeps me driving straight down the highway, when a similar urge bids me to crank the wheel towards the ditch. "What would happen?", it coaxes. "Everything. Over."
Although the thought doesn't come very often for me, I have grown to recognize it as intruding during times when I'm feeling marginalized from myself. I've given my attention away to people, situations, or beliefs that deprive me of my vitality - leaving me feeling lifeless and without an apparent exit. "It would be so easy." Yet soon after the thought, I get this vague awareness that the idea is not trustworthy. And so I'll shoo it away like a hornet in my livingroom. I pretend that if I don't look at it, it won't get me. That seems to work because I then forget about it fairly quickly. Makes me wonder if one day I'll find those thoughts, all dried, withered, and piled upon each other on my soul's window sill...
I don't know why I continue living. To be sure, a choice to keep living is being made. But I don't honestly know who or what is doing the choosing; just as I don't really know who or what is behind that flickering urge to fall.
Thank you again for your truthful and open heart.
With one hand gently on your shoulder,
Marc
There certainly does seem to be an urge within us to live, if for no other reason than just that, to live. Especially when we compare our very rational fear that protects us from falling off of cliffs to what we see in nature - life just wants to go on living, doesn't it?! The bare winter trees grow leaves anew each spring, the robin can't help but prepare a nest for the young about to hatch. The energy always seems to be there to keep the whole machinery going, despite the pain and suffering it usually involves.
Those thoughts mostly do come when we are disconnected from ourselves, don't they? I like how you point out that that happens when you've give your attention away to things that suck the vitality out of you. Yes, this feels very true for me as well. What a relief that this hornet-thought is fairly easy for you to swat away! I wonder, though, what might happen if you did look those thoughts straight in the eye. That is mostly my intention with this piece, to just look at it head on. These thoughts are pesky little boogers to me, not so easily shoo'd away.
And I wonder if this urge to fall is the small, human mind caught up in suffering and if the urge to keep living is the divine mind - that part of us connected to something larger than ourselves, our tether to the cosmic mystery. The age old "angel vs. devil" voices that we have on each shoulder. Who do we listen to? And why? I wonder.
Thank you for your honesty in saying "I don't know". That is a very vulnerable and ripe place to be. A precious thing to hold delicately in your heart - the unknown.
My deepest appreciation for your thoughtful comment, Marc. And for your felt presence in this space 🙏🏼
Hey, I like your question about looking at the hornet thoughts. I do that with pretty much every other kind of thought *except* those. I think that, for me, they is something forbidding about them that I impulsively want to turn away from them. Kind of like when I see some mean looking dude staring at me from across the street, so I just keep walking with my head low.
Hey Rebecca, sat with you for these ten minutes....
There can be another reason why nobody answers your relentless asking why. I think it is because a why question cannot be answered from within this life, or from within the friendship, or from within the love, the hate, the piece of music, the process. The why is a gift that comes after. The why of anything is too big for holding when you are still in that 'thing'. I cannot know you from within the limitations of my being. So, I try to stop asking. To ask how instead. And how also has no answer beforehand. The how does reveal itself when I decide to engage. To find out for myself and not demand that anyone els answers it for me. I wouldn't be surprised, that is also the why. To find out. And I will try for as long as I can. Until it ends. And then maybe I'll find out.
Love, Bertus
Dear Bertus, thank you for sitting with me and taking in my words. I love when you said, "The why is a gift that comes after. " It makes sense that the understanding of a thing cannot come while I am still within the thing itself, whether that be life or something within life. And that maybe the shear engagement with it is the path to the how and the why, things I cannot know beforehand but get to know as action is taken and as things unfold. I also see that the why could be the very act of attempting to find out for ourselves what the why is! A fun paradox there. Reminds me of Coehlo's The Alchemist and how the thing we are seeking is here all along. Thank you again, dear one 🙏🏼
I'm here. Looking at you in the eye of your words. Being present and letting you in. You make something beautiful out of anguish. In a messed up world, with, as you say, parents who didn't get what they needed, we sensitive ones get squashed. I think I'm here to heal. And through healing, to give and connect. I think the drive to heal is innate. That's how it feels to me. An upwelling that can't be contained. Let it flow, let if pour out all over and make a huge mess. I appreciate you. I'm so glad you're here in this world, Rebecca.
Thank you so so much, Marian! Your words are a balm to my soul. I appreciate you, too. Your presence in this world is certainly making a difference, whether you are aware of it or not. Healing, connection, giving and receiving. Yes to all of these! And here's to pouring it all out on the page 🙏🏼
Really interesting post - not read anything quite like it elsewhere on Substack. For me the good outweighs the bad - all the time the emotional and personal barometer keeps stacked this way all good. When bad constantly overwhelms bad - that could be a time of more challenge in this whole living malarkey. Thanks for writing this, I just subscribed.
Thank you, JFT! I appreciate your perspectives and subscription 🦋