Elizabeth Gilbert shared David Whyte’s line today: “anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.”
i struggle with this idea while being attracted to it.
there are relationships and projects that do not seem to make me “come alive”- i think what is being referred to here is a sense of wonderment and growth. i’ve heard it described in different terms- like what makes you wake up, what makes you feel alive, what energizes you, what makes life worth living. there are conversations with certain people, reading certain books, watching certain movies, listening to certain songs… at certain times… that create this numinous feeling of expansiveness. in Whyte’s words- they make me come alive.
but many interactions seem mundane and status quo, what Stephen Gilligan describes in the following quote:
Some people are contented to just live like couch potatoes, settling into what Thoreau called “lives of quiet desperation.” Some can do that; just run out the clock and live in a fog all their lives. But others, what I call the lucky ones, cannot; and their soul creates terrible disturbances and suffering to say, “Wake up! Wake up! Your life is about something more than this low level trance!”
i agree that we have gotten lost in the trance of consumerism and paying bills and achieving a pre-designed socially acceptable life. we forget the essence of our Self, of our life. life becomes just about the daily struggles of life. nothing is imagined or sensed beyond our immediate environments and the fantasies we do have are based on manufactured ideals. i’m grossly generalizing here. this is the kind of thinking that that perhaps inspired Fight Club.
so it’s a worthy endeavor to try to wake “people” up and bring up consciousness. so allowing what does not make us wake up to put us to sleep sounds like a bad idea.
what i struggle with is the moral or ideological superiority that this thinking gives rise to. essentially it is a sense that “I” am more evolved than others. “I” am growing and need other people who feed me to grow my world. “I” am hungry for the highs of feeling awake and only want to associate with those that make me feel high.
yet the “highs” can sometimes just be a result of narcissistic mirroring, how do we know we are trying to “grow and evolve” as opposed to just finding people who think like me and talk like me and make me feel good? what is the wisdom that is missed out on by not spending time with who or what does not make me feel alive? can i feel alive in every moment if i am awake without needing others to serve as props?
but im attracted to the statement as well because there is a shared resonance and sense of awe in the encounters. somehow they are “more” than the mundane. somehow the food it provides seem richer for the soul than fast casual available food.
where is the line between hedonism & superiority, and desire to evolve & authentic spiritual growth?
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