But alive is more than that.
Aliveness is a quality of being. Its opposite is dullness (View Highlight)
Dullness in taste is when food becomes a habit—reaching for a snack when you’re procrastinating; stuffing yourself because you seek comfort; booking fancy reservations because you’re the kind of person that does that. (View Highlight)
Dullness in physicality is when your body feels like a dungeon. You complain of the ways it lets you down—the aches, the limitations, the way it sags in the unblinking gaze of the mirror. (View Highlight)
Dullness in relationships is obligation. When a work meeting, a family visit, a party invitation feels like something you have to do to prevent some greater chaos. (View Highlight)
Dullness in vision is when you gaze out the window and there is nothing beautiful to see; gray clouds or ugly machines, the despair of Mother Nature or the flawed creations of human hands. (View Highlight)
Aliveness is flavor and fluidity, life and loss.
Aliveness is not just joy, but also its polar opposite, sadness. Aliveness is accepting the risk of both.
Aliveness is the subtle boundary between longing and impatience.
Aliveness is risk, not comfort.
Aliveness is the amplitude of emotion. (View Highlight)
Everyday risks — the small actions that come with a twinge of discomfort.
Because of that twinge of discomfort, I haven’t jumped to do them. And so they continue to remain a notion in my mind, rejected for being too silly, stupid, effortful, fraught, impractical, ego-bruising, exposing. They remain untried (View Highlight)
Everyday risks, like:
…Apologizing when I didn’t want it to be my fault.
…Sharing that raw feedback with my mom.
…Asking a colleague I haven’t seen in years for a favor.
…Saying no when I don’t want to disappoint.
…Spilling the messy truth instead of controlling the narrative.
…Trying on that new outfit I bought on a whim and later worried made me look stupid.
…Calling instead of texting.
…Sitting with the awkward pause.
Everyday risks are not about the action in of itself; they are about the feeling. (View Highlight)
