Feel it All

"My Life is a Controlled Explosion."
-Christopher McDougall in Born to Run

I would like to personally meet Lasse Hallstrom and thank him for directing the movie Chocolat.

The film not only offers an inspiring message concerning the powers of collaboration and community, but it also provides us with several scenes of Johnny Depp at his hottest. This past weekend, my mom and my sister drove three hours to Penn State to take me out to dinner for Easter. After an incredibly delicious Red Lobster feast, we ate some chocolate and watched Chocolat. The smile on my face corresponded with my inner joy as I sat smooshed on my bed with the feminine half of my family watching the movie. I was happy.

Have you ever found it hard to truly experience something because spend a good amount of time thinking about how you should be experiencing it? I'll use an example: I'm sitting at the beach feeling the penetrating warmth of the sun, but thinking constantly about how much I should be enjoying that moment. By the end of the tanning sesh, I realize that I haven't enjoyed myself at all because I have only been thinking about how much I should be enjoying myself. Is happiness learned, or is it instinctual? I feel like sometimes I put happiness on such a high pedistool that I worry too much about not feeling happy enough and then I don't end up enjoying the moment. Maybe I'm a lunatic.

But I don't think it would be totally ignorant to make the assumption that other people spend more time searching for happiness than feeling it too. One of the reasons people do drugs, have sex, or become thrill-seekers is probably because they want to experience an "honest" ecstasy. During a 'high' or a sexual climax, there is really no thought that needs to go into how you feel at that moment. You just feel it. So then people abuse these activities because they like the idea that they can really feel that sense of pure bliss. But what if we could transfer these "honest" feelings into our daily lives, without requiring an outside factor to help us achieve it?

I think when I wake up I am most honest with the way I feel. I don't have to really ponder about the fact that my bed is at that moment the most comfortable place in the world, or that it is only place I'd like to remain for the rest of my life. I just feel it. (Doesn't it seem like bed fairies come into your room in the middle of the night and fluff your pillows and sheets so that when you wake up your bed is 100% more comfortable than when you went to sleep?). I think another time that I feel "honestly" is when my body physically reacts to things - but these are often negative reactions. When my face flushes, I feel embarrassed (this is rare), and when I am shivering, I am pretty freakin cold. I want to know what it would be like to really feel everything the way that I feel these certain things. Its good to reflect on what you feel, but when does reflecting become a meta-cognitive overkill? I guess it comes down to the motto "just be" again. Buddhism sounds more appealing every day.

There are moments when I know that I have genuinely experienced a strong feeling. Some are more obvious, (The thrill of skydiving, heart-break, guilt - [this is the strongest human emotion], having an uncontrollable laugh attack, etc.) and some are more subtle yet no less profound (watching Chocolat while eating chocolate, experiencing a violent urge to get a Mango Gelati, feeling the gloom of a rainy day).

In a more specific recent event, I asked my 4 fellow road-trippers on the way to Florida if they wanted to have a contest to see who could stick their head out of the window on the highway and hold it there the longest. It was exhilirating. I didn't think about that at the time; I just knew that the strong wind in my face and the fairly good chance that a pebble might strike my eyeball made me feel exhilirated. It is just interesting that sometimes I get caught up in reflecting on how I feel while I am trying to feel it. I'd like to transfer the automatic sensations that come over me in certain situations to every day activities. My life would become a controlled explosion. I should try to free my mind and just enjoy the savory taste of Chocolate as I drool over Johnny Depp on the TV screen.

I want to feel it all.