Push Pull

I don't know this for sure, but I'm guessing that with most people, when you're holding someone's hand and you tighten your grip, most people will grip back. With most folks, if you tug on their arm or their body, they will probably resist a little, tug or pull back as opposed to simply being moved in a way that they weren't expecting, as opposed to being controlled in even a slightly physical way. I would imagine this to be so, based on my own life experience, although I haven't actually tried it lately. Maybe we should conduct an experiment...

Maybe that's just the human nature of resistance. In psychology, resistance refers to the act of defending one's position in response to confrontation. I think it's a natural tendency, with most of us anyway, to resist. You push, I pull. You pull, I push. That's just what we tend to do. That's just how we tend to be.

And some people need more pushing than others to fall over. What does it take, really, to make you change your life? To make you live it the way you want to? The way you've been saying you want to? It seems ridiculous to me that some people must be pushed to the brink of death before they are willing to enjoy life. Why is that?

I have been reading Henry Miller. (Yes, that probably explains my mood.) Miller said the following on this topic, at least inasmuch as it is this topic, in my mind:
"Whoever, through too great love, which is monstrous after all, dies of his misery, is born again to know neither love nor hate, but to enjoy."

Must we die of our misery before we are able to truly enjoy life? How dramatic, Henry. I mean, really. Are we walking such a fine line between joy and misery that we must wallow in the depths of the putrid before we're smart enough to simply laugh out loud, when (finally) given the opportunity? Perhaps.

I for one, have been laughing a lot lately. Henry Miller notwithstanding. I choose to laugh. To guffaw. To bellow, baby. Who cares if it's really all that funny. Isn't it funny enough? It is. Yes, God damn it. It truly is. It is a choice, after all, to laugh. I would like to know enough to choose a joyful life. That's not so much to ask. I'd like to attract said joy. Demand it. Just grab up as much as I can simply because I can. I don't need a reason.

In Fight Club, a freaking incredible movie that you must see if you haven't, Tyler Durden emotionally tortures a store clerk, puts a gun to his head and interrogates him about fulfilling his own dreams, about making things happen. He takes him right to Death's door and then he unapologetically says this about what he had done:
"Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessle's life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever had."

It certainly would seem so. It certainly should seem so. But eventually we tend to forget. To push back, as it were. Much too soon, we forget how to really enjoy and before we know it, our breakfast just tastes like toast again.

Comments

Crazy MomCat said…
It is funny that this is on your mind, this appreciating life thing, because it is on mine today as well. I may blog the whys of that later today. In a nutshell, you are so right here!
Anonymous said…
Good post. Makes me think. I, too, think Fight Club is a great movie.
Dan said…
Great post Tamara!!!
Anonymous said…
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