Ingredient 27 - Living

This post has been interesting to write...an unintended experiment, if you will (and even if you won't).  As it happens, the "ingredient" Living showed up at a time in my life when every day has been dramatically different in approach than the one preceding it.  So, being the ingenious trend-setter that I am, I decided to let this post be a direct reflection of my life and let it just flow with the go. 

Confused?  Me too.

As some of you know, I am an insufferable insomniac; HOWEVER, over the last couple of months my sleep-deprivation has reached soaring heights that I was unaware even existed.  HOW can a human being JUST.NOT.SLEEP?!?  The last couple of weeks of the last couple of months have been especially difficult of the especially difficult sort, and since my brain cannot - as a result - function for what passes as "normal" at this point in time, it has taken me DAYS to write this one, single post.  AND, since my moods have been contradictory and irrational, upon returning each day to attempt to compose something remotely entertaining (actually, most days as of late, I'd settle for coherent), I found myself wanting to erase what I had already written and start anew.  It became harder and harder to reconcile what I thought about Living with the Cray of the Day. 

This challenge of maintaining a consistent form of insanity long enough to write a fluid blog-post put me in what I can only refer to as Writer's Purgatory, and - as I am not Catholic - this was just not acceptable.  SO, I out-smarted myself (accidentally), and created the masterful composition that follows.  Over a period of almost two weeks (including the days in between writing), I simply wrote what I wrote and left it to its own devices to find a way to somehow meld with the rest.  From one day to the next, I had no idea what kind of neurosis or constipated genius was going to poor out of me.  And what better, more appropriate "ingredient" with which to commence such an experiment, than Living?

Buckle up, and keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times; all loose items should be secured, and checks should be made payable to Anastasia Seedling.  Wait.  What? 
Exactly...

DAY ONE:
Rather than using this "ingredient" to wax all philosophical about life lessons and all the greatastical, groovy stuff that makes life worth living...and blah, blah-fucking-blah...I've decided to blog on the things that suck about "living."  Yup.  THAT'S how I'm rolling today.  So, if you're looking for fuzzy hugs and warm smiles, or golden frogs that giggle every time they bump their asses, or baby unicorns running to and fro in fields of cheese and sunshine, you're in the WRONG PLACE.

Without further adieu (the french language makes no sense phonetically and is, therefore, stupid)... THINGS THAT SUCK ABOUT LIVING:

1.)  The bothersome obligation of personal hygiene.

2.)  Bugs.

3.)  People.

4.)

DAY TWO:
I have heard it said that "life is what you make it."  This is a big fat lie that leads people to believe that the human race has evolved beyond elemental susceptibility.  It is a lie made up to create the resulting illusion of control...and time.  Life is NOT what we make it.  Life is going to unfold under the force of scientific punctuation, mathematical probability, and cosmic intervention regardless of our meager efforts and tiny existence.  All we get to do is choose how to react, and THAT is the summation of living, my friends.  Life happens, and we react to it.

So, perhaps it is more accurate to say that life is the catalyst for choice...or maybe, choice is the catalyst of life.  But either way, life goes on whether we are making something of it or not.

DAY THREE:
I don't know much, but I DO know this: Life is a breathing paradox.  Life has all the answers, but can be stingy with them.  Life is the Soul's playground: alluring in its magnetism, but where many sharp objects lay hidden and where - from a distant swing set - cat shit buried in the sand assumes the appearance of a rare and beautiful rock. 

Life is a beautifully written parable that no one fully understands. 

Life is the best reason for living.

DAY FOUR:
Living...Life.  Life is what you make it.  Pass it on.

DAY FIVE:
Just because you are breathing does not mean you are living.  *The voices told me to tell you this.*

DAY SIX:
Why is it that every other animal in the Kingdom defines living with such inspiring simplicity: eating and sleeping.  They wake, they hunt, they eat, they sleep, and periodically they engage in some sexy-time. 

But humans: we have the "gift" of intellect and, therefore, the burden of "purpose."  Humans complicate everything with our so-called "intellect."  We spend our lives chasing "the dream," trying to define our grand reason for being.  Ugh...wouldn't it be so much easier to chase a gazelle?  Hell.  Wouldn't it be easier to BE the gazelle?

Perhaps we must first move away from simplicity, destroying everything in our wake, before we can return - aware - to the secrets carried on wind and wings, from water to root.

DAY SEVEN:
"On the 7th day, (s)he rested."  It occurs to me that in order to live, one must be able to rest...to sleep.  Even God took a break from all that "in the beginning" shit...to rest. 

And here, my friends, we have the final vérité, the only definition of "Living" that holds any Eaux:  Vivre est reposante création.