The Pulse of Life

There is something between life and dying without having lived that I am trying to sort out. Here we are this incredibly modern society, and yet never have we been so seriously removed from the pulse of life.

We are completely removed from so many aspects of life that our ancestors were so incredibly connected to. They felt the soil, they collected the food, they processed it and stored it meticulously, they cleaned and chopped, and built and worked and worked. Today we have computers, cell phones, food processors, dishwashers, gadgets upon gadgets; we hire babysitters, yard workers, window washers, house cleaners - we thought we were making life easier - but in so many ways we have completely removed ourselves from the pulse of life at all.

We have this resistance to "work" and yet we seek the same effects of work in external ways - cell phones and computers to "connect" with people, workouts to "connect" with all the muscles and cells in our bodies, etc.

There is something certainly to be said about the conveniences our modern life presents to us, but perhaps we also have to question whether they are an aide, or whether they are really going to leave us on our death beds feeling like we have not lived at all.

There is some passion in the flow of feet tapping out a tune in dance, there is some vibrancy in scrubbing a floor, there is some rigorous experience of life by participating in it, rather than "trying to connect" instead of just living.

Today the challenge is to take small steps back into the experience of life. No, it doesn't have to turn life into one chore after another, but neither does the connected world have to leave us empty and seeking the feeling of life, yearning, yearning, yearning to live.

With all we have, we can still seek the small steps to take our lives back, to awaken our cells to the passion of life. Presence, movement, activities that involve the mind, spirit, heart and body...these are some small steps.

Blessings.
- Darshan

© 2009 Darshan F jessop