To Be Fully Alive

These days, occasionally, often, I find myself bad at conversation.

Not at listening, not at asking questions to elucidate details or show interest, but about carrying a thought of my own through to its conclusion. It’s as if when speaking, at some point, my brain goes suddenly offline and the subject, the passion, and the words dissolve like steam in the air.

Each time it happens, and I’m left struck with a lightning bolt of amnesia, struggling to grasp the frazzled connection back to the original point, I hope the other person was paying attention and can carry me forward and on.

Put me back on track.

I’m not on drugs. It would make more sense if I were.

This, whatever it is, makes me feel erasable.

Perhaps, it’s a fear of being boring that self-destructs me. Is the person really interested in what I have to say? Am I? Are they waiting for me to finish so they can leave? Why don’t they ask me questions in return? I probably am boring.

On a recent Huberman Lab Podcast with guest Dr. Richard Davidson speaking about meditation, flourishing, and science, near the end of the discussion, Davidson and Huberman talk about the social media culture within which a person not participating in online activity, getting likes, posting comments, receiving comments, often feels as if they don’t exist.

For many, brought up in an online culture, turning away from a screen (for whatever reason) can be like turning away from life. In those online spaces, from a safe distance and with (sometimes) carefully curated content, there’s validation, there’s a grab bag of emotion, there are cute cat videos.

But outside of that, without a device holding open a doorway to infinite entertainments, what’s left is the self.

And sometimes, the self is too treacherous to be with. Alone.

One day, looking though my email’s spam folder to make sure nothing important has slipped in there, I see a message saying, “I still remember you. Hello, my dearest beloved.”

I write it down in my notebook because it’s funny and because maybe, whether real or not, it’s nice to be remembered.

Don’t we all want that?

Don’t we want to leave some evidence of our being on this planet?

Don’t we want to make a difference?

Don’t we want to be seen to exist?

Don’t we want to be a dearest beloved to someone, if only to ourselves?

Don’t we want our conversations to be fluid, interesting, considered, and reconsidered?

If I’m honest, I do. Indeed, I want my alone self, which does pretty well being on its own, to become better, even with my glitching brain holding my consciousness, at expressing itself more coherently in company. 

But that’s not all I want. Or maybe not actually or really what I want in the end.

What I really want is to be fully alive.

To live to the fullest.

Whatever that might mean. However that might be expressed.

I don’t need a screen to prove I exist. I don’t need these words I’m writing. I don’t need to speak a fluid and perfect conversation full of knowledge, insight, and brilliance. That’d be nice, but really, all I need is the beat of my heart to persist in its rhythm, the rise and fall of my breath to keep on rising and falling, and my brain, as best it can, to continue to fire, misfire, and fire again.

What I need is to stand in each moment, a living, electric being surrounded by other living electric being, in this world, and remember myself.