“…live dangerously”

“Become who you are.” or “Become what you are.” depending on the translation.

They’re fresh in my mind because of an article on Nietzsche I read yesterday but mostly because my life has been the exact opposition of those notions along iwth the conscious realization of that non-ness. Maybe a little moreso because I was bicycling tonight, cutting through traffic, and I remembered how much fun it was to live just little bit dangerously. It makes you feel much more alive than any simple plain old jaunt.

Not dying when there’s a good chance you might, is rather exhilarating and, at this moment, I sure do miss bicycling through Manhattan.

So why don’t I live dangerously more often? Put myself out there, scrapping and yelling, mixing it up?

That is a curious notion I cannot fully explain. Habit mostly. Too much distraction from the important things in life and too little focus on the unimportant.

Yep. I sure did fuck up.

Which reminds me of my favorite movie of all time The Royal Tennenbaum’s. There’s a quote that perfectly sums up how I’ve been feeling, coming up from a month and a half of illness, doing my best to destroy the world and it not mattering because the world is impervious to my pea shooter weapons,

ROYAL (CONT’D)
Look. I know I’m the bad guy on this
one, but I just want to say that the
last six days have been the best six
days of, probably, my whole life.
A strange, sad expression crosses Royal’s face.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
Immediately after making this statement,
Royal realized that it was true.

The past few months I’ve been reminded of that feeling repeatedly with small revelations coming and going as if to purposely torment me.

How does one learn to live a life? I know what all the books say. I’ve got a pretty good handle on the gurus and the gun nuts and the garland wearing gargantuan orangutans too. And they just don’t help all that much.

And just once I’d like to not panic when getting close to finishing something. What the hell is that all about?