Living or Alive?

As I simultaneously reflect on my purpose behind writing this blog & prepare for the upcoming school year, I notice a common trend. Ultimately, they both lie in a passion. Both have their foundation in some sort of "teaching", but instead, I think they're rooted more in a passion for learning.

I see myself as a life-long learner, and though I know this is largely due to my upbringing, I like to think that we can all find a desire to learn as long as we tap into what truly interests us.

I don't necessarily mean a specific hobby or career choice; I mean a holistic motivation that can keep us running long after we've tired of... say... scrap booking (see: Jonah's scrap book up that ends when he's six-months-old... he's now two-and-a-half... when did I have that much time?! Andrew's will be made on Shutterfly...)

On Sundays when we don't make it to church, I tend to find myself turning to my guilty pleasure-- Oprah's Super Soul Sunday.

This is where I've stumbled upon many influential people who I've gone on to find out more about & who have helped guide me. This week, they discussed a philosopher named Joseph Campbell. We've all probably encountered his work in some way. He's the guy who coined the directive: "Follow your bliss." (If he only knew that it would be contorted into something so ordinary that it isn't truly reflected on, but instead, plastered on mugs, magnets, and a cross-stitch pillow or two...)

A quote of Campbell's was stated, and I immediately paused the episode in order to rewind it to hear it again. 

 I have paraphrased it below so you can re-read it as many times as I did:

We are not looking for the meaning of life so much as the understanding of what it means to be alive.

This quote rang so true to me. When I scavenge TED talks and read nonfiction texts and stalk the gurus I follow online, it's not that I think they could ever tell me the meaning of life--I already know what book to look to for that. 

However, I do reach out to these resources to help me discover not the generic idea of what it means to be alive, but what it means to be alive to me.

I hope I never stop pondering and questioning because it always opens a door and opens my mind. Many times I am challenged, and that can be a pretty scary place, but by pursuing new doors with various keys, I'm discovering for myself rather than blindly claiming ignorance, or worse, condemning while ignorant. 

I recently read the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury--highly recommend it--and he pursues this same notion. If we stop being curious & settle in with what is expected or normal, then we tell ourselves the daily lie that we are alive, when, in all actuality, we're only living.

I've come to the conclusion that living and being alive are two extraordinarily different choices.

This is what I want for myself. This is what I want for my family. This is what I want for my students. This is what I hope to convey through my blog.

In response to this epiphany, I ventured back to one of my favorite, most inspirational movies of all time: The Dead Poets' Society.

Please see this movie. The title is misleading; you don't have to be a poetry buff--you just need the desire to "suck out all the marrow of life" (Thoreau). 

Here's a taste that I'm sure will leave you hungry for more:

Joseph Campbell also said:

“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”

Here's to finding a verse that makes each of us feel alive,


Kristy