Adding further weight to The Case For Friends Overseas Who Still Change Your Life From Afar, a favourite of mine messaged me that quote from oceans away at midnight last night. It was timely. (Which is apt, being that Aforementioned Friend has had perhaps more influence on my development as a person than nearly any other, er, ever.)
Digression. Basically, that quote got me thinking. Because those sentiments remain as relevant to the wider human struggle now as they were when originally spouted by L.B. Cowman in 1925. They reminded me of a mind game I played once last year. I vividly remember posing myself, for kicks, (a frequent, vaguely quirky pastime of mine) the following hypothetical question:
"Given the choice, would you rather live a life in the middle-ground; of 'safe'/'predictable'/'stable' + 'happy', where nothing hugely good nor hugely bad happens to you... or the alternative, a life of extreme highs and extreme lows, where you can only hope the former eventually makes the latter worth it?"
It's a question you wouldn't generally bother asking, because at the end of the day it's not like most of the above is anywhere within the scope of our control anyway. As much as the extreme-o planners amongst us (bless their cotton socks) find incredible comfort in forecasting, preempting and safety netting every aspect of their lives in an attempt to avoid the ultimately unforeseeable... that's just it. It's ultimately unforeseeable. ('Unforeseeable', by the by, is one of those words that looks more and more wrong the more you type it. I'm not going to use it again, we need a break.)
MY POINT SLASH QUESTION is - were they right when they told us such platitudes as "it's better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all"? Does the good really negate the bad? Or would a 'safe' life, cushioned from those pesky incidents that implode the worlds of the best of us - with less downs but also less ups - be our choice, had we the power to choose it?
MY POINT SLASH QUESTION is - were they right when they told us such platitudes as "it's better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all"? Does the good really negate the bad? Or would a 'safe' life, cushioned from those pesky incidents that implode the worlds of the best of us - with less downs but also less ups - be our choice, had we the power to choose it?
For the record - I decided I preferred a life of extremes. Of incredible joy, and conversely incredible sorrow, to that of living in the equivalent of the twilight of existence; never quite night nor day, just a bizarrely numb sort of half-life between the two.
Why did I settle on this bordering-sadistic option?
I suppose because I agree with L.B. Cowman - that "the wick of life (*when lived in the twilight zone) burns quickly to the bottom, without ever knowing the richness of profound joy."
I'm glad I asked it of me, as it gave me some comfort to realise that how life is naturally dealt to us anyway (ie, without our consent) is exactly how I'd swing it, even if I had a vote.
Without the downs, would we know the ups were up?
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