Wednesday, September 5, 2012

not epicureanism, but almost


I've grown the habit of telling people I did/am doing/will do someting crazy lately.  I guess the trip home reminded me what exciting opportunities await the brave foreigner in a foreign land; and also I owe everyone else who don't get to do these things a tale or two.  For the experience of it, since I'm stuck here anyways.

You could say I'm cutting loose, too. Far and beyond the reach of the prying eyes and unwavering judgement of everyone I used to know, I can do whatever I want as whoever I want to be.  Everything is a thrill and, following every venture, a natural high claims my very soul.  I'd smirk and think "That turned out better than I imagined," as I walked away with a carefree whistle.

Ann Radcliffe characterized the value of a thrill when she made the distinction between terror and horror. Terror is characterized by "obscurity" or indeterminacy in its treatment of potentially horrible events; it is this indeterminacy which leads to the sublime. She says in the essay that it "expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life".  And I've never felt so alive as when I dare to do something I've never done before.

And what they dare dream of, dare to do.

I think its also the uniqueness of Japan that fuels the trip. It's a place sufficiently strange, but altogether safe; approachably exotic; a cultural smorgasbord, whose limited only by the gamut of one's apetite and the courage inside one's heart.

It's also a matter of age--that is, the progression of age.  As someone who values experience--and would be thoroughly bothered with just the risk of "missing out"--the pressure of seeing, tasting, feeling everything from the fresh perspective of youth urges me on.

As I change, so too will the things I experience as I unconsciously impose myself on them.  My views, opinions, values and all other things that grow and shift with me will influence my experience, and by consequence my life.

But what's wrong with the experience of old people? Well, it's a given that I'll get there much like everyone else eventually. So for now, I'm placing precedence on the vanishing commodity called youth.

So while I'm young, I'll be a little crazy; and I hope I never grow out of it.

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