Feeling Alive
Even now. Especially now.
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“Every day includes much more non-being than being…. When it is a bad day the proportion of non-being is much larger.” — Virginia Woolf
“I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” — Joseph Campbell
“The great object of life is sensation — to feel that we exist — even though in pain.” — Lord Byron
We all want to be happy, don’t we? Of course we do. The pursuit of happiness is listed as an unalienable right in our Declaration of Independence. People teach courses and workshops on how to be happy. Books about happiness sell; ChatGPT estimates tens of thousands of books have been written on happiness. There’s even such a thing as a happiness coach!
Yet pursuing happiness can be counterproductive.
Maybe we’re pursuing the wrong thing. Maybe instead of pursuing happiness, we should pursue the feeling of being alive. The feeling we get in those moments Virginia Woolf called “moments of being.”
She knew what she was talking about.
I went through a major Virginia Woolf phase in my twenties, when I read all her novels and essays and diaries and letters and would read little else (it’s been a long time since then, so don’t quiz me!). Another favorite writer of mine at the time was Laura Ingalls Wilder (I know, I know, her politics were terrible, but the Little House books are great and you won’t convince me otherwise). In thinking about why I loved them both so much, I realized that although they were such different writers, they had a significant quality in common: they both felt very alive, which came through in their writing.
That’s despite the fact that Virginia Woolf killed herself; I maintain that while she was alive, she was more alive than most people. My dear old friend Mary Grace, who shared my Virginia Woolf obsession and died too young at 38 (though her death was not self-inflicted), also had this quality.
People as alive as those women are magnetic.
But what does that even mean? Aren’t we all alive?
The reality is, most of us sleepwalk through big chunks of life. As Virginia Woolf said, “Every day includes much more non-being than being” — even for her. And for us, it doesn’t help to be living under late-stage capitalism and all its current horrors, including actual fascism; when you’re struggling to get by and struggling not to be overwhelmed by the bad news, it’s harder to live to the fullest.
It’s harder to stop and pay attention.
But paying attention helps us feel more alive; that’s something we should pay attention to. And it’s something we need in this moment, more than ever.
How do we get that feeling? Awe is one doorway to it, and if we pay attention we’re bound to feel some awe.
Anytime I feel off kilter, I know I need more awe in my life. I’ve written about it before; don’t be surprised if I write about it again. It’s an ongoing need for us humans, and we don’t get enough of it in our modern late-stage-capitalism lives. And yes, I’ve also mentioned late-stage-capitalism before and will again.
We need awe so much that, according to Joseph Campbell, the mystical function of religion — the one that serves to inspire awe — is the first of its four main functions.
How do we get our fix if we’re not religious? As necessary as awe is, and as much as it makes us feel alive, it doesn’t have to come in the form of something grand like a trip to the Grand Canyon. We can find awe in everyday life.
I feel it when I’m startled by a tiny hummingbird who’s helicoptered in to stare me in the face as I sit in our backyard by the delicate, bright red lantern flowers pictured at the top of this post, which themselves are awe-inspiring. When I consider the long, mostly invisible and forgotten chain of people stretching back in time before me who gave rise to me. When I look at my arm and think about all the stuff going on in there, the blood circulating through my body to keep me alive, day after day, year after year, with no conscious help from me.
We’re living in a time when it’s harder than ever — I mean, harder than it’s ever been in my 64 years — to stop and feel the awe of the world inside us and all around us. When innocent people are being murdered in the streets by emboldened officials of the state and it’s all caught on camera — because you know the recent murders and injuries of white people follow many other murders and injuries, many of black and brown people, that aren’t all filmed and are often ignored even when they are filmed. We’re living in a time that isn’t totally unprecedented in history (except for the climate emergency part) but is unprecedented for many of us.
Living through a time like this can leave us feeling detached from life, even less deeply in it than we might feel in more “normal” times. I’ve been in a daze since the latest shootings by ICE, and while going to protests might help, it wouldn’t take me out of the daze.
But while it’s harder than ever to feel those “moments of being” — those moments when we feel alive — it also feels more necessary than ever. Feeling alive helps us appreciate everything more: our friends, our families, our pets, our world. And that reminds us how much we have to protect.
We need that foundation to fight fascism. We need that foundation to fight ugliness, hatred, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and all the rest.
So as hard as it feels now, I hope we can make space in the midst of the outrage, the protests, and whatever else we’re mired in to experience some moments of being — to appreciate what still remains to appreciate in our sweet old world. To feel alive.
Maybe Mr. Rogers was onto something.
I write posts like this one as much for myself as for anyone else; I certainly haven’t mastered feeling alive during these times. But I hope what I write also resonates for you. Help me feel more alive — and not alone here — by leaving a comment.
It is posts like this one that make me feel better, in the midst of my aging mind and body, but with the resonance oF your posts, dear daughter1
Dear Rosana Thank you for your posts I’ve been reading for a while through emails and only recently worked out how to comment via app. Have you read Phosphorescence by Julia Baird - on awe, wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark - it’s not about current times but very appropriate - she lives near me on the Australian coast - there a lot of awe to be found by the sea.