addiction

I find myself highly addicted to documentaries... of all kinds. I've seen documentaries on skiing, surfing, climbing, running, on the auto industry, on the corruption in the voting system of the U.S., and on the military industrial complex. It's the combination of first person narratives, compelling music, and often unbelievable feats that draw me in time after time. Tonight I was again watching a skiing documentary called "Steep" and it (along with many others) puts me in a very specific mood. These movies call into question not just what you've done in your life, but more importantly what your possibilities are. When the doors of your mind are left wide open, the possibilities that await you on the other side are endless. Especially in extreme sport movies there is always an underlying tone of life vs. death and how close to death one will walk in order to feel the most lively. I will say save a select few times, the most alive I've felt was in times of extreme danger. In times when all your energy and focus is on not dying, that's when you're truly living, when you're combining all your skills, strengths, and primal urges to live just to stay afloat. We often, all too often, lose these sensations in our comfortable daily lives and I think it's important to get them back, even if occasionally to renew our wonder for life. We all too often catch ourselves telling people that life could be much worse, and it could, but it can also be much better, simply by changing perspective and truly appreciating what we have... a chance to truly live.