You're Alive?

Recently, I've read far too often the statement 'I am alive' or 'I am a human being'. These statements of fact seem to strive to want to affirm the basic human condition and, yes, if sung from the top of your lungs to the wide beautiful world, I'd be disposed to allow you to make such statements, but as simple statements they strike me as just too simple.

It makes me think of the time I shared two little anecdotes with a friend. These little stories/mantras/statements struck me to my core. Both came from the same yoga teacher speaking of times in which we wince and struggle through life. The first: if you think very simply about the breath, your continued inhalation and exhalation, it is a marvellous cycle - life wants you to be here. The second: if you stand up and really feel, sense the four corners of your feet, you can feel like you are weighed down, or, you can take the reverse perspective, and think that the world is holding you up.

To me these, two simple turns of perspective, brought me into full consciousness and gratitude. To my friend, she felt they were only facts of mere existence.

So perhaps, with statements like 'I am alive' and 'I am a human being', I am having her reaction. But here I feel it is justified, life is a lot more complex than the mere facts of what you are and your current state, life implies a forward movement in time, there is moment, there is evolution, there are relationships, there are dynamics. And yes, while living is merely enough, these statement cut life short; it is a continuously wavering ocean for us to ride and inhabit, it cannot be summed up in three or four words.