feeling alive

It has been almost a year and half of ignoring the blog. It has been a period of a turbulence at work and life, a period of big changes. It disrupted all the rhythms and habits, left me just riding the change. Now just about trying to put things back together once again.

This may not be the best of the topics to restart a blog, a bit dark maybe. It is not intentional, but something curious that I picked up over last few days and was mulling over. I am now sort of looking for movies or shows that are not sad, no propaganda, not period pieces with their version of history. This process of elimination eventually leads me to murder mysteries or crime thrillers. I read somewhere that we watch such to relieve tension somehow, in some twisted way.

Now, two such that I watched, which are not related in any way, but had a similar theme – that we sometimes put ourselves in harm’s way, not to die, but to feel alive. That self-destruction is coded into us at the cell level and this instinct makes us take unnecessary risks. I can’t say I have experienced this myself in any major way, having taken safe bets most of my life, taking default paths whenever the choice was presented. But at some level, I think there is truth in it. When everything is normal, when it is stasis, there is a tendency to disrupt it.

Quote from Annihilation (a sci fi movie, wouldn’t say it is a must watch)

“Josie wears long sleeves because she doesn’t want you to see the scars on her forearms.

She’s tried to kill herself?

Oh I think the opposite, trying to feel alive.”

“Almost none of us commit suicide, and almost all of us self-destruct. In some way, in some part of our lives. We drink, or we smoke, we destabilize the good job... and a happy marriage. But these aren't decisions, they're... they're impulses.

Isn't the self-destruction coded into us? Programmed into each cell?”

Quote from “The Beast In Me” (a crime thriller limited series, well acted)

“Freud famously wrote that the aim of all life is death. Thanatos, some call it. The death instinct. The drive towards self-destruction. It lives in all of us, he said. A need to court danger. Put ourselves directly in harm’s way. Sometimes a whisper. Sometimes a cry. An invisible current. A force beyond our control.

Freud’s theory was largely dismissed by his peers. Why, after all, would any living organism pursue its own demise? But Freud’s theory proved more resilient than its detractors. Because who among us hasn’t felt that urge? We say yes to one more drink. We strike a match and run a finger through the flame. We edge closer. Tempt fate. We flirt with death to prove we’re truly alive. And if we can’t stop? Then that small fire we lit might just burn the whole house down. With us still inside.”