I have been thinking a lot today about living a full life. I wonder if what I’m doing is making my life more full of life. I love quotes and words from aged travelers of the feeling of being alive in the middle of energetic, chaotic bazaars, and writers who tell of the “life” they feel just being in nature.
How do I know if I’m living a full life? From where I’m standing right now, I can see it in the brown imprints in the soles of my socks hanging in the shower, in the permanent inking of my fingernails with the midnight peel of mangostines. Is discomfort essential for a full life? If so, I could guide you to the red bumps on my chest and back that have appeared from sweat trapped to my body during a four-hour archery tournament in 100+ degree weather with 97% humidity.
I can look down at my pruned toes from dashing through rain storms today, though we weren’t dashing to get out of the rain; we were walking aimlessly but with the urgency and vivaciousness of those scrambling for cover. I hadn’t been able to stop laughing. It was there, on a honking, blaring, chaotic street in Yogya, running through ankle deep puddles and throwing my hands in the air that I thought about how silly my instinct to get out of the rain is.
Today, life felt full.
Here are some excerpts from my journal from what earlier in the course, that felt like fully living:
What a magical, rare, and wild thing it is to feel alive.