Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Or Life Is Yours To Miss

There's only now. There's only this.

Yesterday I asked Chelle what she thought the purpose of life was. She said she thought it was to have no regrets. I think that's a pretty darn good answer. It covers all the bases really: treating yourself right, living life to the fullest, being respectful, etc.

I don't consider myself regretful. In fact, someone just asked me what my biggest regret was last week, and I came up dry. But, I suppose I do have mini-regrets (if you will). Teeny little guys, so today was "no regret day." It was pretty easy. I worked hard, I ate well, I was frugal, I was friendly.

And then I got hit with a doozy. I was in Dramaturgy. We had just watched Mouchkine's 1789. And then we had an hour and a half long discussion of theatrical heirarchy, which made me both giddy and disgusted. I literally sat up at one point and asked myself, "How did I get to the place where I consider this the best way to live?"

Literally everything in my whole day revolved around that class, that discussion--that discussion that mattered very much...on an itsy-bitsy level. I went to work at 8:30 to afford the Jamba Juice I would buy at 4:30 to power myself through the heavy class. I TA'd for a class at noon to earn my scholarship to afford the dramaturgy class. I spent the afternoon reading for class...Just about the only thing I did for myself was go to the gym...which I kind of did to align myself with peace before powering through the day.

My whole world is focused on this artistic theory...and part of me sometimes really does just want to scream, "WHY ARE WE ALL TALKING ABOUT THIS? WHO REALLY CARES!? WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE RELATIVELY SOON!" So...that.

But, honestly, no regrets about that. Because whether you're in a playwriting seminar or a practicing dentist, you ARE going to die. So...you know. Who can say if it's not a waste of time/energy to do anything? Who can say it's right to do anything?

I've been mentioning here how I've been killing myself with work, comedy, and being social? Well. I declared an "I'm being cheap, eating healthy, getting sleep, and not being social" week. It's going pretty well. Especially today--the day of no regrets. And then my front door rang a ton of times and we found this on the front porch:





Yup. A pumpkin full of candy with a note reading, "Dear Alice, Be social."

ME: You know what?
ME: I think Russel Stover has a bad rap.
ME: It's not horrible.
POOKIE: hahahahahaha
POOKIE: it is
POOKIE: plastic chocolate
ME: Then why am I enjoying it so much?
POOKIE: there is no polite answer to that question

So...one regret after all. Maybe eating my weight in jack-o-lantern chocolate right before bed wasn't the best.

Forget regret. Or life is yours to miss.

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