Being Alive (Have you?)

On a number of programs and bios for various productions, I've started adding a silly little line, something I've been thinking about for several years. It's always among my life goals, and it's simple enough:

I would like to be the most alive person you've ever met.

What does that mean, anyway?

Honestly? I have no idea. I know what I think it means right now and what it used to mean, but it's a puzzle that I'm always chewing on in some shape or form. What does it mean, really, to be alive, and do you know anyone who has?

I know that I was alive in Paris. I think it's the closest I've ever been, at least. Thinking back, I remember so much of it being a haze, kind of like each moment was its own perfect eternity and I was perfectly inside each as it became the next. No brilliant flashes of light but light.

You know people who are alive. They sparkle, don't they? They explode outwards, they glow. They're stunning. I want to be them.

I was talking to a very good friend the other day, and she said that for me, it could be hard to do that, because I do too much. She said, hard to be alive when all you do is run around.

She knows me too well. It is indeed my challenge, and particularly epidemic to my life at Columbia. The energy here is do more, be more, and NYC is no different. I pick up energy very easily and then it gets into my blood and my bones and suddenly it's all I do, all I think about. Success, competition. For some people, it's nurture. For me, it's poison.

Step back. Do less, and be more. It was the only thing I could do in Paris, and I did it well. It's interesting to note that when I was in that state, I had incredible - almost scarily so - power to create and craft my life. I guess when you're in the Now, creation and reaction happen at the same time. Thoughts and intentions are not much different from reality.

I want to go back to that state, wherever I go, and wherever I live. I mean it when I put that sentence in my life goals, and I mean it seriously. I don't think it's ever something that I can say, okay, I've achieved this, but something to work towards and check and evolve. Find the life in alive, and be there fully.

Sounds like a good time to me.