This is an open letter to friends and family and anyone else who has ever worried for my safety.
“Be safe!” is a send-off you sometimes give me before I embark on my next activist action, jump out of an airplane, travel somewhere dangerous, or do some other daring endeavor.
All I can do is shoot back a feral grin and say, “Sorry, I make no such promises.”
If you’re not the wild adventurer type, this mindset may be hard to understand. So, let me get vulnerable for a moment and share a bit of my soul.
A lot of people – probably most people – gravitate towards comfort, peace, and rest as their ideal ways of living. “My dream is to have a spouse and kids and a cozy house with a white wicker fence,” you may say with emoji-like heart-eyes. “And to one day retire to Florida and live out my sunset days playing golf and reading books by the ocean.”
I’m one of those weirdos who’s simply not wired like that. In fact, typing that paragraph above made a little, squirmy part of me scream inside.
Paradoxically, too much comfort makes me uncomfortable. It has, on many cases, sent me on deep spirals of depression and anxiety, to dark places I shudder to think about, places I hope to never visit again.
My life experiences have proven to me again and again that I feel most alive, and most myself, when I’m riding on the edge of danger. I’ve learned, repeatedly, that I can’t live fully unless I’m fighting for something I believe in, and especially if that fight takes me to risky places, to places few others dare to go.
Adventure makes me come alive.
I’ve decided that I won’t spend my days skirting around the edges of true life, just so I can (hopefully) extend my existence.
I’ve decided that I won’t spend my days skirting around the edges of true life, just so I can (hopefully) extend my existence.
There have been thousands of years of human history.
Millions of years of life.
Billions of years of stars exploding and forming, and black holes sucking galaxies into the abysses of their jaws.
Thousands and millions and billions of years will continue after me.
And I should be worried about clinging to an extra few decades?
Nothing is guaranteed. Even if I live with the utmost care, guarding my life at all costs, I could die randomly in a freak car accident tomorrow. I could be snuffed out in a terrorist bombing or mass shooting next week.
Hell, an astroid we’re not prepared for could hurtle towards our vulnerable speck of a planet and obliterate all of us a single blow.
“Safety” is a relative term and it is not promised for any of us. Not to make the comfort-gravitaters among you more anxious, but there you go. It’s an inescapable truth.
So here’s what it all means for me.
If I had to choose between:
- living until I’m 90, writing about lots of adventures (in other words, SFF novels), and feeling persistently empty and depressed, OR,
- living just a few decades, experiencing lots of adventures, and feeling persistently fulfilled and alive…
well. There’s no question I’d choose the latter.
Obviously, if I had complete control over my life, I’d opt for the best of both worlds. I want to live until I’m 90, write dozens of books, and experience all the purpose-giving adventure in the world.
But I’m willing to risk that early cutoff to my existence if it means I truly live.
I must feel the burn in my muscles, the sweat on my back, and the adrenaline in my veins, even if it means I get bruised or bloody or worse.
I must let loose the savage animal roaring in my chest, feeling its fiery breath crackling along my bones as it wrenches to get free, free, free.
I must sail beyond the distant horizon, just to see where it leads, just to discover what secrets it holds in its stormy, churning heart.
I must live without regrets.
So, no, I’m sorry. I won’t be safe. I don’t want you to worry about me, but I can’t promise anything except this sweet, uncomfortable truth: I will always live dangerously.
But maybe, if you, too, harbor a little, restless dragon in your chest, you can join me for the ride.
Image credits: Pixabay
