Sometimes Let Instinct Lead

When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and inevitably settle south-west, toward some particular wood or meadow or deserted pasture or hill in that direction. -- Henry David Thoreau -- Walking

Cy Twombly an accomplished and somewhat controversial artist passed away at age 83 recently.  A contemporary of Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, Twombly's works were known for their abstract expression often times on canvases painted to look like chalk scribbling on a black board or graffiti on a wall.   Yet to me the experience of his art went beyond simply seeing doodle, scribbles or graffiti, but instead evoked a base feeling -- something akin to child's view of the world combined with contours, both good and bad, that come from the experience of life's joys and disappointments. Check out his work and several excellent articles at:http://www.cytwombly.info/

 

LIVE, LIVE, LIVE -- LIFE IS A BANQUET AND MOST POOR SUCKERS ARE STARVING TO DEATH -- AUNTIE MAME



Auntie Mame is a great movie from the 1950's about a woman who goes through many stages in life -- all of them lived to the fullest.  Her motto was to Live, Live, Live.  It is a great motto, but its nice to keep it in perspective with Hemmingway's comments on living life to the fullest.

In the novel "The Sun Also Rises" Earnest Hemmingway has the following exchange which does a good job of depicting how difficult it is to live life to the fullest:

[Cohn:]“I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.”
[Jake:] “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters.”

Indeed living life all the way up can be a dangerous prospect. For an excellent article from Sports Illustrated dated 1955 concerning the life of a Matador click on the below link.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1130077/index.htm

Dare Mighty Deeds and Avoid the Gray Twilight

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”  Theodore Roosevelt