Where Do You Feel Alive?

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

“What will this day be to me?
How do I call it?
The day that made me know
That I am a human being.
The day that make me realize
That I am a part of people.
The day I taste chocolate.”
–Ojullu Opiew Ochan, Ethiopian Gambelan refugee

I remember the day that Ojullu gave me this poem. I can still remember the two of us walking through the desert and the way he seemed to skip through the air as he recounted his feelings.

It was also the first time he had ever tasted chocolate. I remember asking him in that moment, “Really? You’ve never tasted chocolate?” As he placed the chocolate in his mouth, he shared with me, “It looks like mud. It’s very sweet. It tastes like honey.”

Ojullu had just performed his poetry in front of delegates from the United Nations, and he told me he had never felt so alive in life.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about that similar feeling Ojullu experienced and asking myself - Where do I feel the most alive, right now?

As an artist, I have learned to investigate this through my body. This is something I learned from the theater director, Anne Bogart.

She once told me that the way she would decide to work on a project was whether or not she would get goosebumps when reading the source material.

Another way to think about it is through the framework of Joseph Campbell - “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

In other words, the place that will make you feel alive is often found in the place you most fear to look. Undoubtedly, it is found in the unknown.

When Ojullu handed me that poem, he vibrated with that feeling of being alive. As he later told me, he had never been more excited to feel like he was making a difference, that his work mattered.

What makes you feel alive? If you could do that for 15 minutes today, what would you do?

A CREATIVE TOOL

As computing power becomes more and more accessible, there have been some recent advances that feel like they are directly out of science fiction. From Lex Fridman’s conversation with Mark Zuckerberg using photorealistic avatars to Apple’s Vision Pro - we are on the brink of a new immersive reality.

Speaking of, check out what the new concert venue - The Sphere - is able to do in Las Vegas!

@lynchmd

Never seen anything like this. #sphere

A PIECE OF ART

“What the Living Do” by Marie Howe

originally published on poets.org

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

Grateful,

Michael