A precious friend of mine–I’ve known her for thirty-seven years–read the post on excitement and commented to me in an email that she did not fully understand–she didn’t want excitement to ever leave her life. I realized that I needed to write more, and unpack what I meant a bit.

It’s the need for excitement–because life is uncomfortable without stimulation, is too close to the bone–that I am speaking about. The need that some people have, that when excitement dies down, we fall into fear, or depression. Actually, we don’t fall into fear–the fear was always there–but neatly covered by the commotion in our lives. The hubbub dies down, and the fear sparks up again. So we pick an argument with our business partner to ratchet up the tension. Or drink too much at a party and say something unforgivable to the host. That kind of excitement. Because we haven’t spent time with the fear, or rage, or whatever those subterranean embers are, and befriended them, and seen them for what they truly are–present-moment sensations in the body–they can erupt in unpleasant and disruptive ways.

Excitement, the kind of delight that arises when a fourteen-year-old meets a kitten for the first time, or I notice a never-seen-before bird at the birdbath, or find that the parsnip seeds I planted three weeks ago have finally germinated, is not the kind of excitement that I was writing about in my earlier post.

I hope the innocent delights in life’s adventure always remain.

© Amrita Skye Blaine, 2012