you haven't lived until you've loved life

One night a while back, Matt said something I thought was really stupid--that his passion was life itself. It didn't make a lot of sense to me considering how I had just explained what my passion was in life: writing, filmmaking, storytelling, etc. It seemed specific, thus easy enough for someone to understand. However, Matt's answer to what his passion was in life--life? really?--seemed to me like a copout, like he hadn't given much thought to a thoughtful question. Yet, after a little thought, Matt's answer might not have been stupid as once thought, if you look at the answer from a certain perspective.

At the tender age of 25, there are a lot of roads open for me to take: marriage, fatherhood, workaholic, starving artist, fashion designer, politician, skydiver, blah, blah, and blah. The doors are open. Life is huge, as Emily once said to me. When I thought about my life in Louisville as I left Murray behind in May of 2006, I wondered what I was heading for. I knew the party life of undergrad was probably not exactly going to be the same here, and I was right. I knew living with my parents wasn't going to be like living with Weave or DW, and I was right. But I didn't really realize how complacent I've been for the last few years until really this year. 2009 has started off right, thankfully. Usually my odd years are my most troublesome, but so far I've been fortunate to be living the way I want to be. Left and right of me are friends that are getting married, sometimes for stupid unexplainable reasons and sometimes just because they feel they need to be married at this age. More power to them both, but I'm thankful that I'm not in that mindset. I prefer the freedom I have right now. You'll never call me and hear me give an excuse for not hanging out because I have to take Easter pictures with my kids.

My roommates and I (along with the ol' boy, Mike) have been ballin' out of control this year, as we should be. We're all healthy mid-20s bachelors that have intelligence and wit, as well as healthy drinking habits and the money to burn on shots of Kamikazes. That, my friends, is life. A couple of weeks ago, Robbie and I got to hang with The Audition, one of my favorite bands. I envy the road band life. They get to see a new place all the time, talk to new people, and express themselves seriously on a stage. It's not glamorous all the time, especially in those long hours in a beat-up Ford van, but those guys kinda rock. We drank and partied with them like we were in the band ourselves. And for a moment, I guess we were, especially when we were singing songs like, "It's So Cold in the D." If you don't know about that video, look it up on YouTube right now!!! Anyway, the point is that I'm no rock star, but I feel like my life isn't very different than that of Danny Stevens, pictured with me up there at the top. He's a free man. I'm a free bear, because while I'm writing and dreaming and drinking and dancing and singing and kicking it to Cold War Kids while the Mets are on ESPN HD, I'm free to do that all of that shit anywhere I fucking please! And that is why I love life, my friends. I'm free, not boggled down and neither are you...unless you're married with kids and a house payment. Then you're boggled down, but you're still free enough to be able to do that shit, so in a way, you should love life just as much as I do!

This is a happy-go-lucky post, I know. It's kinda qurrr, but what can you do? I'm doing it big, beacuse my passion too is life. I just didn't realize it until I started living it the way I wanted to.