I may have paraphrased that line from “Oliver!”.
But I use it often enough to describe where my head’s at.
I want more. Not in a gluttonous sense. I’ve tried gluttony in a few different forms.
Painful results. Moderation is better.
But is there a way to have moderate intensity?
Yeah. I believe so.
“Moderation” is a relative and scalable term.
Took me awhile, possibly right up until recently, to understand that this is so.
In part, I couldn’t see this reality because I’d always equated intensity with madness and mayhem. Going big. Pushing physical limits and risking life and limb for an adrenaline rush…or just to feel important. Valued.
That is all definitely true and valid. Intensity lives in those realms. But I’m 47 now. More mature. New interests. Different priorities. Sore joints. I need a different kind of intensity to pursue.
Turns out, you can inject intensity into much healthier activities and enjoy many of the same emotions as when madness was the game.
And there’s another brick in the Ken’s Road Trip foundation exposed to help you understand my new game.
I want to do intense work and get intense results. But in more subtle ways, more esoteric.
- I look for the universe hidden within the small
- I search inward, deeper than ever before
- I seek the music buried inside the quiet
- I see the mosaic camouflaged by the mundane
- I read the hidden story written on the face
- I am The Almighty Oz…no. But we needed to de-heavy there.
I’m trying to uncover the complex that’s masked as the simple
This is how I’m finding and creating more intensity in my life, in ways that don’t harm my liver, mind, liberty, health, or relationships.
And I can feel it working even when very little, or no tangible effects can be seen.
This has everything to do with personal evolution and our evolving wisdom.
The intensity, for those of us who crave it, takes the shape of our mind at that time.
It’s based in our accumulated knowledge, our understanding of all we’ve experienced up to that point, our maturity level, our sense of spirituality and–most critically–our egos.
The ego informs our every move, particularly when we have yet to become aware of that fact. (More on that from Bill Harris).
Heavy duty pondering aside, I just want another exciting run at something bigger than myself
I heard it said well by a soldier in a documentary about his unit’s year in Iraq and the year after they’d been home. (Tried to find the movie but couldn’t remember the right one of all I’d seen. Don’t want to misrepresent something as important as this.)
He said something like ‘The war will be the greatest thing most of these guys will ever do with their lives. And that’s fine. But I don’t want it to be the final adventure I’ve lived. I want to go on to achieve more.’
Hearing him say that had a profound impact on me.
He was right. And I was already aware of this idea’s existence, and haphazardly pursuing it.
But like many things, hearing him say it, in the context of what I’d just watched in the documentary, really nailed me.
“Please, sir. May I have some more?”
I think we should all feel that in some amount. Otherwise, we may be closer to the grave than we realize.