Why we must go to our edge
in a series of wisdoms from Hunter S., Pema C., Vonnegut and Van Gogh
I’ve been collecting a bunch of quotes I like. And I realise they speak to a similar theme: the imperative to live a less mild and cloistered life. I think the times are calling for us to push ourselves beyond where we’ve been comfortably plonked. I think this calling tends to come up in times of flux and existential risk. At least among the thinkers. Life knows when we need to step up and starts re-arranging the furniture!
Hunter S. Thompson wrote of going to one’s edge.
“The Edge…There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”
Yep, if you go to your edge, you invariably tip over. The momentum of the penetrative urge takes you there. To see it is to fall into it. And a part of you indeed disappears. It’s the part of you that feels you have to turn around and explain yourself to the hoi poloi. That part that cares what others think. You move on once you’re at - and over - your edge.
Because as author Kurt Vonnegut writes in Player Piano:
“Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”
Buddhist nun Pema Chodron wrote in The Wisdom of No Escape:
“Life is a whole journey of meeting your edge again and again. That’s where, if you’re a person who wants to live, you start to ask yourself questions like, “Now, why am I so scared? What is it that I don’t want to see? Why can’t I go any further than this?”’
Yes, if you’re a person who want to really live and extended, expansive life. And not merely exist at the safe and stuffy centre.
Van Gogh in 1884 wrote to his brother (and I just love how much care and consideration people put into letter writing back then. It was an art):
“If one wants to be active, one mustn’t be afraid to do something wrong sometimes, not afraid to lapse into some mistakes. To be good — many people think that they’ll achieve it by doing no harm — and that’s a lie… That leads to stagnation, to mediocrity … But however meaningless and vain, however dead life appears, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, and who knows something, doesn’t let himself be fobbed off like that. He steps in and does something, and hangs on to that, in short, breaks, ‘violates’—they say.”
Yes! The person of faith, energy and warmth steps in and does something. And violates. And abhors stagnation and mediocrity.
I do love the use of the word violates here. Behaving mildly, nicely, is not appropriate given what humanity faces. We need to shake things up. We need the bold, the deviants, the instigators, the inventors, the misbehaved. We don’t know what’s going to happen, where things are going to head, or if we will survive. So we gotta get the balls up in the air, testing things out, hurting and failing and being messy and hoping one of the balls will land right. We don’t know…so we gotta experiment.
Me, I don’t think it matters what the something is that one does, or what edge we go to. The point is to go there, as a way of being. To risk, to shake things up, to try, to flex, to experiment, to push the boundaries, to violate. It’s the courage and curiosity and honouring of the momentum to extend and expand that counts in the equation.
I also wrote about it in This One Wild and Precious Life, which you can get here:
Our edge is where we get jolted out of acedia – our collective asleepness –
and pushed into bigness. I came across a study that showed that an organism’s
genes turn on when it puts itself in a new and extended situation.
A lot of our selves lies dormant, the scientists argued
in the report, until triggered. We come alive when we go to
our edge; we become when we go further. Parenthood takes
many people to their edge. It can push many men and women
into a bigness they didn’t know they possessed. Sickness can
do it. Going into battle, near-death experiences and a global pandemic definitely take a person to their edge.
The edge is at the exposed outer limbs, far from the comfortable trunk
our small human selves tend to cling to. The edge is where
the elements knock you around, where you’re battered by
the winds of truth. But it’s out at the edge you are also forced
to flex and fend. You have all your faculties on, you are alert.
It’s at the edge that you fully come alive. You experience the sharp air,
the harsh light, you see and smell and feel everything. It’s not
easy or comfortable, but it’s definitely alive. And it’s definitely
where the truly big, noble, creative and meaningful stuff in life
tends to happen for humans.
How about you? Where are you sitting? At the centre or veering toward an edge? What does moving to your edge look like? For me ageing (I’ve aged quite rapidly in the past six months as my estrogen drops off) is the process I’m using to extend and expand myself. As I say, I don’t think it matters which edge you go to, the outcome will be the same.
Sarah xx
PS I reckon you lot would love this podcast episode with Harvard evolutionary biologist Joseph Henrich about how “weird” we in the West are. About 1500 years ago some obscure Catholic pope declared we probably shouldn’t marry our cousin. And from here the “West” was born. He explains the arrogant assumption that we are the “normal” ones has led to some very bizarre stuff – whether we pay parking tickets, how much testosterone we have and whether we feel shame or guilt when we do wrong. It’s a mind-opening theory…
The edge is my singledom. Experiencing no long term relationships in this life, I feel exposed and isolated in a world that places being in a relationship on a pedal stool. It’s uncomfortable at the best of times. It’s also expansive, freeing, and wildly independent to find myself in these set of circumstances. One of my favourite songs is The Edge of Glory by Lady Gaga. The glory being the point where we tip over!
“Come to the edge," he said. "We can't, we're afraid!" they responded. "Come to the edge," he said. "We can't, We will fall!" they responded. "Come to the edge," he said. And so they came. And he pushed them. And they flew.“ — Guillaume Apollinaire