Existing and Living
There has always been a distinction between existing and living. At first glance, they may be too similar. I exist. I live. What is the difference between those two words? Aren’t they the same? That question has been asked and answered many times to the point where it has become a rite of passage. Everyone will one day have to ask themselves some way, some form this question and distinguish what they are and what they want.
Am I existing or am I living?
I am not here to answer an answered question nor am I here to repeat what has been said. But, I will digress and be a hypocrite and do what I have said I wouldn’t do and boil it down to the simplicity I have understood it as.
Existing is to just be, to breathe, to live in its simplest biological form. No surprises, no emotions, no hate, no love comes from existing. To exist is to merely be a ghost of the self. In reference to Descartes’ philosophy and Ryle’s coined term: the machine without the ghost.
To live is to experience. To feel the world move around you as you move with it. To feel the hardships of the world and cry and hurt while also feeling warmth and love from the pleasures of life. Living is ironic. Living is hard and hurtful and exhausting, yet also exhilarating and bountiful, and overwhelming.
That is the juxtaposition of existing and living from my eyes. They are both in essence to live, to be alive, but living provides this human qualia that existing simply does not have. There is purpose, and where there is purpose, there is life.
But like I have said, I am not here to answer an answered question. I want to talk about the in between, the grey world between existing and living, the millions of complex and unnamed emotions hidden between simply existing and truly living. Emotions I have felt and touched. A world I drift in. Coping is something I feel far too familiar with.
Surviving
Some might say that the world between existing and living can be described as surviving, fighting to live. I differ in that opinion. I think that to survive is to live.
Having only read Hamlet halfheartedly for an assignment, a quote about surviving and living stays with me:
“To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die — to sleep,
No more…”
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare
To be or not to be, that is the question. To live or not to live is the dilemma. Is it easier to release myself, to ease myself into the void of endless sleep than it is to bear the weight, the burden of living?
Living is supposed to hurt. Life does not get easier. Life is messy. Horrible things happen without expecting it. It is naive to believe that living is a state without grief. However, that does not mean it would not get easier.
When consoling people, I lie. People say that they turn to me because I am blunt and honest, but I recently learned that I am a liar. My lie is:
“It will get better”.
I lie hoping that it makes people feel safe and comforted. I lie hoping that it does get better, knowing that it won’t.
Instead, I adopted the words of Youtuber Mike Mulderrig.
“Life doesn’t get better. You get better.”
Those words stuck with me. It empowers the person; it is truthful and honest. Life does not get better. That is a fact; that is a reality. There is no use sugar coating it because what excuse or reasoning can explain the pain people feel every year, the tortuous cycle of living. Life does not get better.
However, you get better. You get better at dealing with the situation. You learn to navigate certain spaces and conversations and issues. You grow and develop. You survive.
Surviving is living, because rather than falling to the void of easy endless sleep, you suffer to live and grow and bear the burdens and the weight of life stronger than you did before. Surviving is the wanting of living, the wanting to feel the overwhelming spectrum of emotions life provides. Is surviving not feeling that spectrum? Is there no pain in surviving? No exhaustion in trying to have a grip on life itself? Is there happiness when succeeding? No tears of joy? No primal screams of triumph?
Surviving is living.
Coping
And now there is the in between, the world hidden behind the curtains of existing and living: coping.
Coping is something I find myself far too familiar with recently. I find myself stuck between both living and existing. I feel things, emotions that I can faintly name: happiness, sadness, anger, amusement, but they all feel so faint, a semblance of what they should be, a reminder of what they are.
My sense of feeling has been numbed. Happiness I have felt has not been exhilaration of highs. Sadness I have felt has been halfhearted. Anger I have felt has been filled with doubts of validation. My amusement has been hollowed laughter. If feeling was a sensory organ, a anesthetic has been applied to it. I don’t feel anything directly.
Now, some might say I’m simply existing at that point. Simply breathing.
But am I existing if I can still feel emotions and are compelled to act by them? Am I simply existing if I feel joy seeing friends after months of quarantine. Am I existing if I feel pain from a cut? Sadness from loss? Loneliness from abandonment? Amusement from jokes?
I laugh because I find things funny. I laugh because I am feeling amusement and joy, but those laughs at times feel hollow. As if I am hearing them done by another person. As if the mouth the laugh comes from is not my own. As if I am an audience to my own life.
I still feel things. I can say wholeheartedly that I want to live. So, no; I am not existing. But I do not feel confident enough to say that I am also living.
I do not think I can live if I feel numb. If at times the world dilutes itself from a vibrant array of color to a grey.
My distinction between coping and surviving is based on the connotations the two words provide.
Surviving is fierce; it is primal and feral. There is a drive, an ambition, to gain something one does not have, to fight to live.
Coping is slow; it is pacing and waiting. Coping makes me think of waking up in the morning ten minutes before your alarm and waiting for it to ring. Once it rings, you turn it off and lay in bed for an extra hour or two. Then you will yourself out of bed as you wear your two day old pajamas and think it is better not to brush your teeth because it is tedious and tiring and you’re not in the mood to talk to anyone. Instead you find a nice warm cup of coffee or hot chocolate and stare out of the window with glazed eyes not fully seeing the sun or the birds chirping, just staring into nothing.
Coping is not surviving. Coping is waiting for things to get better, while also numbing feelings, the emotions that life provides.
Now, I am not trying to dishearten those that are coping. Coping is good and healthy; it is functioning when you do not want to function. There is strength hidden there; there is potential. Everyone copes; everybody medicates. I just want to stop taking the pills everyday and already find my strength, reach my potential.
Coping makes life an illness, some sort of chronic disease that you hope will lighten itself from your back so that it is easier to carry. Life reminds you of the terrible things that have, will and are happening. So you cope with it, numb the good and the bad. Coping is to feel and understand a semblance of what living is so that you push yourself slowly, waiting and pacing yourself to the finish line, to living. Living can be an illness, and everyone medicates; everyone medicates differently.
Coping — Living in Progress
As I have said before, I am coping. Coping with what? Life seems like the most direct and indirect of answers, the most honest yet dishonest response. Life is narrowly vague. There is a semblance of truth within its obscurity.
I cannot label what is difficult because all my issues are manageable, but I guess that is what it means to cope, to manage. If someone was to ask me what stresses me right now, I would say school and classes in general, remote learning specifically. Work has been overwhelming, but I am managing with my team. Days have been stressful and exhausting, but naps relieve some pain. Food nourishes me. Shows entertain me.
What I describe is relatable to all those that are coping, surviving, and living. So, how do I know that I am coping?
I know that I cope because life has become this fearful disease. Living in fear is a never changing constant. I avoid eye contact on the streets to avoid confrontation. Ironically, I straighten my back and puff my chest when I cross a stranger on the street to display strength. I change my routes on the sidewalk to ignore masses of people because of my anxiety of crowds. I predict the script of conversations so that I know what to say. I panic in the waiting of texts in fear that I have misspoke. I apologize too quickly and easily to avoid conflict. I speak first to avoid silence. I stay safe exhaustively. I cope.
I cope because I fear the lack of control, because why have conflict when you can prevent it? Control the situation and eliminate the variables. Have control, be safe.
That is how I know I am coping and not living, because I want to be safe in a world that is not safe. In a world that is messy and unpredictable, I am playing chess by myself. No opponent, no one to strategize against; just me imagining all the possibilities and having myself ready to counter and respond.
This is not living; this is coping. There is no embracement of the chaos. I am unwilling to dip my toe into the cool touch of the pool, unwilling to baptize myself into the chaotic nature of life.
Because why take a chance with chaos? Why dance with the devil? Change is inevitable; change will happen. So why tempt it? Stay comfortable with the constant. Appreciate it while it’s still there.
My body knows my habit too well. My tongue has tasted the scripts and lyrics of the shows and music I watch and listen on repeat. My mind races at 4AM because I do not sleep til 5. My mouth moves as soon as it tastes silence. My posture becomes sturdier when I feel unsafe. There is safety in the constant, but there is also a regression in growth. By enjoying the consistency, my growth has become stagnant. By enjoying consistency, I am allowing my fear to remain constant.
So what now? I have typed all of this out to say what? I have explained the state of “living” I am in and now what? What do I expect to reap from this?
I honestly do not know. But, I will say, this is a stepping stone because me staying constant, me coping, might just be me not wanting to grow, not wanting to be better.
I can feel myself being stagnant, in a rut, not moving, my pacing is too slow. So maybe I will change the pacing of my coping. Maybe I will sleep early, even if it is 3AM, because that is progress for me. Maybe I will try to wake up every morning to exercise, even if I only wake up and don’t do the exercise, because that is still progress for me. Maybe I will cook more, even if I eat out three times a week, because that is still progress for me. I will be better. I will medicate differently. Maybe I’ll pace my coping faster, survive for some days and cope on others. Maybe, one day I’ll taste living.
This is my stepping stone. Writing all this. Opening myself, being vulnerable.
For a long time, I have been scared because I feel growth coming. Growth is scary and so is change, changing from coping to living, changing what I am, what I used to be to what I want. But by doing this I am dipping my toe into the pool of chaos, and maybe someday I’ll dive into the ocean of life.
