Life In A Hermetically Sealed Box

Its human nature to seek security and safety. When we are young, we seek the protection of our parents against all manners of scary things - real and imagined. We seek the shelter of a warm home. We assume the abundance of good food and clothes and time to play with our friends. As we get older and discover more of the world, or as the world challenges us by removing some of our safety blankets, we grow up and realize that this child like view of the world is an illusion and that our safety is very much unsure.

We leave our homes and seek a place in the world. We first make certain that we have a shelter, and that we can eat, and that we have gainful employment or training for some sort of gainful employment. Eventually, when we are settled in our way, we seek out other things - friendship, companionship, social interaction. We build up walls of a safe and secure life.

When we were kids we thought nothing of riding our bike without helmets on the hard streets, now we obey the rules of the road and wear helmets lest our brains get dashed on the pavement. When we were kids, we'd eat anything before us, now we pick and choose the foods that we know, and that we know are good for us. Our walls begin to grow thick and strong and we start using them to keep the rest of the world out.

We don't talk to strangers - even neighbors. We're very cautious about that foreign couple down the street - they seem very edgy and strange. We watch our children like hawks - buying nanny cams to make sure they're safe, using GPS locators in their clothes, staying home rather than risk losing them in a crowded place. We stop going to movies and order them online instead.

We have perfected the safe little world and have locked it up tight and secure in a hermetically sealed box. Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out. We are very happy here.

I hate leaving my hermetically sealed box. I don't like to try new things. I don't like the anxiety of adventure. But ALL THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE OUTSIDE MY BOX! They won't come to me. I have to go to them.

I have to lose my Monday and Tuesday evenings to take film classes - even though I already have a college degree and a good job. I have to lose two more of my evenings to be an unpaid intern on a TV show that I can't even watch because I don't get cable - because that's where I might want to go in the future. I give up my Saturday evenings to run a youth group - just because its fun and because it pleases me. I give up my Sunday's to sing in the church choir- purely out of the joy of my ability. I visit friends and family and fly to Vegas and drive to Idaho and take vacations when I don't have the money. Financially, I live life on the edge and it scares me. Professionally, I do not have a secure, high paying, job. Socially, I have many friends, but no girl friend. The anxiety of all the insecurity in my life can be very high.

And so, I like to retreat to the safety of my box. I like the close the doors and windows and pretend that I am happy and safe and secure in my life - maybe watch a little TV, maybe just read for a while, maybe tinker on a project here or there. I like to pretend that complacency is the same thing as security.

But to borrow a phrase from the 1970's Battlestar Galactica, "Life here started out there." I may store my safe and secure life in the hermetically sealed box and let no one in, but life is not in there. Life is out here. Life is messy. Life is dangerous. Life is thrilling and crazy. Life is fun. Life is never complacent. Life is always changing.

I think, from now on, I'm going to roll back the stone that covers my hermetically sealed box and embrace life as much as possible and leave the dead things in the hermetically sealed box where they belong - only to visit them with the respect of one who is visiting a tomb.

Won't you join me?