What makes me feel the most alive: A Fahrenheit 451 Post

My uni library has the best editions of classic books.

So I'm not sure if anyone else here is reading Fahrenheit 451 with John right now. I've been meaning to read it for ages. No, really. Not in the "Oh, I should read the classics" kinda way, which, aptly enough, is decried as the precursor to the downfall of civilisation in the book. I've had this on my list in an "I read A Sound Of Thunder about six months ago and realised that holy crap can Ray Bradbury write, I should find some more of his stuff." kind of way.

And I think this is a much better place to discuss it than a Youtube comment thread.

I'm not going to put too fine a point on this: This book scares the living daylights out of me. Because we have a wall-sized TV. I have tiny thimble radios in my ears right now. I spend a great deal of both time and money on superficially interacting with imaginary people on a screen. I think Ray Bradbury would be horrifed with my addiction to webcomics, a medium in which more than three panels before "the gag and the snap ending" is considered unusual. And with the utmost respect to what John and Hank do with the medium, making the extent of your discourse a series of four-minute videos would probably horrify him too.

At the same time, I have to look at this optimistically. Sure, it's a four-minute video, but if just one percent of the people who've commented actually bother to read the book, that's four hundred people who've read a brilliantly written, extremely thought-provoking classic science fiction novel. And I think that probably gives me at least as much hope as the book itself took away. I'm certain it's not a coincidence that John chose this book. It's not long, and it's compelling to read, but it challenges the hell out of a lot of what we do, especially on the internet.

John asked this question in the video: What makes you feel the most alive?

I'm pretty sure it's this: (and I'm still assembling this argument from bits of the book, and bits of the video, and bits from my mind, so it's going to take a bit to get to the point, but you can damn well sit through it).

Captain Beatty says the purpose of life is to be happy, to stay happy, all the time.  I think it's important we don't equate that with asking "what makes you happy". Really being alive, I think, is about pushing yourself. It's about experiencing the broadest possible range of ideas and emotional states and points of view, of which happiness is really only a tiny subset. I feel happy when I'm downing a season of a TV show, but I don't feel alive. Whereas riding my bike through the pouring rain makes me feel savagely annoyed, and freezing cold, but it also reminds me that I am absolutely, undeniably, alive.

There's a reason people push themselves. There's a reason we run marathons and break into abandoned buildings. There's a reason John Green gets up on stage in front of thousands of people despite an actual medically diagnosed anxiety disorder. There's a reason we get excited when we find the Higgs boson or when we send a rover to land on mars. (Totally pumped for Curiosity landing, by the way.) I think it's because deep down, we know that pushing ourselves (or being pushed) to experience, is what it's all about. Even if we aren't very good at putting that conviction into action all the time. Seven minutes of pure unadulterated mars-lander powered terror is worth a lifetime of numb sitcom-induced happiness.

I haven't read past part one yet, so I'm not sure what conclusion the book comes to, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's something very very similar.

So now it's your turn to answer. What makes you guys feel the most alive?