Living With Ataraxia

I have something in common with the main character of my all-time favorite movie, ataraxia. In Lucky Number Slevin, Josh Hartnett’s character, Slevin Kelevra, defines this disorder of his as, “a condition characterized by freedom from worry or any other pre-occupation really.” Now, ataraxia is not a real condition, but rather a state of emotional tranquility. Sleven, in the movie, just has this as his constant state of being, and I can relate. It’s not that I don’t know stress; I have been stressed before. I just don’t let stress bother me. I grew up with an older sister who lived (and is still living) her life in a constant state of stress, anxiety, and worry. Seeing her cry over homework, worry about her future, and let things that were completely out of her control drive her crazy as we grew up, I decided not to live that way. What has worry ever done for anyone? It was growing up watching my sister cope with her anxieties, and my parents as well with worries and stressors of their own, that I decided to not live my life that way. It wasn’t something that happened all at once, but once I decided not to let things get to me, I remember slowly learning to live more freely. In some ways I have achieved exactly what I wanted to do, but in other ways I feel I may have let things slip too far. I care very deeply about some things, but I do live care free. I physically and mentally cannot get worked up over things. Worries flutter in and out of my mind, and once they’re gone, I never even consider giving them second glance. Now this is a strange thought, because as they pass through, I over think every pedantic detail of them, as I do about most things. After over analyzing each and every facet though, I decide how to approach the situation, and then I do it. I weigh the consequences of my actions against the potential reward. If the consequences seem manageable enough then nothing will hold me back. This just leads deeper into the ataraxia. Once I know, or at least think I know, about the negative penalties and I figuratively sign the contract saying I will gladly pay the price for my actions, I have nothing else to fear beside what I know I deserve. Most of the time the questions running through my mind with each passing idea are: How bad do I want this? What’s the worst that can happen? If the worst happens, is it even going to be more than a distant memory years down the road from now? And then I always try and ask myself, how it’ll make others feel. If your goal is to make people smile, and fall in love with life the way you have, I find that little to no bad can ever come of it. My “fear” with this is that I will continue to become decreasingly detached from the adrenalin of worry. I use “fear” loosely here because I’ve already made my mind up to live this way. It’s really more of a curiosity of how far this will go before becoming something that I’ll feel the need to try and turn back the other direction. Until that happens, if it ever dose, I will continue to dance in the rain without a coat fully knowing the cold that’s bound to follow. I will skip class and forgo homework allowing my grades to slip ever so slightly if I feel they aren’t worthy of my efforts. And I will not just fall, but rather leap headlong into love every chance I get, knowing full well that most of the time falling in love comes with a sudden stop. I will do this because the hope for positive pleasurable outcomes far outweighs any fears or doubts. Life is just too short not to live every moment on the edge with the wind at my face, a song in my heart, and scars and scrapes covering my body from all the other times I failed, but failed in such a way that I could pick myself back up and fail again.