I'm Awake, I'm Alive

So at first as I read Thoreau’s “Where I Lived and What I Lived For." I thought that he would be disappointed if we were not all going around painting and sculpting art, but I realized that what he really means is that we all have our own talents to sculpt with, our own canvas and paint brush to color with, and our own lives to live. I loved when he said:

"It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts."

It was the last line that I really loved, "To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." and truly it is! And this was important to me because at first I felt bad for not being a marvelous artist, and I began to justify myself in my life, saying that I was creating my own art with my own life, and then he actually said that I was right in doing so, so then I felt great!

Thing is though, is that I know that I could do better in my day brightening, I could do more, give more life and color to my canvas. That is why I love artistic writing like this, cause it helps me want to improve my life and my canvas and stop living like an ant.

I'd like to go into where I got the title for this blog post, its a song by a Christian hard rock band called Skrillex. The title of the song is "Awake and Alive," and its kind of like a prayer to God, a prayer of gratitude: 

"I'm awake, I'm alive
Now I know what I believe inside
Now it's my time
I'll do what I want 'cause this is my life

(Here, right now)
Right here, right now
Stand my ground and never back down
I know what I believe inside
I'm awake, and I'm alive

I'm at war with the world
'Cause I ain't never gonna sell my soul
I've already made up my mind
No matter what, I can't be bought or sold."

What this tells me, and how it relates to the topic, is that through God I am woken up, and in Him I am alive. He is the one that inspires my life to be magnificent. Living for God is what makes me walk away from what is expected of me and walk towards what I know is right. Doing so is what makes my work important and my life meaningful. I am waking up.