Surviving or Living?

“‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.’” (Huxley 240)

From this quote alone, you might think the speaker is insane. A world without comfort, who would want that? However, put with the context that these people he is speaking to are being manipulated, may change your mind. From birth they go under hypnopaedic procedures to ensure their conformity to society. These people believe that there is no God, literature should be banned, and nothing is better than soma (or drugs). This imaginary world is where you live blinded by the possibilities of beauty. The idea of children from a mother’s womb is the most horrendous, appalling thing in the world. This world is filled with safety and comfort, but no love and no creative glamor. Would you give up the chance of a beautiful life, with Heaven, individuality, and art, for a short-lived, drugged-up life heading nowhere?  

The speaker stands up and speaks against what they call “normal”.  He explains that he wants to live and not do the bare minimum to survive.  He would rather take risks than sit at home regretting never taking the chance. He wants everything to mean something rather than just letting it go.  Even if it is safer to stay in the dystopian world, he wants to go out and find the truth that the government has hidden, proving that sometimes you have to go the extra mile to find something worth living. 

There is a difference between surviving and living. Surviving is doing what you need to do to be existentant. Living is doing what you need to, to thrive and shine. So do you take the easy road to survive or the harder road to live?