To be completely honest, at first I was drawn to the Hanging by George Orwell. The dark nature and cynicism behind Orwell's The Hanging is more to my liking than The Chase, as dark themes that deal with the harsh realities of our human world appeals to me more than the drive that brings us to happiness. But today, just as George Orwell faced a certain revelation when he saw a single human action, I too was changed in my decision of what to write of by a single human action, though I won't detail what that was, I will give my thoughts on The Chase.
The Chase can be summed up quite easily, it's a narrative on the life of Annie Dillard and a moment in her life that she summed up to be the happiest moment of her life. And that moment was a chase, a chase where a single adult man persisted and stopped at nothing to capture her and her companion, simply because they had thrown a snowball at his car. In logical deductive terms, it's a rather simple situation, child does something mischievous and adult reciprocates. But there is a much deeper meaning.
There are times in our lives, times we do not always suspect, but they come. They come like a flash-flood or a suddenly developed storm, and they overtake us completely. Sometimes these moments are negative, sometimes they are positive. This moment in the author's life was important, it was a moment where reality became distorted, where the ennui of daily living was ignored for the moment, the Chase through out the neighborhood she frequented, things she had seen before, the streets she had walked through time and time again. But it was different, this man, became the catalyst for change. He turned the dull into the exciting, he turned the mundane into the extraordinary. For a few brief moments in time, the world which she had only known to be a drab and dull place, turned vivid, colorful, and envigorating. Why...?
As human beings, we are doomed to a life of routine. Children are more easily able to bypass this, they are more capable of changing routine into momentary impulse. But ultimately, both children and adults are doomed to conform to a life of routine. However, this man, this man broke it all, with his action and his persuit, he divulged them both. They were both aware of the all-or-nothingness of Football and life itself, but they weren't fully cognicant of it, it was only now, when they were thrown into a situation where they were chased through out the whole of the neighborhood, that it became fully appreciated and understood. The strides they made, every gasp, every breath, every drop of sweat served to enlighten them and reassure them of the liveliness of life, the liveliness of that chase. Routine, reality, society, science, culture, everything faded away as the very street they played on blurred as they ran away from this solitary man. Moments where adrenaline took over, where wrong and good became vague, and the only thing left was a victor and the defeated; All or nothing.
Why was she happiest at that moment, more than any other in her life?
There are moments in our lives that define us more than any others, there are moments that push every faculty we have been endowed with by God and man to the test, these moments, these very few and brief moments impact us more than any other. We never know when they are coming, but when they do, we can be sure that we will not remain the same at the end of them. All or nothing, that is precisely what life is. Almost and close only count with horse-shoes and hand-grenades. Whether you lose or win, you lay it all on the line, that moment, that slight instant between loss and victory, is the moment when we are our happiest, or most miserable. The author knew this, she knew as a child, perhaps not able to put it into words, but she knew, that that moment, that chase, was where she was most alive. The common day routine, the ennui of daily living dulls us... But change, personal evolution, brings us life.
The Chase, is the account of a person who realized that in a single day, in a single hour, one can feel more alive, than they have in their entire life. We all have them, those moments.
But the question is, do we give it our all-or-nothing?
Do we dare lay it all on the line?
Animated Version of 'The Chase.'" ™
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