Living Juicy was written in 1994 by a woman named SARK (an acronym of her original name). Living Juicy means challenging the ordinary, making a point of doing things that bring delight. It’s about not merely living your life, but going for the juice. “Sucking out all the marrow of life,” to quote Thoreau.
Living Juicy is about looking for opportunities to get wet: cry, swim, sweat, shag (i.e., roll in the hay). It’s about embracing opportunities to be and look foolish, to create, to escape, to be wrong instead of right, to run away and to run toward. It’s about being a spelunker, an explorer, and being “curiouser and curiouser,” to quote Lewis Carroll.
By being juicy, we avoid becoming cynical and jaded, or curmudgeonly, a Dead Sea where nothing flows in or out. It takes most people to about the age of 40 to stop worrying about what others think, a very helpful accomplishment in learning to go for the juice. I challenge my younger readers to beat the odds. Behaving juicy can lead to less concern about the judgment of others.
Woman belly up to the Juice Bar more easily than do men, at least most straight men. I think this is partly biological, because women bleed more often and cry more easily than do men. Also, young girls are allowed a number of options for dealing with difficult situations, while boys often see only one option: combat (especially in middle school). Prepubescent boys can be especially cruel toward boys who deviate from the combat option. Now that we’re grown and largely separated from the bullies , I encourage my fellow men to put aside being so serious, and angry, and driven, and stiff. The transition from combative to juicy is no small accomplishment, but worth the effort. I encourage both sexes to loosen up, move those hips (forgive me, I’m a dancer), sing, write, paint, play, and laugh at ourselves.