Sorry to be heavy, but heavy is the cost

I'm not a masochist, or at least I don't think I am. For some reason the things I like the most are the ones who make my heart ache in the strongest of the ways, that get me analyzing every aspect of my life and dissecating it until I feel numb.
It's not that I enjoy pain, I truly don't, but in a way the human condition fascinates me. How a single situation can scar us and shapes us for the rest of our lifes, how thinking back on it always makes us feel it again as if it had never gone away but at the same time it felt distant, like looking through the mist in a winter morning. A false sense of security.
I know it might sound cliché but I like things that make me feel something, be it the utmost happiness or overwhelming pain. I just want them to shake me down to my core, leave me in a daze, send shivers all over.
I once found this amazing quote and it pin pointed exactly what I felt, straight and simple:

"We need the books that affect us like a disaster,
that grieve us deeply...
Like being banished into forests far from everyone,
like a suicide.
A book must be the ax for the frozen sea inside us."
- Franz Kafka

(Yes I'm aware you might find slightly different quotes but please keep in mind Kafka was german therefore it is normal that not every translation is virtualy the same. You do get the point right?)

I had never thought much on the subject but I suppose finding someone else who shared my views made it somehow more serious.
I'm aware not everybody might agree, but due to some of the things I went through I feel a much greater need to feel alive now than I ever recall having. I appreciate every little feeling for what it is, no matter what it is, because there were times I wasn't lucky enough to so much as have them. Things change though.
I remember being sick of everything, desperatly needing a way out. That was when I first learned what numbness meant.
Life amazes me, the intensity of it, how quickly it goes by. And sometimes I seem to forget the fragility of it, and of how precious it is.
I wonder how many peple stop to think about it aswell.

The idea for this post was somethat out of the blue, but I'll blame this song for triggering it.
Stars - Personal