Meaning

    During these past years, I have begun to stare off into the distance more often. I have heard the echo of chirping birds amongst the trees. I have felt the warmth of a summer rainstorm upon my skin. I have smelled a cloud of spices wafting about the churning kitchen. I have felt the flickering heat of a campfire in the depths of a starry night. I have watched the sunrise appear from out of the shadows of morning.

    Eventually, my eyes grew tired, blurry from their strain, and I couldn't blink it all away. Sometimes things are predecided and predictable, but when the world seems to rush at you in such a stream, your benefits often slip by.

    So, when I had the chance to pause, I went and messed it all up, disarming my own rhythms and patterns, wasting time, and running my lungs dry in the depths of the dark. What I found there, though, was nothing so shattered and broken as what you might suppose, for things will always work out unless you make them not. You have the power over your life, not the stream that necessarily tugs you forward.

    Productivity is a curious thing. Many times the work we do is without a concrete result or a tangible benefit or even useful at all. It is just something that must be done. Of course, many occupations have their purpose beyond the employment of people, but such a disconnect between the creator and the created is a certain cause of modern blindness and disapprobation. This backdrop for daily life creates a setting in which no one truly cares, or at least cares enough to spark a vibrant change.

    It is not as if the social existence of society today is dissatisfied, for many have, particularly in the United States, whatever is needed and necessary. Those that do not, fight. Those who do often slide into a satisfied monotony, a monochrome existence in which the only colors that pop are artificial, the only laughs that exist are forced, the only purpose is to survive on. Not to live but to survive. Do not let that blandness be you.

    Music played off in the distance, faint across the dried out field of grass. It was a summertime dusk, and the dome of the sky seemed ever so far above us. The streetlamp nearby flickered with the deaths of unfortunate mosquitos. For hours, we sat. We laid. We talked. And there was nothing more powerful in that moment than the words that coursed through the air, the joy within my stomach, the laughter in my veins.

    Sometimes it takes turning out all the lights, breaking all the rules to see the color present in front of you all along.

    The drive to do more doesn't have to steal you forward. What you do with your life doesn't have to be keeping up with a standard. It can be the building of a pillar of ideas, of memories, of knowledge, of dreams, of ability, not just a struggle to hold on to a perfect existence, for when such a fall occurs, and it will, the drop isn't too far.

    As you continue through life, picking through your necessary, daily actions, you choose what you look at. Do your eyes trace the butterfly's path through the nearby garden? Do you stare down at the cracked concrete beneath your feet? Do you think about your history project due tomorrow? Do you think about the volleyball game you have scheduled this weekend? All thoughts have value. It's just that the most prominent ones to you determine who you are.

    Some may question why we do anything at all. There are a variety of answers to this question, but in my mind the most fitting answer is because we choose to. We care for others because we want to. We graduate from college because we want to. We fight wars because we want to. We create music because we want to. We follow our dreams because we want to. 

    And that desire to fight on through the tough, that endurance of wanting is what makes us truly alive. It is also what is missing when everything goes grey.

    You have to feel alive to want more of it. Whether it be fear or jubilation or disappointment or ecstasy, you must want more. To feel is to truly live, and to live is to be something greater than the body you possess. To live is to be more than just the records on your shelf. To live is to be present in each and every moment. To live is to not just aspire to do more but to see more as well.

    Do not settle for what you have. Live for what you can be.

    One night, I was collapsed underneath a dimly shining streetlamp. The air was thick. My feet ached. My lungs curled. The stars were bright that night, pinpricks of light barely visible through the city's haze. The grass was slick beneath my hands as I sat, my eyes tracing the shadowy leaves fluttering lightly in the slight breeze. My ankles felt fuzzy with dullness. Blood seemed to run sluggishly through my system. The wires overhead flickered in the orange light as they swung back and forth and back and forth. Staring up at the deep indigo of the night sky, I could taste the lingering stickiness of artificial sugar in my mouth. The sun had just set. I looked out again, across the scene in front of me. Distant headlights flickered upon it at irregular intervals. The rumble of the highway grumbled in the background. The road ahead looked so hard and uncompromising, so grey. But everything around it was so beautiful.