Chloroplasts churn

until they don’t, and

the dessicate thing

can only clasp the bark

so long.

Wind separates the stem;

leaf falls to earth atop

a dozen more.

A hundred will follow

tomorrow

on every block

in every forest

and will again next year

from the same dimple on

that branch

where no one sees.

Kneel.

Lift it.

Nothing more

beautiful and vital

will ever touch your palm.

A humble match may seem insignificant amongst a forest of trees.

Yet light it on fire and it can burn down acres with relative ease.

Just like a small pebble can cause the calm waters to ripple.

One man’ s voice can change the thoughts of millions of people.

Just like tiny atoms hold within a great power.

Our insignificant lives have the potential to empower.

WE ARE NOTHING.

WHICH MEANS WE CAN BE ANYTHING.

The empty space has no name.

The empty space is not scary.

Not dark.

Not alluring.

It just is.

As are we.

We just are.

We can play this game however we like.

We can be sad.

We can be joyful.

We can be beautiful.

We can be all of the above.

We decide.

When we tap into this knowing,

We tap into that nothing,

That some thing,

That, out of anything, we call “divine.”

And when we tap into our creative powers,

To create life in our image,

On our terms,

In our own words,

With our chosen meaning,

That is when we taste the heights,

Of that thing

We may call

God.

And when we are in this space,

This “God-head,”

We are our most unique,

Most alive,

Most true to our real, expressed voice,

That no one else can copy,

No one else can match,

No one else can possibly be.

We go from being something

We never thought about,

Something we just thought

Was “the truth,”

To being anything we choose to say we are,

And the actions we take in line with that.

That is utterly insignificant,

And yet so significant.

It is a gift we all possess,

But it is a gift nonetheless.

We all spend our whole lives trying to figure out what life really is. Everyone holds a slightly different opinion of life from everyone else, and yet, even as I have studied religions and philosophies and science and ideologies for my entire life and continue to do so, I still have no clear answer. I have come to the conclusion that life is meaningless, in a broad sense, but that is merely my conclusion. Everyone else in this world believes something at least slightly different than me. So, there is one way to live life both safe and with no regrets.

Pliny the Elder stated that “the only certainty is that nothing is certain,” and that can be applied to life as well. The way I see it, we all have our differing perspectives on what life is, but ultimately, we can only guess, theorize, or observe the scientific universe. In my eyes, there is no indication of anything spirtual about life, nor is there anything indicating that there is no spirtual aspect to life. So the way to live life is to live it in two ways.

First, one must do what they want to do in life, and simply enjoy themselves as much as they can. This way, if they get to the end and it all really was for nothing, they made their life worth while. Second, to live freely, one must live without regrets as much as they can. They must be kind to others, because through being kind, one feels good themselves. One may hold no allegiance, but they may take sides as much as they please. One should hurt others as little as they possibly can, and work together with their counterparts as often as possible. This way, when life ends, we have done all we can for ourselves, and for each other.

Science dictates that we are, at our smallest form, composed of electrons that react in various ways, all of them determined to achieve collections of eight, and that is why everything happens, really. But despite this, despite the repetition and movements of the universe, like coding on a computer - so exact and bound by laws that we are starting to understand - there is still the human conscience. We are able to determine for ourselves the paths we take, which completely disobeys the laws of chemistry, or does it? The human mind is unpredictable, yes, but it still strives for the basic element of survival.

To me, life holds no value, meaning, or significance, but that, in my opinion, is a reason to believe that life is all the more grand. For, if we acknowledge our tiny lives and our meaningless existence (by chance and evolution, we evolved), we can truly marvel at what an achievement humanity has become. The universe does not say that life forms must create complex societies and cultures, yet humans have done that.

We have been on Earth for a tiny sliver of time compared to nearly all other specimen. We, as humans, nevertheless, have done one million times more than all other specimen combined. Even in our short, insignificant lives, we have built cities of steel, built giant birds of metal, ventured beyond our own planet, created digital communication. Pliny the Elder said that all things are uncertain, and that is certain. Humans, are so unpredictable, and that is why we are so great. Marvel in your greatness! Marvel in your glory!!!

#opinion

Nothing matters.

Every action is as trivial as the next.

Every desision as insignificant and unimportant.

Should you choose to pertain to societies rules it would not matter, but you won't experience all there is to experience.

Should you push away from social norms and make desisions based in curiosity and impulses, then you shall feel a wonderous array of human emotions.

Nothing matters objectively, but anything can matter subjectively.

It's all about your mind and your emotions, it's all about how YOU feel.

If I and You, beyond any condition to our favor, because we favour, or disfavor, can come to live in good terms with our shortcomings and imperfections in a congenial spirit, the world would probably become a congenial place to share delightfully, because then, we would limit our judgments about imperfections to ourselves, instead of chasing a scapegoat endlessly, not realizing who the culprit is, and a cultivated world must begin with I, just as a beautiful garden must begin with a skilled farmer.

if you look at it, run your logic all the way down the line, you come up with something pretty awful and bleak.

sadly, once you start this process, it is hard to stop it. existential enui is like a juice-omatic. it is noisy, it is sharp, it grinds down everything you throw at it. worse still, it does not come with an off switch.

how we learn and came by this horrid purchase i do not know. but it hurts and drives us insane, if we let it rumble on..

but , THAT WAS NOT THE QUESTION!

the question is how we find a balance between the necessities and requirments of actually living our lives while still having that deconstruction-juiceomatic pounding away at the background, turning our peace of mind to a pulpy mess.

it's hard, I'll tell you. as i said, that juice machine has no off button. in fact, it only gets noisier if you try to shut it down. and even if you could turn that existential enui off, would you like the person you would become? a dumbed down, reptillian jerk who only has pragmatics and needs on his mind...

art, music, symblic thought are the handy pearing knife and icecle mold that were thrown in with this deal.

so we can't labotomize. or shouldn't.

balancing the juice-omatic with real life gets hard. sometimes, all it takes is a little moment if hardship, to throw that gizmo into high-speed blend. it feeds on our bitterness and fears, and brings us a adaquately bitter , pitch-black smoothy.

again, how then do we balance it out?

my.friends, here we have massive amounts of constructive work to do, and thankfully, much has already been done. millions of people have had this question and millions more will have it.

they have ideas for you. i've written often about this myself, but today, i feel lazy.

you probably know the advice youre going get anyway.

these pieces of wisdome are not part of a unified , all inclusive, all solving scheme. the juicer grinds those down easy enough.

I suggest, then, that you lose hope of ever completely silencing the existential doubt. it will come and hurt , but it will pass. learning to refocus your thoughts, finding comfort in other people or taking descisive action tend to help. they are topical remedies, relieving only mild symptoms.

i'll end this by telling you a story out of my pathetic experience.

when i was in collage, i took a course about chinese philosophy. my professor was often drenched in my existential-juice related questions. he would smile patiently, during office hours, as i went through the list of questions he asked me to make, just to get work done in class.

one day, he told me: you know what? maybe you can try and build your own philosophy. go through your notes,.memories reasoning, and thoughts and try to make something that you can use. some kind of frame. " i was excited. it never occured to me to write my own philosophy. I foolishly went ahead with his idea. i thought and scribbled and thought some more. soon enough, i got depressed, i ate too much. you see, it all fails in the end. there is nothing uniform i can say about everything. I could makevstatments that i saw as thevtruth, butvthey jeld contradictions and conflicted with each other. in the end, i realized that no novel reasoning or meaning can i find. thrre was no historical breakthrough. better, far better minds have tried and failed.

finally , i go to him, my teacher, frustrated and report of my failure. i tell him i can only come up with simple, unsatisfying bullet points. something that belongs in a self help pamphlet. (not even a book!)

he smiles through all of that , not out of amusment, but out of sympathy.

and he says seremoneously "well...I'm impressed"

we start laughing.

here's what i got.

the bullet points are all i got. the 'be kind to others', 'do constructive stuff' crap. everyone knows that. it is not satisfying but it is the real truth. what we humans can get at.

but, take a second look, and see something. something beautiful and wise:

all of this running around , all my work, all the situation of sitting with my professor in his tiny office, surrounded by papers and books...AND WE ARE LAUGHING! take this moment , and laugh too. that will help balance things.