This year has really escaped from me. I've viscerally burrowed into myself only to poke my head out and find, yet again, that the world continued to spin. I have often found myself engulfed mind body and soul by what I'm immediately doing, whether that be washing dishes or pondering the blue jays outside. The rest of the world is near silent, near invisible at times. The focused effort it took to be present in the world in so many places was so suffocating it was easier to retreat into myself and continue to dig at my own person. Questions such as "Who am I?" are often regarded as eye-rolling pretentiousness, but when the layers of one's self go so deep you can't find the bottom, is it ever acceptable not to ask that? I've never been one to think so. So yet again I carve away at the marble slab that is myself, and see once again if I can make it any better.
At what point does it become duty to know thyself? When does someone owe self improvement to the world around them? To a degree, I think we owe it to ourselves as much as everyone around us. That kind of ideal doesn't mean mandating therapy, or enforcing burnout for the sake of some vapid idea of 'progress'. I think that just means celebrating honest growth, however that manifests. We as human beings are an instance of the universe inflicting it's own will upon itself. Including all the order and chaos that comes from them. At the end of all of this, I still don't belive in some sort of higer power, energy, or god. I simply believe we are all the mercy and wrath of the same cosmic orchestration.
I believe this recent personal revelation came from my return to art. The connection and oneness I feel when admiring the beauty of creation. Something I think all living things can rejoice in universally. Where cows race accross a field to listen to their owners song, captive animals foster trans-species children as their own, or seeing the flowers on your street blossom overnight into a symphony of color.
Even now, I cry reflecting on the beauty of creation. An expression of the fractal that is our universe expanding further still, every moment pushing it's own boundaries.
As stewards of this great gift of creation, we are all privileged. Through any stray wisp among the cosmos we could simply not have ever been.
Yet, we are. It is an honor and privilege to simply perceive the universe around us with this much depth. Nowadays, this kind of fascination, even admiration for life and it's constant pursuit of persistence are the things I look for in new friends.