flabbergasted

forget what you thought you knew. the world is full of mystery, glamor, intrigue, hope–– we simply live in it, watching it form and change around us, sometimes shaped by our hands, sometimes unexpected, purely natural. oceans hide ruins of lost civilizations, buried treasure, forgotten people, dead loved ones, families. the earth hides multitudes, elements we might not even have names for yet, the bodies of people who walked the earth when god hadn't even been invented yet, all held together by a molten core that we've never seen before and probable never will. we cannot even comprehend our own brains, those mysterious lumps of flesh suspended in water and powered by electricity, responsible for movement and thoughts and dreams and personality, responsible for our entire identity–– and yet, a mystery. a blackbox, the contents of which we might never truly understand.

learning our place in the universe might be overwhelming. look the stars in their eyes and remember that they do not look back, they are too far away, living their own lives billions of miles away. they look at their own stars, and the cycle continues on and on, past the edge of the universe and into infinity.

about time we look at ourselves and answer the question we've been asking ourselves: why am i here? here, as in the place? perhaps a house with a mirror, or a public bathroom, or simply a window as you're walking down the street and you make the mistake of making eye contact with your reflection and it beckons, promising answers that don't exist. why am i here? we were not meant to know the answer. we merely fill in the blanks with a meaning that satisfies us until the end, or we borrow someone else's meaning, or we spend the rest of our lives searching. it matters not, the world is here and we are on it, whether we like it or not, whether we know why or not.'

broken pieces never fit back together perfectly, there are gaps in the glass where the surface was reduced to powder. we can seal the cracks with gold but the meaning of the original is gone, replaced now by a metaphor for healing and trauma. we can never return to the way we were. does that mean we never heal? or is healing something else, something deeper? perhaps we are not meant to be the way we were, perhaps this is the universe's way of telling us we need to change. and we will change, for better or for worse. the universe wills it, and gives no thought to the lives it destroys.

bodies, mere collections of atoms with empty spaces in between, and yet we call ourselves solid. bodies that bend, bodies that break, bodies that grow, bodies that crumble and decay. everything has a body. bodies of water, the trunks of trees, the welcoming hands of the clock. everything has form. nothing is solid. even mountains move, with time.

ending the story is always bittersweet. finality is the one thing that terrifies us most and also what soothes us. when we are gone, we will no longer be responsible for what happens to us or anyone else. but when we are gone, we will no longer be able to control what happens to us or anyone else. it is the ultimate surrender, finally giving in to the tides of fate. and it sweeps us away.

revolution begins, a clash of ideals, rebels seeking freedom, justice, reparations. we are all the rebels, whether we admit it or not. we are all fighting each day, and most of the night, until one day we wake up and we've lost the war, or we defect to the other side in shame, and the rest of our lives is merely watching ourselves live from afar. life is a revolution, one that we are unable to win, but that cannot be lost.

grasped the truth at last, have you? have you found what it is that makes us real, that makes us human, that makes us alive? we are infinite, we are broken, we are strange malleable forms that twist under the cruel hands of time until we find our past selves unrecognizable. we grasp our own selves and hide our identities in the palms of our hands, carved into the grooves and callouses so deeply that even the most skilled palm reader cannot decipher.

as odd as it sounds, there is no difference between you and i. both of us are lumps of flesh suspended in cerebral fluid, salt and water, fueled by electricity, piloted by a conscience that we are only half aware of. the bodies we are in are mere happenstance. our genes and personality are mere side effectsit is not what we are. it is merely a machine piloted by a parasite. a complex, dysfunctional machine. with opposable thumbs.

successful, who defines success? is it wealth, happiness, fame, remembrance? is it flowers left on your headstone decades after you passed, or simply who owns the largest headstone? can you define your own success, or must it be decided for you by a council of strangers? perhaps the greatest success is simply existing. we won a race before we were even born, and each day after our birth we have avoided millions of lethal accidents only to end up here. alive.

though our story is nearing its close and the sentences grow slimmer, know that even the smallest chunks of text can contain the greatest meaning.

everyone and everything comes to an end, of that we can all be certain. perhaps one day, even death itself might come to an end, releasing the souls of long lost loved ones back onto the earth to roam once again, to live their life as they should have lived it the first time. perhaps they will live their life exactly the same way as they did before they

died.