Have you ever taken a moment to consider just how odd it is that you or I are alive?
well, I have. and the more I think about it the odder it seems.
it's strange to think that everything that I've
experienced thus far in my life can be simply described as a strange enough leading moment. each one composed of an incalculable number of little
pieces of the universe falling into place that can never again come together in exactly the same way.
This is all I know. A series of instances that if put together, would tell the story of my life.
Almost as incredible to me is how incapable I am of actually understanding
Why all of these little pieces of the universe have fallen into place in just the right way for me to be here?
Thinking these thoughts and speaking these words
Regardless of what I do or don't do that string of moments continues. each snapshot of the world
I live in blending into the next. each and every instant arriving too quickly and departing again before I can grab and hold on.
the full meaning of which escaping forever.
It's funny. I'm only just smart enough to know that this is beyond my ability to comprehend.
I'm only just intelligent enough to know that life is full of mysteries, but I will never be able to answer them.
I'm barely conscious enough to know that there's an awful lot happening beyond the limitations of my awareness.
How could I ever claim to actually know what's going on for the life of me?
I couldn't explain to you how I even got here why I'm living this bizarre string of fleeting moments in the first place
I'm told a long line of human beings against incredibly poor odds, successfully survived long enough for me to have a turn.
I wonder what they were like, I wonder what they would think of what they made
So generation after generation of lucky humans that avoided an early demise Here I am or what is essentially a gigantic
magnetic rock zooming through space
I find it striking that absolutely everything I've ever experienced has been filtered through a strange vehicle that I'm in called the human body
Every sensation I've ever had has been filtered through my hardware
Somehow there's an incredible ensemble of cells
microorganisms subatomic particles and who knows what else that make me what I am and
Yet this gigantic cocktail of very tiny pieces, much like the world around me, is always changing and evolving from instant to instant.
Never twice looking the same.
We live in a gigantic soup, where what separates you or me from everything else isn't entirely clear
It begs the question: if my very composition is impermanent; if cells and microorganisms die in our replaced, if matter changes states
What am I?
What is it that makes me ME?
With every fleeting moment that passes entropy is working its destructive magic on me.
And just like everyone that came before me. My closing act will eventually come.
It may be tomorrow or next month or 60 years from now.
What I do know is I'm aging and an unknown percentage of my life has already been lived
this is simply an admission to reality in the brevity of life.
An admission to the rules of the game. The same rules that have always existed; we're born. we live. we die.
And some part of me knows that this is simply how this works and I really don't have much say in the matter.
still whether or not I'm nothing more than a meandering passenger witnessing a million predetermined photographs that the universe blend into one another.
I can't help but think that it's fascinating all the same.
Being probability of it all
An infinite number of events had to take place to bring us to this very instant and yet here we are
What stranger still is that while I consider myself the protagonist in my own lifelong drama
I'm just one in billions of stories that are being told at the same time
I like to imagine to myself how the lives of everyone around me are every bit as rich and intense as mine. Their desires as real
as any of my own.
Perhaps they share some of my thoughts or I share some of theirs.
And so, billions of equally incredibly improbable lives are unfolding in parallel with my own.
Some of us will cross paths and we'll share some of these impossibly fleeting moments together.
We'll laugh and we'll talk and we'll miss each other.
We'll hesitate and we'll love and we'll cry.
We'll piss each other off. We'll do silly inexplicable things, and eventually at some point our paths will split again.
These moments meaningful or meaningless as they may be, feel real.
I'm not sure how much the answers to my questions matter really. It doesn't change the contract. It doesn't change that life inherently ends.
And while some might take that as a crushingly depressing idea, I don't quite feel the same way.
This is just the way things are, and actually there's something rather liberating about accepting it.
All the worry, the doubt, the stress, the fear, the drama. all of it so exists.
But when I look at things this way, at least I can occasionally step back and get a glimpse of something different.
The story that's happening underneath all of our individual stories.
For a short period of time I can look at everything with a little more curiosity
A little more perspective that I'm just a very small piece and a very big puzzle
It's all as important or as unimportant as I choose it to be
There's actually no such thing as winning and losing no such thing as getting ahead or falling behind
Life in this world is a strange absurd experience and maybe it's a complete waste of time to even try explaining it
Perhaps all the pain comes from trying to hold on to any one piece of it while the whole thing moves and changes
For a reason that still escapes me
I've been given the peculiar opportunity to spend a life that began ending as soon as it began
I've been given the peculiar opportunity to live in this time and place.
To pay attention and ask questions. to be curious about, and to experience what is by every measure
miraculously improbable existence.
Hey there, let's all pretend we're not having some sort of existential crisis
And while I've got your attention if you're willing to stick around for a few more minutes
I wanted to share a few updates on some projects that I'm working on right now that I'm excited about
This is exciting stuff. The first is a little project
I'm calling the mental clarity forest that I'm doing in collaboration with a
Really cool company based in Italy called the tree Dom I went and visited them in person last year
They take a very socially conscious approach to planting trees. So as to not only help the environment, which is extremely important, but also
communities that desperately need help with food and Income Security
So a lot of their work is happening in developing countries
And they do everything in their power to ensure a long term impact
It turns out planting trees is a lot more complicated than it seems it's not just flying drones that shoot
Pellets of seeds into the ground. We really need to do what we can to start fighting
Climate change if we want the world to be a livable place for our children
There's a lot of very concerning things that I'm seeing happening out there
And so that is why I'm pledging
10% of my patreon income every month and have been doing so since
Earth Day of this year if you're interested in supporting or being involved in this project
You can either support me on patreon and also get access to a whole bunch of other benefits like a private discord group
Ama's and behind-the-scenes material or you can directly contribute and I'll make sure a link is available in the description
More information is available on my website. For those of you that don't know. I recently launched a second channel called no back-up plan
it's just in general a little bit more laid-back and
Less like produced and so far the reaction has been amazing. I'm really enjoying it. I'm doing it more than I was expecting
honestly, and so if you like the videos on this channel
I'd encourage you to
Check that channel out too. I'll link to it below over the last few months
I've been adding resources a lot of resources onto my website including what I read, my gear
But also resources relating to mental health and mental clarity and language learning finally
I'm working on a photography book and have a few other really cool projects
In the pipeline, so if you're interested in finding out knowing when these things get released
I think the best way is to either sign up to my newsletter or follow me on Instagram
I actually do have more cooking but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. So I'm going to stop right there
Thank you. I really appreciate the continued support and I'll see you soon.