Happiness, One By One

The most influential forces in my life have been, in no particular order:

• Cartoons.
• Sierra, my best friend from the third grade to the sixth grade.
• Anime.
• Shef.
• Getting my haircut in 2007.
• The whole GTD craze, which led to me deliberately breaking out of my social shell.
• Astronomy.

Torrents of rain bombard the streets in long, silver curtains. I can barely see the road, the rain is so thick. It’s marvelous to look at, but it sort of dampened (no pun intended, I swear) my plans to head out to Caribou Coffee.

So I’m stuck in my room, writing now in my journal. I watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth last night and it reawakened that “realization of existence” in me, especially the famous “Earthrise” picture.

The first picture of Earth taken from the Moon.

Earth really is such an infinitely fascinating planet. In the gorgeous, lonely abyss of the universe lies this lone planet where life doesn’t just exist, but thrives. Astronomy is such a passion for me–a very personal and deep passion–because it ignited inside me the most raw, genuine sense of spirituality.

It reeled in all of these threads of study and fragments of human–no, Earthling– existence into one coherent, beautiful tapestry that makes me have to physically restrain from tearing up when I think about it. The universe and everything in it is so utterly beautiful– not only visually breathtaking, albiet blooming nebulas and majestic mountains and serene seas undoubtedly are– but also in the perfection in its harmony of form and function. I regret that it took me so long to step back, WAY back, and see how insignifcant yet miraculous our existence is. Everything is so much more beautiful than religion can ever describe. A shame that humans get so wrapped up in affairs of no importance outside the realm of people.

Astronomy, more than anything, is what woke me up as a newer, happier, less wasteful, and more conscious of a human being. I hope I never lose this feeling of consciousness.