Then all of a sudden, the little troubles we bicker about and worry about fade away. You wouldn't stress about that one exam coming up, or that one time someone was rude to you. You would probably spend time wth your family, and get off that darn phone. You would probably go walk in nature, taking all the complexity of life in. The truth is, we all walk on the very tight line between life and death. Every moment is not guaranteed-- it is not certain that you will wake up tomorrow. Even now, the whole world could spontaneously erupt in nuclear war, and everything would end. Sometimes, we forget how fragile our existence is, and toss it around without care. Treasure every moment, because you don't know how many there might be left. Live like you are dying, because you are.

I don't have a book review for you guys, but I still felt like writing. I want to capture a feeling. The night is pitch-black: trees once visible in the day are now shrouded in darkness. You are alone on the street, save for the occasional passing headlights. Your lights illuminate a portion of the road ahead, and then it's darkness again. It is a strange feeling-- you feel the nostalgia of the past, and burden of the present, all at once. Once upon a time, you were the child gazing out of the window, looking at the trees and long grass whisk by. Now you are at the wheel, yet it feels as if nothing has changed. Memories fade; everything fades. The universe will continue increasing in entropy, until eventually all stars, life, energy smoothes out into the continuous blanket of space. At the end of time, there will be no signs that life, stars, and galaxies even existed. Here, nothing will happen, and it will keep not happening, forever. Why do I bring this up? Do I want to give you an existential crisis? Yes. Yes, because questioning your existence proves that you are alive: that you still care about the world. The greatest enemy of our generation is not social media, AI, war, or poverty: it is apathy. The moment we stop caring about things-- even the little, pointless things-- is the moment we give up our humanity. Brain cells degenerate: neurological pathways become abandoned. Time forces us to forget. One day, you will forget your childhood entirely. Forgetting is sad, but it is the price we pay for living. Because being able to live is greater than having to forget. Living fully-- being able to experience life in its entirety-- that is a gift. Living fully means to accept it all. Not just the happy moments, but also the sad moments, and the moments where you feel existential anxiety. These little moments are more powerful than a thousand memories, because memories fade, but existence does not. To be alive is to be able to feel: to experience. Life is suffering, but it is also happiness. Life is painful, but also rewarding. Life is great.

My schedule has somewhat quieted down, and I feel that there is enough time in my routine to read a book every ~two weeks. Should I start writing/recording book talks again? If there's as much as one person who would benefit from this, I'll continue.

I have a lot of goals I want to achieve and stuff and I try my best to put in on my schedule. But i eventually end up prioritizing other things and spending more time on it, even though I want to do these things and they're important to me. How do I stay good at some other things I'm doing while adding in the new things withou being sleep deprived 😭

Life is a journey from one place to itself. Its end is identical to its start. We enter the world with nothing, and leave with nothing. By this logic, you could assume that life is pointless; after all, we end up no further than we start. But the nihilist argument is flawed. It is only true from the perspective of the outside observer. The truth is that life exists in the moment, for whatsoever brief window of time it can. Just because we end up in the same place as we started does not mean the journey itself didn't happen. And so what if there isn't a grand answer to the meaning of life-- there doesn't have to be. Some people would like to live forever. Others would like for everything to be fixed: no more war, poverty, or famine. To those people, I ask of you this: would you rather live forever in an existence devoid of meaning, or live in a world of problems that gives you meaning? A life that never ends is a life that never began: everything worthwhile has to end, and nothing that lasts forever is worthwhile. As for the people who would like for the world to be perfect: nothing can be perfect. There can be no meaning if everything is already done for you: the moment society becomes a utopia is the moment life becomes meaningless. The journey and the struggle to the heights is enough. In the end, all of us will come tumbling back down the mountain like Sisyphus, never having reached its peak. Yet that does not negate the fact that the journey existed... the fact that an impossible task was attempted by mortal men. We should be thankful that the mountain is never-ending, and that our lives are finite. It is precisely this that makes life precious. Before you depart and continue on with your lives-- remember this. Time passes, and we grow up. The childhood curiousity we once had is replaced by busy work and the obligations of an adult. This can be sad and even frightening, but in truth, there is no 'correct' or 'incorrect' way to live life. It is, however, a shame to forget your childhood and lose that curiousity for the world. As human beings, we may not be destined for the stars, but we sure as hell can attempt it.