Forever

This picture is from Joseph Breitenbach. I am not sure why it is called Forever. Nevertheless, it is. What is forever? We human beings pretend that we'll be around forever. But we won't. I wonder, if you knew you'd die soon, why would you fight for a comfortable life instead of testing your limits and seizing the day? If you look around, the luxury we live in is build and created because we think we'll be around forever to benefit from it.

How many people die every day. And more are born. There are billions of us. Many billions of us already died and the world still goes on. Millions of people are in this world who are lost, lonely, hurt, or those who have brilliant ideas but cannot break through. Our existence is so insignificant if we lose our belonging to a context, a system, a network - to nature, to emotional sanity and honesty to ourselves and others.

Still our existence still has a meaning. In its modest way. And that is what we should be grateful for and rediscover ... ourselves. A brave new world would emerge if we'd finally stop pretending so much, huh?

We look so alike...but we aren't

Sometimes I find it striking how all human beings look alike. Of course, we are the same species. But what is more interesting than our similar appearance is how different we are underneath. When you look at a person, you can guess if the person is happy or sad, or if the person is dull or charismatic. But there is a lot more to it than that. Imagine, even parents and children have very different personalities and sometimes even values. On the surface, they look alike, but below the surface... one may save lives every day as a doctor whereas the other feels nausea from the sight of blood. One looks sure of himself and the other is shy, yet has a profound soul and mind. But all these qualities take time to reveal. It is exciting. Some find it extremely boring to talk about these kinds of things and look into exact sciences or just have to devote all their energy to survive from one day to another.

And on top of it all, depending on the circumstances one grows up in, "good" and "bad" differ according to culture. We are very complex beings.
On the other hand we all are determined by the pursuit of happiness. That's a thing we all have in common. And one more thing: the source of happiness is always inside of us. Hidden in our complex existence.