…Therefore…

What is the nature of existence? The question has been around since before I was a gleam in my parents eyes. It will be around long after I’ve turned to dust. It could be because it is the kind of question that simply does not have one all-encompassing answer. It could be that the question is unique to each person: Self-aware brains that struggle to cope with what they’re seeing and feeling around them, with the emotions tied to those experiences, making each answer tailored to that person. I don’t know. This isn’t about that, it’s just something that crosses my mind from the moment I wake up, until I pass out for sleep the next day.
While I do not understand why we exist, if there is such a reason, I do understand that we exist. You exist, and I exist. It is such a deceptively mundane concept. It is taken for granted, generally ignored, and often exploited. For me, “I exist” is as fundamental a statement as “I love.”
My body pulses with life, it thrives. The energy contained within me, in the form of heat, and will, is the lifeblood of my soul. Whether one believes in an actual soul is of no concern here, simply that what we are, who we are, it is housed in these bodies.
All of my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams, the bitterness of being lonely, the joy of seeing a friend return from a long journey, all of it exists because I exist, and while that sounds rather redundant, and even this entire post up until this point seems to be little more than metaphysical navel-gazing, the truth is that too many do not acknowledge just how special all of this is. It is mundane, rote living, a rut in which we walk as we follow the carrots and feel the sticks against our backsides in a civilization that values so little of who we are beyond what it can goad from us by playing on our fears and fantasies.
While I do find that to be so, I deny the idea that we are not special. We exist. That makes us special. Not everyone gets to exist, and yet here we are.
Onward.
Often I am tired, and in my exhaustion the fears that I work to hold back tend to creep up on me, and touch my heart with their talons. When this happens, I often retreat to the core of myself, deep, deep in my heart where there is the center of my love, not only for myself, but for everyone. It’s real. I promise you it is real. When my thoughts turn dark, when I imagine things that strike fear into the marrow of my bones, I can retreat there for a short time, and feel safe.
I am sure that my words often seem cheap, overwrought, dramatic, that’s something I can’t really control. The words that pour out here, on my page, those are the words that best fit how I feel. Some see drama in it, but if it truly is what I feel, if it is the contents of my mind, and my heart, then why should I shortchange myself by abstaining from their use?
I am a heap of insecurities who wants to hug people, let them know they are safe, and loved. That’s who I am, that is who I have always been. When I was a child, I used to hug friends, family, even what people would call strangers. The idea that I should withhold love from people was an obscenity in my mind, something to be struck down. Now, some 30 years later, I still feel this way. I can no more change this about myself than a tree can become a falcon, or the Sun can turn into the Moon.
Is there anyone else out there who is like this? Anyone who still does this? This is my call out into the darkness. Do you exist, too?