What does the world really feel like, and what is the most true way to feel? In the next paragraphs, I conclude that this difference in feeling, this paradox of the human soul, disappears when we realize what is really going on.

Not so rarely, I find myself engulfed in some specific emotional landscape. It can be the set of emotions found in a specific book, the strings pulled by a certain album, or even the emotions brought forth by the nature around me. While in this landscape, the similar emotions within me stand out more clearly and are easier to access. I all but settle down in the surroundings and become a part of the experience.

Like all works of art, emotional landscapes have an array of emotions, some more present than others, and put together in a unique way. So while no landscape relates to one single emotion, different landscapes can take up wholly different sections of the great continent of emotions. Also, just as a musical piece can be complete in and of itself, so can a landscape feel complete and un-lacking. In effect, two completely seperate landscapes can both feel like the “most real” one.

But, as human beings, we answer to the continent as a whole. That doesn’t mean that the “most real” emotional landscape is the one you see when you strap onto a rocket and hitch a ride into space. Even if this, too, is an emotional landscape. No, the continent cannot be felt, and so all the different variations of scenery are equally real. Such a conclusion might not be true for scientific perspectives, but human emotions are different.

What’s more, we have somewhat of an obligation to know ourselves. And here comes the last piece of the metaphor, too: the continent is an individual thing. There are variations between us: some mountain peaks are taller or shorter, some lakes shift, forests come and go and lands vary in size. We need to traverse it all to truly know who we are. How we travel and how long we stay in each place, will determine the colors of our lifespan, the richness of our lives.

There will be landscapes in life that we prefer over others and in which we spend much time. Then times might change, and emotions become different. Is it growing up, is it being led further into the truth? No. It is travelling. Not into truth, nor from truth, just elsewhere. I will not pretend otherwise; some things (perhaps all things) in life will change the face of the continent, and you might travel back to find forests gone and mountains moved. But this is just the more reason to travel — so you will always know what you are become. If a land suffers, it can make alliances with friendly lands on the same continent, and many things can be rebuilt.

When travelling from a landscape to another, do not think you are leaving something behind or denying one truth to replace it with another. You are simply travelling, because all the lands need attention and acknowledgement. The human soul is many-faceted, and any face can grow lonely. Don’t just know yourself. Come visit yourself, too.

Photographers find the exact angle and composition where the beauty is the clearest, and then they doll up the scene in Photoshop afterwards, making it into something that can’t even be found. Writers also give us prime examples and leave out the mundanity that truly fills our lives. And musicians hog the well-used beats and harmonies of the rare moments in life. Art, in effect, makes us disappointed in the world.

The world has no beauty.

It is all a fantasy.

But, then again…

What isn’t?

Artists don’t show us the world. It is not what they do. They show us ourselves. The art invokes thoughts and emotions and unnamed things in us, and that is what they want us to see. What we experience through the art — and now I’m not talking about abstract sculptures and the stuff that only a niche of pompous pricks gets, but your own favorite stories, music and images — is not the art itself; the experience isn’t inside the art. The art just accidentally brings it out in you. And in that moment, you are the artist. Only to yourself, perhaps, but still an artist.

All art is about the human spirit. All that we can feel. If something doesn’t feel any special at all to us, then why, it’s not art! So art isn’t out to show us the world; it picks only the best because it’s there to teach us about the extreme possibilities within ourselves.

Art is example. Each piece, a mere slice of a greater connection, a glimpse of the infinities. The infinities that are present, not out there, but within us.

We are thus the most beautiful things in this very existence.

Remember that when you interact with others.

Don’t fall down into ignorance when there’s something that needs your attention. Doing nothing is also a choice, and sometimes the worst one, but oh, so easy to make.

The world is exactly what we make it into.

Anything we choose to nourish, it will grow.

And anything we choose to neglect, it will wither.

Neglect — and the loss is leads to — is the easiest to accomplish. It requires no hard work, it needs no grand plans and ideals. Do nothing, and withering will come to the world all on its own. Let it stay, and it will set root. Rely on it, and it will grow.

Many are okay with this. We are content with finding shelter for the storm, staying out of sight from the forces that seek to defeat us. I can feel this in myself. Burnt by failure, I am inclined to ignore the challenges I have not yet overcome; exhausted by struggle, I would rather not indulge myself in any more fights— not for ideals, not for others, not even for myself; and alienated by the very corruption that is my nemesis, I lose focus and attachment to any cause. As you might notice. What was I talking about again?

War.

Humanity has reached the stage where the greatest wars and conflicts are inside us, and not among us. With no external hardship to guide our hopes, our ambitions and our dreams, the hardship moves inside and challenges us in a new way. The war becomes abstract, the path unclear. And most of all, prevalence becomes optional. Being on the losing or the winning side makes no difference for our survival.

But this is not about individualism. It is about the challenge to overcome hindrance, the challenge to act when you know you should. Lest neglect will feast on your spirit.

My message is this: do not lose sight of the horizon. Whereas bad things can come from neglect, good things will need both time and effort. Love, for instance, needs to mature under hard work. Art requires an open mind and the application of creativity. Most of the good things in life is a mixture of both, and their success will need both attention and devotion.

Don’t chicken out on life.

Why ever do we care, when all the castles we build, fall down eventually? Perhaps the point isn’t a happy ending, but a memorable adventure.

Life isn’t fair. Life hurts, stings, cripples. Life is a bitch and you can’t deny it. All our fights will be in vain, all effort will be erased, all will fall back to mercilessness. Cold logic is the way of it all, and cynicism is the way to accept it. There is no other option.

So goes the words of a dead man.

So what if resistance is futile? So what if there can never be a paradise on earth? So what if good things don’t last? At least they’re good while they do. It’s not the end result that matters, but what happened underway.

No, not all damsels in distress are saved by knights in shining armour. Kids die in accidents. People are murdered. It’ll always happen. It’s the way of the world, and it’s horrible!

But humanity resists! We make a difference. Many of us keep ideals and principles. We don’t live by experience and accept the world for what it is. We don’t go with the flow of the external world, but sustain the idea of a better one, and when given the power, we try to shift the external world towards that idea.

The world will always win. Whatever great feat you do, time will forget it. Fuck that! It is not the single feats, but the continuation of humanity, the continuation of the fight, that sustains it. The meaning. By fighting, by not accepting, by not growing cynical, you do not only do your part in creating a better world and making a difference from the wickedness of the world. You also gain a purpose.

Don’t do what others do because they do it. Think, and understand what ought to be different. Then practice that difference. If you manage to ignore your instinctive fear of being different, then congratulations, you’ve created something that’s you! Ignore those who don’t accept it, and gain friends in those who do. You just gained some real friends! Join them on adventures and save the world together. You just read the recipe for having a life.

The world is full of possibilities, of treasures and pitfalls. I implore you to forget the latter and aim for the former, or you might find yourself going in the wrong direction altogether.

So many possibilities. So many worlds. So many futures.

Which will I live? What have I got to choose from? Is the choice even mine?

How many joys have I forsaken already, what happiness have I excluded?

And if I were born in another time? Or on another planet, or in another universe altogether?

Believe it or not, this kind of thinking actually makes me feel very secure. I suppose it is because it removes my worries about the life I actually lead, it takes focus away from here and now. I am a dreamer. At least, I was, once. Not too long ago. I haven’t dreamt all that much the past year. But I want to dream again. For without dreams, there is only here and now, and currently that’s not all that exciting and adventurous.

But through dreams, I grow. They inspire me, they guide me. I look up at them and I believe in them, and then I shape my life here and now after those dreams. I refuse to shape my life in the image of the world it takes place in, for this world is tainted by so many who have given in to it and forgotten their own dreams. I know that if I give in and believe this world to be the only right, then such will be true for me and I will never know anything else. But if I hold on to my dreams, if I hold on to the belief of other worlds better than this one.. if I keep to the hope that my life can be a little more like in those worlds and little less like lives tend to be in this one, then such can be true, and happiness will be had. Despite the suffering and the pain that exists in this world (and with which the world would very much like to adorn me, should I come to expect it).

What I’m trying to say is this: Shape your life after what you want it to be. Not what you don’t want it to be. And don’t make your life a mosaic of others’ lives. It is your life, and you decide how you want it to be. You decide the limits, the definitions, and the rights and wrongs. Do not pay heed to expectations and norms when all they bring you is suffering and confusion. Do not look to others and punish yourself for not being like them. What matters is what you think is right, and that you do those things. Nobody has the right to change what you believe in and live by. That’s all up to you, and you alone know how to do it best. That’s the very concept of life!

I clearly need to watch The Time Machine more often.