In the evening, my focus shifts. It’s as if the darkness shines its own specific light on our existence. I feel the cosmic reality that I am a part of. And it is hard to just be content with experiencing life like this, while also understanding more and more what we are and what we aren’t. There is a lot of uncertainty of course, but there is enough that I can not deny.

I see the sleeping face next to me. They look peaceful. But I don’t just see a person sleeping peacefully. In my mind I can see how I am sitting here on my bed, in a house, on a large sphere-shaped rock we call Earth, in space with unknown boundaries, which may have started with a bang. The I who is sitting here on my bed, is a human something that is alive. It is experiencing and feeling what it means to be alive. I am a self somehow and I am looking at the human something that is alive but sleeping next to me. They have their own self, and well, both of us are just here living and breathing, for now, until we die. Sometimes asleep, sometimes awake, until time is up…

I can already imagine the universe without the two humans who are now in this room. A universe without us being alive in it, without me being able to witness anything through the senses I am now familiar with. And the scary part of this imagination is that it isn’t really imagined… It is just the future, and I can see it. Of course, there is also so much that I can’t see, but it is highly likely that we, these conscious beings, human bodies, are just freak accidents who breathe and feel. Who live and love… Only for a little while.

This is where I should remind myself that I am alive. I am here. And I shouldn’t live life as if I am already dead. But I shouldn’t be too quick with my reminders either. Remembering that I am alive should not distract me from everything that I was just seeing, including the bed, the human beings, the earth, the existence, the present being and the future non-being. That last part is perhaps debatable, but whether it’s a knowing, an assumption or a belief, whether it’s wrong or right, it still needs to be processed. I need to process and I am going to need a whole lot of art and understanding, and feeling and connection. I am going to have to let in these moments of dark illumination so that I can accept what I can see to be true. This way, I can embrace what I am in this moment, and what I have for now. It feels like it is the only way that I can let go of the illusion of being only ever growing or of holding on to everything forever. By keeping my eyes wide open, I might be able to feel more deeply than ever that I am now here, and I am in fact alive.

Many people don’t want to give their own mortality much thought, and even less feeling. They are good at ignoring existence and its limitations and I am glad for them, but I must admit it can be lonely at times in their presence. And I feel great comfort when I witness someone taking on life, in its cosmic entirety.

When I was younger, I felt like I had a lot of time ahead of me, and I was going to try to succeed at being a human… I was going to learn as much as I could learn and I was going to show that I could live life the way a human is supposed to. Whom I was going to show this to, or who may have defined how a human is supposed to live did not seem of great importance. But that’s the thing with not allowing yourself to see everything. Because then I would have seen that there was no one there and I have nothing to prove, I have only to be.

These days, I don’t feel like I have that much time anymore. Possibly, hopefully, quite likely, still a considerable amount, but it doesn’t really feel like an abundance and especially not like a certainty. I was focusing so much on trying to do it right, life I mean, that I didn’t even notice everything that was already springing to life and how much of it was already slipping away… Days, feelings, identities… I realize that for a long time, I didn’t really pay attention to the bigger picture, the truth surrounding being (and non-being) in the universe, and the limited time I have as this conscious creature. Now, I notice it. Now, I pay attention. I still try to learn as much as I can learn, but this time it’s not for proving anything. It is only for being more fully here, as me. And in doing so, this human experience has become even more paradoxical… Life is even more precious, but also more painful. Letting everything in is not easy and letting it all go is even harder. You and I are everything and at the same time we are nothing. “Now” is infinitesimally small and that very same “Now” is so much larger than I could ever even imagine. This deeply feeling awareness of being alive is nauseating and crushing but it’s also lighting me up and propelling me forward.

I want to discover and explore my selfhood, my senses, love, other people, the planet and the universe. I want to take it all in. But I also really need to actively and intentionally set everything free, let everything float by… my experience of the universe and Earth, the other people and my love for them, my senses and even my selfhood. It’s heavy at times but it is the only way I can keep going, by feeling it all, by loving, by seeing and appreciating, by hurting and fighting, by holding on and by letting go, even when it seems impossible.

OK, I am ready to say goodbye to this day and for another one to come along. I can go to sleep now. And suddenly I find myself flying, struggling, dancing and pulling through my vivid dreams. Until the sun rises, and I’m awake. Everything that I could see so clearly in the dark, is slightly less intense again. A little bit blurred by the chaos of the day to day perhaps. Not fully though, just enough to let me catch my breath.