Awakening.

In the first days of 2009 I have spent my time being inspired, aware, focused and most importantly extremely happy. I have been surrounded in the company of my most treasured friends and comforted by the presence of an active mind. I've spent my time reading, laughing, walking, talking, observing and living. I feel as though my attitude about life towards the end of 2008 really set me up for a great new beginning, for my own personal rebirth.

I've come to be almost unsettlingly aware of so many things I had once had no insight to, and I can only hope to continue this trend with excitement. It is incredible how the wheels will always keep turning if you allow them to. If you nurture yourself and your thoughts in a way that engages everything you encounter you cannot help but feel the need to continuously encounter life. To face every situation with the awareness of the vast contingencies of our existence, to realize our capacity that is often so fleeting to change our pespective on everything. More importantly to realize the unbelievable effect of perception. It is unbelievable to me that I've only just come to understnad that there are no concrete answers in life, that one can only arrive to a premise and then ultimately be forced with the decision of action or inaction. Many people accept every answer that they recieve with the blind courtesy of inaction; because someone says it is so; does not make it that way. It's made me see a lot of connections that I didn't realize even had the slightest bit of common ground. In all honesty it has made me realize that everything is connected, that all life exists in a correlated tapestry of events, situations, actions, inactions and ultimately in living at all.

My realization of this may seem assinine to many people as I believe it something that many people come to realize, but for me it proves to be the catalyst for a life long journey of questioning. I know that I will never reach the answers in concrete forms like I have been preconditioned to search for, but it is not the cumulation I am concerned with, it is the journey.

Acceptance of the nothingness of death has really helped me realize the importance of living. Not because I am fearful of the total annihilation of death but because in it's opposetness from life it illuminates the most vivid qualities of life. It is almost liberating to realize that death snuffs out your existence completely. What better emphasis on the importance of living your life in the most engaged and aware way than the realization that when you die; you are nothing.