Do you believe you are alive?

Does the breath that has passed through you since your first moment convince you? Or is it your heart beating—fast now, slow again? Your legs that carry you places? Your mind that takes you further still? Is it in every particle that shapes the world around you? In the scent of those who smell like home? Or are you just walking through life, unaware of how alive you truly are?

I get it. You are on your way somewhere—a place, a goal, a bank balance. There is no time to look around, let alone look inwards. The cycle of doing what must be done leaves you exhausted. You do the work, and then you make up for it. You chase comfort. Or maybe you avoid feeling anything at all, and ironically, that feels restful. Your eyes and thumbs keep working while your mind disconnects—worn down by what life is and what you wish it could be.

But I write now to remind you that there is more. Hidden in every moment, there is a possibility of transcendence—of elevation. An internal leap of awareness that will leave you wondering why you don’t live on this cloud in every moment.

Your mind can open—to the world around you and the one within. To sort through your thoughts and feelings, to see them in the light of awareness. To feel self-doubt and sit with it, until your heart and mind show you the way to what is right for you. These are not feats of the human soul that require years in a cave or on a mountain. Those paths may lead to a different kind of peace—I wouldn’t know.

But I do know this: I live a full life. And with every passing day, there is a need that grows within me. A need to transcend.

There is always a trigger that pushes me over the edge. A piece of music or writing. A conversation that feels unburdening. Even the simple act of organizing a space, then sitting in it—light, airy—having brought some order to a world in disarray. And then, once it comes over me, I am taken.

The transcendence is like stepping outside of myself, watching myself at peace. There is a quiet music. It is not a perfect moment—those do not exist. There is doubt. There is fragility. I wonder if I am making it all up, if my insecurities are right. But there is space in transcendence—for doubt, for fear. For darkness, but also for light. For peace, for quiet. For your senses to rise and fall like a heartbeat. There is so much that can be felt in those moments. Or nothing at all, if that is what you need. You can watch thoughts go by like ships from a harbor—powerless to stop them, yet feeling no need to.

And the minutes and hours in which I experience these feelings—these are why I believe there is a purpose to our creation. There is too much meaning for it all to mean nothing. Just because that meaning must be found, nurtured, and believed in does not mean it does not exist.

We could be amorphous blobs in the universe. But we aren’t.
We could be inanimate. But we aren’t.

We were not, until we were. Born of those before us, given hearts and minds that can feel, imagine, dream. And one day, we will be put to rest. But between those two points, there is so much more to who we are.

That is why I believe.

This belief does not need to be shared to be sustained. It is a blanket against all those who arm themselves with logic and seek to steal meaning from lives that don’t resemble their own. It is a comfort in knowing that not everything must be understood, measured, or quantified. Our existence is meant to be felt, not calculated.

The transcendence will pass. I will return to doing what is necessary—unpleasant or unfulfilling as it may be. But this bright corner of my existence will remain open, waiting for me to find it again. And what else do we live for?

You may answer—for our loved ones, for our passions, our dreams. And true enough. But when you truly feel fulfilled and content by any of these—when you look at the person you love, or your children, or the work that gives you joy—do you not feel that quiet music? Do you not smile, stepping outside of the rush of the world? Do you not feel that moment stretching beyond time, showing you the beauty in what you have been given?

Do you not feel that there is more?

I think you do.

You see the extraordinary in the ordinary, and for a moment, you are outside the world, holding on to a sense that cannot be explained (as much as I may try).

That is what we live for. You and me, I think. And that is my backbone for belief.

There is more meaning to our creation than we might ever uncover.

But there is meaning.

Bask in it every chance you can.