Once You Find the Answer, You Risk Completion

"Is that all there is?", Fresh Hell, Palais de Tokyo (by Martin Tod)

I realized that I write the most when I am sad.

I find that being sad is when I am most inspired. Right now, I am not happy but rather content. Never had I wanted to be so sad before. I am drained of inspiration!

I believe Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre puts it best when Jane describes this feeling as a 'still existence;' "an existence whose very privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it would have done me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain struggling life, and to have been taught by rough and bitter experience to long for the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes; just as much good as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a 'too easy chair' to take a long walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances, as it would be under his" (Brontë 137). I still thank God for helping me conquer the day, but sometimes I become "incapable of appreciating" this "still existence." I feel nothing.

How can one be happy/content AND sad? I want to be happy/content and sad, but whenever I am happy/content, I feel like sadness is temporary, therefore inspiration is temporary. On the other hand, when I am sad all the time, I feel like inspiration is always there. I can feel everything, from soft whispers on windy days to the warm embrace of the sun on my face.


As of late, I feel like I'm too busy chasing life, too busy trying to survive and make it out there somehow that I can't feel anything anymore. I am drained from feeling anything at all. But then again, isn't that what life is all about? "Making it?" I just want to be sad and lost and excited about it, again. I'm not saying that I'm completely found, but I can feel myself becoming.

Over these past few years, I've come to know that life is mostly about trying to "make it," but I also know that it's more than that.

Life is more than bills, taxes, jobs and education. When I see these words, they horrify me. They confine me. Adventures, love, wanderlust and spontaneous are some words I like to think of when I think of life. Yes! Unfortunately, there's always the contradiction of "you're supposed to have money in order to travel the world or be happy because, supposedly, you get everything you want."

For me, it's the feeling of yearning when seeing winding roads on mountains that disappears between them. For me, it's the continuous flowing of the river. For me, it's that leaf, that balloon, that dandelion spore, that floating speck of dust that keeps on flying and drifting further and further away, and you'll never know where they have decided to rest, or die. Sometimes I'm just dying to know that happens. I mean, this is such a big world.

I wish there was more to life than just trying to "make it" then maybe we won't lose so much of ourselves or the things that makes us happy and our life meaningful. I would never want to lose myself, yet I don't even know who I am, and that's the exciting part. I know it sounds contradictory; not wanting to lose myself yet wanting to be lost, but life is strange...

I don't want to know who I am. I don't want to figure it out. Human beings, along with the world, are too complex to be just 'something.' I want to be more.



There were certain moments in my life when I was pestered to find my identity. I hate it when people tell or ask me to find my identity. I don't know who the hell I am. Yes, it does get frustrating sometimes to not know, not just who I am but anything, because that is what makes it exciting. I want to be wanderlust, a wanderer, a nomad.

Jason Silva, host of Brain Games, is the creator of the YouTube channel Shots of Awe. According to Silva's official website, Shots of Awe is a short film series of "trailers for the mind" that serve as philosophical espresso shots exploring innovation, technology creativity, futurism and the metaphysics of the imagination. (Pretty cool beans!)

In one of my favorite videos of his called "We Need To Be Lost To Find Ourselves" Silva argues that we need to be lost to find ourselves because aren't we "ultimately" wanderers? Wandering and seeking? He asks why do we love open spaces? Why do open spaces have more appeal than beautiful cozy, small spaces?

"Why do we look at the infinite ocean and actually feel a sense of reverence and awe? Instead of being afraid, we look at it as it beckons us to the unknown, to the mystery, to the question," Silva said.

That is why night, the sky, and oceans exist. I love staring at the night sky. I get lost and captivated. It's so beautiful. It makes me want to cry. Don't tell me you have never stared at the night sky and been awed. Go ahead, try it!

I want that feeling of being lost, like I am striving for something because it is out of my grasp. I know I don't like the bumpy moments in life, and I'm probably going to jinx it, but that thrill, adventure and anticipation makes me alive like when you watch a horror movie and that jump scare just makes you cry! Being lost for me creates vivacity in my life. When I find happiness/contentment, it feels good, but then I don't know what to do afterwards. What now?

Even if it means being sad, I don't want to find myself, I don't want to figure 'it' out because when I find 'it,' it's over.

"Once you find the answer, you risk completion," Silva said.

As cliché as it sounds, it's only when we are lost that we are found

If you want to be.