THE GLASSY SEA reflects the sky; I look up at the crescent moon, hidden amongst the purple clouds. I wonder what’s up there, in the dark, mercurial night.

What is up there; will we ever truly know?

Perhaps all we need is a desire to know, for the wonder sustains us when the world falls dark. To wonder makes the night sky shine. I’m listening to my favorite tunes while walking on the shallow tide; a new place, it makes my heart race doin’ this… Living.

We exist in a flux of light, the light of our spirit and soul — and the light which emanates from the sun and makes the world a masterpiece. But often we can only perceive the light when the world is dark, when we struggle to see what’s right before us.

But in some distant time and space, the light we need to guide us shines brighter. Our eyes adjust; our spirit soldiers on.

I read a poem by the 19th-century American writer Stephen Crane, A Man Said to the Universe.

The man exclaims “Sir, I exist!” The universe replies: “However, the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”

I exist, calls out the man.

I am here, breathing, thinking, being, calling out for something more. Maybe the man feels a need to be noticed, a longing to be heard. Perhaps he’s speaking to himself, a reminder that what he is experiencing isn’t all in vain, that the pain, the hurt, the questioning, the wonder — it’s for some greater purpose we can’t comprehend.

There’s nobody around, just a few silhouettes of surfers grappling with the rocks on the distant cove. They don’t know I’m here. Don’t know that I exist.

The man says I exist as if asking for something, but what does he give?

The world needs love. Love is in the air we breathe. The world needs your smile, which radiates a light that warms another soul, like the first rays of dawn in a cloudless sky; the world needs you to break the mold, the shell that we’ve been taught to fill.

Seek what makes your life worthwhile.

I’m trying, we’re trying. We are, aren’t we? How we treat ourselves is how we treat others, subconsciously, our inner light projects. Let go of fear, let go of guilt, let go of anything which holds you back.

Reminiscence, thinking back on the moments that have passed. But isn’t it wonderful, to think of what’s to come?

I trust with all my heart that the universe has a plan. But it takes effort, too. An effort to get to know ourselves so we may let our light shine. To give more than we take. To ask more than we fake. On the surface I’ve changed; we change, every day we start our life anew.

And on the surface while I’ve changed, the soul, the perennial soul, it burns and shines to get us through.

We are miraculous, comical creatures in a world of utter beauty. The moon hangs above our heads at night and planes fly by — we keep going. Life is good. It brings tears to my eyes, how strongly I feel this.

Still, I don’t act on the thoughts I know I want to say, to tell someone I love them, or that they’re doing great, or that it’s all going to be okay. I fear listening to my heart. Because what might arise is unlike anything I’ve ever known.

The heart races and the mind runs; maybe that’s what it means to exist. Not to live in fear. Not to stave off death by keeping from the world. We’d rather say goodbye to the passing world than blow our breath into it.

What’s the point of this? To avoid death, when any moment of being human could be the last? Psychological death. Regret. never proving, if only to ourselves, that we do indeed exist.

We sacrifice what gives life meaning, allowing our inner light to shine, to walk amongst the dead.

Death is a part of life, but our lives might be better measured by the love we shared and the laughs we had, the risks taken and the evanescent moments cherished, rather than the years we lived. How many of us will dare to live?

The universe will notice, and it will smile, and it will guide you, and it will protect you, because no matter how tough it gets or how dark the world seems, the darkness will be lit by the brilliance you emit.