Water travels across the land in cycles. Motionless and unconscious water moves from the vast concentration of the sea into the fluffy heavens of the sky. An amazing journey, a story that is timeless. This is what is expected of water. We rely on the clouds for rain and the rivers for fish, but is the water happy? Invaluable by design and endlessly meaningful, this narrative can not bring joy to water. Happiness is a creation of the mind. For this creation, what is sacrificed?
The motivations of a molecule are just that of the systems in which they exist. The boy–mostly water–has been given a mind and soul. The mind regulates the water, and the soul regulates the mind. The soul is not physical but metaphorical, spiritual, a fabrication of the mind’s complexity. The soul works autonomously, meta to consciousness, all powerful to the being. Remember, water inherits meaning by mere existence within a system. Water without a mind has meaning. Water with a mind searches for meaning. The mind breaks the system and fills the broken pieces with the soul. In this way, the soul is the solution to the mind’s destruction. Fractured meaning in the system of the soul might be the origin of all emotion and feelings of significance. The boy is mostly water. Meaning alone comes from the systems of the universe. The existential collapse into water awaits every mind and soul. All we are given is a moment in time to manifest the meanings of the soul to execute that which we call a life worth living.
The spirit inside, whether god given or fantasized, artificially crafts meaning from desires. The boy chases in circles, like his own personal water cycle, satisfaction, ignorant to the meaning bestowed to all molecules and in denial to the fact that existentialism only provides one guarantee: this one moment. And, even that has no value in knowing. Maybe the beauty of life is finding an end to the cycle, creating a perpetual, motionless system in the soul. Reverting meaning back to the molecule while still deriving happiness, but this seems contradictory–to remove the source and still receive a product. Happiness might not be the guiding principle of the soul or derived from meaning at all. If nirvana is a wisdom than tames the soul maybe then water is the most wise form of existence. Maybe the thinking of the mind and creation of the soul is the fault within man. The sacrifice of knowledge and consciousness is a disconnection to the significance of existence. Giving meaning, attempting to understand meaning, corrupts the universe by altering within it something that is simultaneously innate and nonexistent. If the boy’s happiness comes from the sacrifice of universal meaning to the soul then man is doomed to forever be restless.
If we can convince ourselves that the existential properties that define our physical universe are unlimited, if we can delude ourselves into believing that time is valuable, we can craft love. Love—the emotion crafted by the soul that gives meaning to the conscious existence of man, despite our existential reality.
The boy who craves love is looking for meaning whereas the man in search of love has loved before and lost. As tangible as color and given a texture of bliss, love might be the greatest product of the soul, and therefore love is the greatest product of man. It is the purest meaning behind conscious life, man’s most precious artificial illusion of purpose. To have love and lost begets experience; A man that has loved has felt the wholeness of meaning that can not be forgotten, dismissed, compromised, or imagined. Deception is the art of the brain, but no conscious thought can override the subconscious emotions of the soul. While I believe that the soul exists within the mind, I do not believe that it exists within the same dimension as common thought. The awareness of the soul is indirectly observed from the simple feelings and irrational desires. This might be why feelings of meaning and consistent happiness are so difficult to maintain–we are always communicating to our soul through an intermediate, a medium of chemicals in an endlessly evolving environment.
In this way, as the boy, or any boy, seeks happiness, he is doomed to fail for the lack of wisdom, he is destined to endure heartache because of his desperation and inexperience of love. I do not know if we–our conscious selves–can connect with the soul directly. Systems might allow us to persuade a regular influence, but I personally have little evidence that either a direct connection or such system exists. I think I have loved before… My uncertainty leads me to believe that I have more to experience. My loss of love makes me a man, but my inexperience makes me boyish. In this inexperience, however, I find hope because this means that there might be a cure to the discontentment I regularly feel. Misalignment of the mind plagues my ambition, but I pray to time for the unknown blessing that will soothe my heart. I have many ideas, but I cannot myself now conceive a lasting remedy in the present.
As the water travels around in circles, I wonder if it smiles or frowns upon man and the brain he carries with such vanity. Does our mind exclude us from the remaining entirety of the universal meaning that we are sorrowfully ignorant to? Is the mind of man, the one that allowed him to eat the fruit, the sin which separates us from the wisdom of water, and is death the only promise of reunification?
As a boy, I do not yet have the answers. As a man, I might search till the end of my time. As water, I do not question what is natural. I have defined love here, but I am a wanderer that lusts to experience more. What I am searching for I will find, may time be my ally… may time be my reunion.