The Art of Being Alive

The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around; the real, deep down you is the whole universe. (Alan Watts)

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves. (Alan Watts)

I stood in the green hush, face to face with a bloom so intricate it felt like a secret whispered by the wild. The passionflower doesn’t need to perform. It simply is. Unapologetically strange. Beautifully complex. Alive.

I thought of the two Alan Watts quotes I’ve included above, and I thought of my dead loved ones. This is what I want to remember:

That being fully present—here, now, in the middle of whatever hurts or heals—is enough.

That passion isn’t always loud.

Sometimes, it curls quietly out of the forest and dares you to look closer.

This is what death has taught me about life.

I’m really grateful I stayed, after they were all gone.

🪽💜✨

catacosmosis // 2025