“Humans are so cute - when we say goodbye, we put our arms around each other and to show we love someone we bring them flowers. We say hello by holding each other’s hand, and sometimes tiny little dewdrops form in our eyes. For pleasure we listen to arrangements of sounds, press our lips together, smoke dried leaves, get drunk off of old fruit. We’re all just little animals, falling in love and having breakfast beneath billions of stars.”
This quote made me smile, because it’s so overly romanticised and gooey and sentimental but it so perfectly distills and encapsulates the essence of life on Earth. When you really think about it, how often do you pay attention to the little things in life, like the way your best friend laughs, or how your grandparents’ eyes crease around the edges when they smile, or how perfect little drops of water wobbling on leaves really are? Life is full of tiny miracles, and I fear we’re being forced into becoming too busy and preoccupied to notice and appreciate them. Whenever I get overly stressed about things such as school and looming deadlines, the only thing that tends to calm me down is to think about how menial and unimportant the task at hand really is. It was only a few thousand years ago that we were fighting for survival everyday - we are simply animals, animals who have devised a pressurised lifestyle and society in which only a handful of people truly feel comfortable and carefree. It’s important to stand back every now and then and look at the stars, or swim in the ocean, or sit in the middle of a grassy glade, and remember that you weren’t put on this Earth to get straight As in every class, or to live up to the standards and expectations of others. You are here to experience life’s highs and lows, to meet new people and appreciate the ones you’ve already got, to eat new fruit, and to dance in the rain. As they say, it’s the little things that count, and I don’t want to leave it too late to realise that hidden deep within that cliché phrase was an inkling of truth 🌿
