birthday special

dear friends,

why live?

How do you help a friend struggling with life? How do you help a classmate? An acquaintance or peer? A stranger of the moment?

I sit with these feelings, peering into my own soul. I sit with those shadowed thoughts. These emotions; I question, I ponder all these wonderful thoughts. It's strange how such wonders can quickly turn and twist on you. When you sit with these thoughts of the void. Try to hold compassion.

Yes, they leave scars, they etch your soul, and hold a piece of you. You cannot deny this part of you. These are but symbols you hold dear. Live through them, don’t let them hold you.

I wondered these questions honestly and earnestly. I am no Jesus. I hold no Bible in my back pocket. I am but a man lost in the world as you.

I am twenty-five today (but as I am writing this, I am still twenty-four). I have been writing a Book. I was planning to finish it by today. I have written a book, filled my red journal of all its pages: it's jest not one that is coherent enough to publish. I have failed in my quest. Why have I been writing this Book?

…

In this act, this jestful endeavor, the act of writing itself has helped me context the chaos and confusion. To develop a (non)sense to it all. To try and frame meaning to these sequences of thoughts and emotions, these percepts of time.

In my mind, I held all these grand and grandiose plans once I passed the quarter-life gate. I would have a Book. I would show it to the world. Make videos and expand my presence to the digital web of consciousness. For the collective eyes of mankind to see. I had such a grand vision for becoming twenty-five.

Such arrogance.

Today is a celebration of life. That is perhaps the human purpose of having these annual birthdays. It's not always productive or healthy to constantly ask why, I have realized. There are certain questions that will inevitably be incomplete and will send you on strange loops that may indefinitely run into infinitum. There are certain joys, certain emotions, and certain ambiguities in our life that cannot be explained (at least in this point of time).

Yet, does that mean we shouldn't try?

My curiosity and wonder almost disallows me from not trying, from not being honest and earnest, from not wandering down this path. It bothers me to my core to not have a clear answer or grasp. I am genuinely curious as to how meaning could unfold; to answer the question: why live?

Simply put, I am overwhelmed with many thoughts, emotions, and questions.

This question haunts me. For many years (specifically, the past decade since I was 14 十四岁 XIV), I have held this iterative and recurring question as to why I am alive; why we live; why was I born: to what end is it real?

In this letter, I hope to provide you an honest answer to this question as I enter my quarter-life meta-crisis. Let's have some fun :P

your friend(ly),

jakester

P.S. I started rushing to get this done; my spiral style of writing evidently bleeds out more in this special letter: excuse the mess I made!

If you are earnestly questioning the penultimate question of ‘why live?’ you must take on this endeavor with the proper zest, fairity, and honesty.

Life examination requires time; it is not a spur-of-the-moment decision (although serendipity is another phenom). If you find that life is not worth living: give it a fair ten years.

Give it 10 years.

When those thoughts take over, you must give it time to breathe. Give yourself time to let those thoughts pass, to really feel those thoughts, and to give space to navigate life itself.

Give it 10 years to really live life out. To examine your life fully. To discover if life is truly worth living. When you find the quality of your thoughts lost in the mud, you mustn't let the spur of the moment mark your decision of life's worthiness.

Again, if you are earnestly questioning the penultimate question of 'why live?' you must take on this endeavor with the proper zest, fairity, and honesty. To truly examine life with your own eyes. You can dedicate a lifetime on these inquiries, constantly wondering why, well and then. You will find yourself in the dragon's well at times, desperately clawing at the little light left from above. You may spend years in a well, lurking in the darkness, not knowing your 'ups' from your 'downs' or your 'lefts' from your 'rights' but you mustn't let the time spent in the depths take away your heart from your chest.

Lose yourself but remain. Take heart when logic fails. Take heart when darkness trails. Take heart when you ponder over taking your own life. Life is precious, as the cliche goes. When your mind wanders to the depths and the edges of beyond, it's easy to forget how precious life is. Between the fragility and resilience, the line between the animate and non-animate. The emergence of life and death is but a beautiful dance: a dance to be felt, a dance to be heard and observed. A dance to be learned?

A dragon’s silent treasure is not gold but the gold of gold. The essence of light, of good, and of joy. The golden truths?

Give back to your Heart. Often, skepticism is held with pessimism at the core. Doubt looms heavy. There is a hatred hidden beneath. Hatred leads you to forget.

If one is a true lover of wisdom, then they must hold a healthy and optimistic view towards the available knowledge we perceive with our eyes. We mustn't grow easily attached to it. Knowledge never truly belongs to us. They are but its and bits of information that move from static to signal within a moments notice. How easy signal slips back to static. We oscillate between the truth.

We must hold a kind skepticism. True wisdom and learning must be held with doubt and reason. Do not worry yourself with all percepts of knowledge. Have and hold wonder. Continue to question. Continue to inquire. Continue to wonder. What is it that life offers? What is it that I am blind to? What is it that brings me joy?

Why, well and then?

today I turn 25; precisely around 8pm.

it is 12:44pm and I am attempting to answer the question of: why live?

as it stands of my current age of 25: the quarter life; a meta-crisis: quarter-life verses. to live life on your own terms. peace in oneself, peace in the world. how to live? what have I learned from all this writing and reflecting of this past year of living?

all problems are solvable. no one deserves to be alone. we exist in a void of mind. what really matters at center?

heart’s center. there lies the crux, a liar; the liar’s paradox, a pretense of truth lies hidden truths. hidden in lies are truths. 25 revolutions of the sun. the convergence of crisis, a meta-crisis. God is real.

Why do I write this book?

I love; I want to love onto others in a way I can connect with them deeply, to converse with them in an earnestly honesty way. To love deeply; a greater display of affection and form. A tether to the source, my source of love, thought, consciousness, and soul.

I am putting so much weight on today, I must let it go. To be forever young? I love crabs. Boiling crabs. Crabs, crabs, crabs! Deep red and deep blue. Oh! the ocean blue.

Major decision points of the year

The book ends, the story incomplete. Now I set on the road towards publishing. The aim to publish before the end of the lunar year.

thank you to quarter-life verses for reminding me my answer to the deep question of: why live?

10:05pm

don’t try to live so wise.

don’t try to live so apprised.

remember who you are.

don’t let hate make you forget

Who You Are.