THE GREATEST SYMPHONY: FINDING THE HARMONIES OF LIFE

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Submitted Date 03/23/2019
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Perhaps you’ve been there. You’ve laid under a vast night sky in the wilderness, it warmly wrapping you in an elegant blanket of emerald lights. It was almost as if the sky was a canvas and the stars were an artist’s brilliant masterpiece. Somehow the chaotic jumble of lights thrown into the heavens created a sophisticated and endless landscape, and the deeper you peered into it, the fuller it became. For a brief moment in time, you floated amongst the cosmos, entirely detached from the Earth and its demands. It was serene – out of body almost. You felt the most calm you had in years, if not ever. Everything just felt right. Even among trillions of stars infinitely far away, you didn’t feel misplaced. You were right where you needed to be.

 

In this moment, it was as if everything fell into place. You understood that you were nothing more than a grain of sand in a vast desert, but you felt so meaningful and connected to it all. Those distant, glistening orbs spoke to you as if you were the closest of friends, and soon your conversation evolved into a song, and as this happened you began to understand: you are just as much a part of this song – this magnificent, divine chorus of life – as those trillions of notes far, far away. And in that moment, all was well.

 

But then you’re friend nudged you and reminded you that it was time to leave, and you were instantaneously sucked back into your body, once again bound to your human self and all of its difficulties. You returned to the urban landscape, to your 9-5 job, to the stresses and conflicts of everything life entails. You just wished you could return to that night, worry-free and at peace. You could see the mountains from your window, beckoning you, but you had no time to answer their call. “Until next time,” you thought, sighing and beginning the daily grind.

 

Life does not have to be this way. Finding the peace you did that night does not have to be a novelty. In fact, life can be pure ecstasy. The problem is that you are looking elsewhere for this feeling, instead of where it truly can be found: right here, right now.

 

By isolating those feelings of joy and peace and making them exclusive to certain places, company, and conditions, you are only limiting the total pleasure you can experience in life. Life then becomes a constant longing for that next moment of adventure and serenity, and in that you fail to live your life to the fullest.

 

In my personal experience, I have come to know that I feel the most alive when I feel closest to the world and all that it has to offer. One of the ways I achieve this closeness most is by immersing myself in the sublime natural world and all that is has to offer – to conquer that next peak or blaze that next trail. But if I made that my sole source of fulfillment, and upon returning home made my purpose only to go back as soon as possible, then I would fail to recognize all the wonderful new experiences that await me in the city.

 

When you take a step back and view life less objectively, you begin to see that our existence is not so much a chaotic mess of scattered events as much as it is one grand composition. And the most brilliant composer understands that every single piece of his composition – no matter how minute or seemingly irrelevant – is essential. Everything has its role. So, while your symphony of life does have its central melody, or purpose, you must learn to embrace all of its accompanying notes to truly experience it to the fullest.

 

So take a look around you, and seek to discover the melody in your existence. Everything is an added harmony in the remarkable and infinitely complex symphony of the cosmos. Find connection in all of these things, instead of focusing only on those that give you the greatest joy and peace.

 

I think one of the miraculous testaments to this is the human mind and body. Observing a child grow from infancy to adolescence is one of the most inspiring and humbling things to experience. From their first laugh to their first word, witnessing the intricate mechanics of the human brain develop is a truly wondrous thing. The capability of the human mind is both fascinating and simply unbelievable. We are capable of terrible things, yes, but beyond that, we are capable of wonderful things. We help and love each other, we create beautiful art and literature, we invent ingenious technology to improve how we live on this Earth. We have universes within our own heads. The more you examine our condition, the more extraordinary it becomes. Somehow, aboard this rock flying through space, our minds emerged. Isn’t it crazy?

 

The human body seems a symphony of its own – a reflection of the very cosmos in which it resides. A sophisticated machine made up of billions and trillions of cells, each their own alien world, it helps us perceive the world around us. It tells us that what we are eating is tasty, or that was we are so delicately touching is the softness of a newborn pup’s fur. This case of skin transporting our brains is nearly as remarkable as the brain itself.

 

Perhaps one of the most profoundly connecting things that we all experience, and the very rhythm of this grand symphony, are things we overlook and take for granted every day. One of these things is mathematics. As much as some dislike it, you cannot deny that it truly is a beautiful thing. When you take a moment to gaze into its fabrics – past the basic arithmetic and past the 1s and 0s – you’ll discover a much more humbling presence of mathematics. Galileo said something along the lines of “mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe”, and it’s true. Math is the language of the universe – or moreso it is the language we use to interpret the universe. Math is the world. We see this from the tiniest plant to the vastness of the Milky Way and beyond – things such as the Fibonacci sequence or Pi.

 

An extension of this and something equally appreciated is music, the voice of the cosmos. It is a universal language just as is mathematics. Anyone who has experienced real music understands this, and the majority of us have. There’s a true power to music that resonates with us, and that’s because it is just as much a part of us as is our beating hearts. It is an extension of the universe, polished, refined, filtered, and delivered to us personally. It’s an energy – divine, cosmic energy. That’s why it moves us in ways incomparable to anything else, because it consumes us – we become one with it. We feel and vibe with the music because we are the music.

 

Even life’s difficulties have an essential voice in the grand symphony of life. Even the most beautiful composition has occasional dissonance, because that makes the resolution to more pleasing chords (consonance) that much sweeter. So while they may not be desirable, you can make them at least tolerable when you recognize their role in creating a bigger, better you.

 

So you may feel restricted, tethered, even lost. You may be stuck somewhere you don’t want to, doing something you never imagined you’d end up doing, just longing to really begin your life – the life you always dreamed of. Your passions and ambitions beckon you, and you may not be able to answer their call right now. Life may even be miserable, and right about now you may be silently cursing me for having the audacity to write these things. But I will simply leave you with this:

 

The song of the universe is all around you. By learning to harmonize with it you are opening the doors to pure joy and peace. It is the greatest symphony of all. All I ask is that you take a moment and listen.

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