so we all made it another year as a species. i am grateful. we are children with fingers on the trigger. we are powerful beings, full of joy and spirit and kindness, but we are young. there is so much we can do, but there is much more left to do before we can move past this primitive time. ours are the souls of hunters, protectors, warriors. we need to move beyond this mindset and embrace our true purpose. quick to anger, slow to forgive, we are paradoxical by nature. we build such amazing monuments to our own genius, yet we ignore the toxic mortar these monuments are built with. we poison the land, sea, sky, fellow tenants of earth, and now even other planets. we have begun to understand the way of things on a global scale. we are slowly coming out of our self-imposed disconnection from our world. we speak of the future in hushed tones, fearful of what it may bring. but we are the future. we are the builders of things to come, and the future starts now. each and every one of us is connected on a level few of us understand. I am a part of this bipolar existence. i am not in a bubble watching the world turn around me, i am walking among you as a brother. yet, i feel the same disconnect that you do. we don't see ourselves holistically, we only see what we have been taught to see. we must unlearn our old ways and grab onto the light that lies mere nanometers below our flesh. we need to find the spirit within, the same shared source of life that each of us carry around with us day to day. many of us are oblivious to this beauty inside. many of us run from it. i have chosen to accept it and learn from it. i have gone through a profound change this year. i have regained contact with the light inside of me and i have seen the true wonder of living. i have seen my purpose for being here. i wish you all have this catharsis. it is truly the most amazing experience i have ever felt. and yes, i FELT it. i didn't reason it, read it, decipher it. i stopped a moment in the middle of the maelstrom and exhaled. i opened my mind up. i let go of the fetters. i became still. and then i felt it slowly take shape. this tapestry of life began to weave around me, engulfing every thought i had until i was no longer disconnected; i was part of it, as we all truly are. i now take the memory of it with me wherever i go and i wish only to let you all know that you can do anything you want. just believe, let go, and fly towards our future. -s