The world is beautiful, and it is in crisis.

These days, I'm in awe of the world. I'm in awe of the beauty and the torment we as a collective put into the world. Some days, there is so much beauty and wonder and goodness. Some days, there seems to be nothing but devastation. We are seemingly at a standstill. Or maybe it is me at a standstill, unsure of how to feel and how to act. I only want for things to turn out alright.

The world is beautiful, and it is in crisis. 

I'm trying to be more mindful of where I stand in the world, what I do to the world. It's been a slow journey. I admit there are things and habits I will never be able to change. For example, one of my pills is in a sheet of 10. I take 5 pills a day, so every other day I throw out this sheet of garbage. It is inevitable. I can't stop taking my meds. There are things I try to do. That's all we can ever really do.

In the last few weeks, some things brought perspective. I finished Sapiens (I & II). I thought it did a wonderful job of outlining the existence of Sapiens and all we have done to change ourselves and the world. It is informative and witty. It ends asking about the next steps, and what those look like. It ends by acknowledging how scary these next steps can look. I went to the Anthropocene exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario last week. Anthropocene is what our human epoch is called. Humans have caused irreversible changes to the Earth. Some of these changes are beautiful. They look stunning, but beneath the beautiful aesthetics, the Earth is hurt. The animals are disappearing. Cities grow bigger and tighter as more and more people are fit into ever-dwindling, ever-shrinking spaces. It turns out we cannot escape our mess either.

I went to see Blood Orange this week. I have almost no photos - certainly no good photos. I was just trying to enjoy the show. To live my existence instead of photographing every minute. To experience fully instead of partially, missing so many details. It was a truly beautiful concert. It felt like an otherworldly experience. It was transcendent, ethereal. Blood Orange is much better live. The music is good, but it is a different experience to hear it live. He is amazing, the instrumentals are amazing, his backup singers have the voices of angels. I felt the music vibrating on my skin, into my soul. When I heard it, I almost cried. There can be so many things we do wrong, but this - that moment - cannot be wrong. Nothing quite so beautiful can be wrong. It was so, so lovely. So, so transformative.

I wonder if I am simply in a time of transition. A lot feels so tentative. I am in flux. A wave of change. I'm rounding 25 soon. It may be the most exciting year yet. This year has been full of dramatic changes. I'm so far away from where I was last year, and yet so much feels the same. I live in the same place, have the same clothes, my body is mostly the same. I did another year of school, I quit a job I had for almost three years - a family of almost three years, I'm working in a different job and industry, I have so many new friends. I'm in a different financial situation. So much has changed and will continue to change.

I'm rambling. I don't know what I am trying to say. The world is beautiful, and it is in crisis. I am in crisis, but standing so tall.