Young Writers Society

Breathe

This weekend while in my mom’s car coming back from instrument repairs for my euphonium. I looked outside my window took a good look at the trees. Something so simple and vague. Something we see everyday. Yet I saw something that I did not see everyday. I saw the tree breathe. I saw the wind pass through the tree and out. I saw the branches sway as it was being carried by the winds. I saw the leaves sway as it was being carried by the branches. I saw the wave of sways by the branches and the leaves as the momentum of the wind passed on along the rest of the tree. I realized that the tree was not just something that stood there. It breathed. It moved. It was alive. That tree was one of the most beautiful thing I ever saw. And not just that tree, but every tree after that. Everytime I look at a tree I watch it as it breathes. In and out.

Simple things, things that are so obviously there Things that are so stagnant, so simple, so obviously there, yet gone so unnoticed, are the most valuable things in life. We live in the most developed age in human history. We live in a time when we no longer have to hunt our food. We live in a time where we do not have to fear disease. We live in a time of ignorance. Day by day we go about our day like drones in a sweatshop. Going about our lives day in and day out. Accepting the illusions of happiness mass consumerism has brought us. We think if only I could go to Italy, or Spain, or Britain, or China, or Mexico, if I could have that video game, if I had that dress, if I could see that movie, then I’d be happy. If I could get a Ferrari, a mansion, a boat, a plane, a fancy apartment, then maybe that girl might like me.

We are blind to the illusions of happiness that this massive surplus of “stuff” has brought us. Blind to the real things that make us happy. None of us ever stop to watch- not just look, watch- a stream of water flowing through a creek. Never do we watch a snowflake fall from the sky and hit the ground, or our hand. Never do we watch a waterfall, watching every single drop of water fall from the cliff and hit the ground. Never do we look at our food, and look at the small bubbles from the oil, the texture of the food, the different colors of the food. Never do we look at our own skin and realize how much we’ve aged in so little time. Never do we watch the tree. Breathe.