For some reason being near the ocean has always brought about a certain calming and comfortable feeling. I often found myself feeling more relaxed, like life is actually much simpler than it feels. I'll think about my family, my past, and my future, while all the non-important noise of life shrinks to a tiny insignificance--- perhaps it has to do with a mental association to family beach vacations when I was younger. Leaving the beach and returning back to the "real world" always evokes a bittersweet and melancholy feeling.

Over the past year I've adopted the belief that we are capable of listening to nature-- not just in the sense of hearing birds chirping while walking through the woods, but that when out in nature, if we calm and silence our minds and the constant internal chatter, that what does come up is nature talking to us. It's why hiking up a mountain and looking out to the tiny speck in the distance where I once stood fills me with a feeling of strength and empowerment, like I actually can make it through the constant uphill battle that is life. It's why walking through the woods and taking in the scenery of tree trunks sprouting from the ground, branching and branching into all directions, and giving birth to thousands of leaves reminds me of the endless possibilities life has offer, allowing conversation with a friend to simply flow and branch into many different directions as well. It's why looking out and seeing thousands of trees, multiple times your age, covering an entire landscape gives off a sense of awe and wonder, bringing one to realize how small they are in the grand scheme of everything.

The thoughts that come to us are just as much, if not more, a product of what we are experiencing and the energy we are surrounded by, as they are us consciously thinking and arriving to a certain conclusion.

On a spontaneous trip putting my girlfriend, siblings, and I near the ocean, we found ourselves standing on the beach looking out at the horizon. 24 hours before we had no idea we'd even be there, it all just came together spur of the moment. I stood with my feet in the water, watching tiny waves crash on my toes then up the beach. Doing my best to silence my mind and listen, I began to ponder life, and I found myself thinking--- or the ocean telling me--- "you are a person experiencing a life". It felt fitting as I watched the waves form, come in, and crash again and again. I was brought to the Alan Watts quote, "You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing." I'm experiencing a life I told myself, just like everyone else, I was born, raised, and now I'm at the "kinda an adult really still a kid trying to figure out what I'm doing" phase, I have no clue what will come from here, just like none of my relatives knew what would come when they were here, but I do know that like the waves, It'll come to an end, just like every other.

It calmed me knowing that I was experiencing the same thing everyone else was experiencing, had experienced, or will experience, that I'm just experiencing life as it is from my perspective, just like everyone else experiences life as it is from their perspective. I was filled with a peaceful feeling, and with it, I was satisfied with our walk to the beach and ready for whatever unknown experience was next.