Something I Saw

August 7th, 2021

I have two theories as to why young children tend to laugh and smile far more frequently in their daily lives compared to adults. First, is their naiveté. To young children, the entire world is new, un-experienced, and utterly limitless in potential. Second, is that at just a few feet tall, everything else seems huge and very, very cool--even as adults, people love to marvel at things that are gigantic in proportion. While I offer two compelling theories, the first is slightly more relevant to an experience one year ago that left me with a sense of everyday wonder I thought had been lost somewhere in my childhood.

On a Saturday night in early May of last year, I turned my head to the scattered papers and books on my desk, dimly bathed by the red glare of my alarm clock. It was 10:00 pm, yet I had done nothing that day. I lay in bed again, looking up at the same baby blue ceiling and the same space-themed fan circulating the same dense air I’ve come to know from many childhood summers. Physically and metaphorically, the walls of my bedroom had suffocated me. I dreaded the thought of another hopeless, sleepless night, so I put on a hoodie and crept out the front door. I was nervous. Because I don’t normally do this type of thing. I don’t act on impulses.

I walked through the streets of my neighborhood, past the back gates of my old high school, to a park atop a hill overlooking the city. Compared to the vast city, its bright lights, and the sky above, I suddenly felt small and the world much larger. Compared to this sight of the city and the millions of lives occurring within, the anxiety within me diminished. The city lights, the sheerness of the night’s cool air, the slight smell of diesel and gasoline, the grassy dew and its wetness, stimulated within me the jolting and intensely comforting awareness of being alive. The pandemic had left me to feel closed off from the world and my future. But I realized that if I could still see the city’s lights, feel the cool air of the sky above, or grimace at the slight smell of diesel and gasoline, that meant I was alive. As long as I’m alive--as long as I have the capacity to live, act, and breathe--then there is still possibility and endless potential for the future. 

On this night, I achieved a glimpse of my childhood wonder and donned a new belief--whenever we are able to see from a new perspective, or change our worldview, it invites a sense of freedom, hope, and optimism--a sense of utterly limitless potential. 

I checked the time on my phone. I looked around and sighed a breath of relief and simultaneous regret. I felt better, but I wanted to stay here longer. I wanted to stay here, atop the hill overlooking the city. But it was late and a fatigue came over me, so I crept back the way I came. Down the hill, back through the school gates and the neighborhood streets, in through the front door. Into the bedroom, into the bed, my body lay. 

I stared once again at the alarm clock, and shut my eyes at its red glare.

September 19th, 2022

I awoke several hours before dawn, to the overwhelming feeling, at first impossible to describe or detect, 

that my value as a human being, with all things summed and considered, amounted to zero. Still reeling from the stuporous shock of my sudden awakening, I lay paralyzed in a cold sweat. The bed and the bedsheets that I had slept in since childhood at once seemed foreign and bizarre, and I realized my eyes were wet with tears. 

But how could that be right? It seemed ridiculous to me. From young, we are told every human life has value. How could I have come to doubt this? Surely not me, as I’ve always considered myself an optimist. Yet it is often in this state of defenselessness, while thresholding the boundary between dreams and wakefulness, that we encounter our own secrecy. I questioned this basic tenet of human decency, and as thoughts ran through my head, I took out my phone to record them.

each and everyone of us is born with value at birth.

why? because each and everyone of us is loved?

loved by who?

by God.

where’s your proof. when did that ever happen?

the moment you were born with your own free will—you were gifted free will, the ultimate gift of life, the ultimate gift of love. the purpose of living is to love.

each of us has value.

i know i’m not alone, but i feel alone

i know i am loved, but i feel unloved.

know that you are loved. surround yourself with people who remind you of it

As I relayed these thoughts back and forth, amid laughter and cries of joy, I became overcome with a new and overwhelming hope. Bizarrely, impulsively, I ran downstairs in hopes of finding my mother. Instead my father was at the kitchen table taking his coffee and toast, in his scrubs preparing for work.

“What are you doing up?” He asked, as he eyed me suspiciously. I approached him to report the good news.

“Oh, I just woke up suddenly and I had this thought.” I began rambling to my father, whom I almost never talked to openly or from my heart. “Recently, I felt like my life might not have any value. But then I had this thought that if each of us is born with free will, then that must mean we are loved.”

“I see, why do you think that?”

I checked my father’s expression before continuing. He entertained my strange outburst, but his face carried the seriousness and perplexity of a physician assessing a mentally ill patient. 

“Well, don’t they say that if you love something you should set it free? So I was thinking, then if maybe there’s a God and he decides to make everyone with free will, doesn’t that mean we are loved?”

“Hmm, well I suppose that could be true.” My dad nodded and began gathering his things. “Well, I gotta head off now.”

He gave me one last look of strange consideration as I told him goodbye, then I hurried back to my room to hide myself underneath my blanket. I didn’t know why I had come to such wild conclusions at the crack of dawn and I was further confused as to why I had made such a bizarre outburst in front of my father. I thought surely, there was something wrong with me, and I became nauseated at my presumptuous and foolish behavior. 

Friday, May 31st, 2024

I stared out the window as an act of discipleship. I was seated in a coffee shop at the window table, facing a major street. There was hardly anything to describe, only ugly and ordinary things like cars, a bus stop, and a plain white building with no obvious function or purpose. But still, I forced myself to sit and stare; there was a purpose to this that I strongly believed in but could hardly explain. The one who seeks, finds. And so I stared and I stared, hardly moving, until almost thirty minutes passed.

After an hour, my wife tapped me on the shoulder.

“Your shift over?”    

“Yup.” She replied, her smile a little tired but relieved by the arrival of the end of the day. I packed up my things and we left to walk home together, waving goodbye to people we knew in the store as the door jingled shut behind us. I held her hand and we swung each other’s arms back and forth in our stride, each looking forward to our couch and the comforts of our tiny studio home.

“What were you staring at? My co-workers and I all noticed you just sitting there for like an hour.” My wife turned to me, curious and amused.

“Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking about something. I’m not sure about what yet, though. But definitely something.”

My wife walked in silence for a moment, waiting for me to continue. I turned to her and looked over her face. She listened well and easily accepted the things I spoke to her. We had been married less than a year, but it seems we’d spent all our lives walking the same road together with our hands interlocked in their symmetry. She knew I had more I wanted to say.

“Well, I guess you could say I felt inspired to observe something in silence today. And so I began staring out the window. Describing what I saw from distal to proximal fashion, there was, across the street, a paint-cracked building that looked somewhat rundown. It was unclear whether it served any current purpose or if it was in use at all. I then turned my attention from the building to the cars passing by in their repeated, never ending rhythm. Contrasted with the cars’ movement, I observed a woman, middle-aged and stout, sitting in a sunhat with a small cart of groceries as she awaited the bus in peaceful stillness. And from the woman, I noticed the bushes and trees, their greenery bathed in sunlight growing evermore focused and brilliant the more intently I stared.”

“Did you learn something from staring at all these things and managing to make everyone in the store both curious and concerned by your strangeness?”

“Admittedly, that’s embarrassing to learn. But yes, I did learn something important--I think.” 

I took out my phone to show her the inspiration of my meditation.

“The daily verse is taken from Isaiah 26:3. This is what it reads, ‘You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.’ I read this and wondered if I had found the cure to the dreary mood that’s afflicted me recently, pendulating between restlessness and lethargy. To be honest, when I was finally accepted to medical school, I believed my mind would clear like the stillness of the ocean after a storm. But instead, I’ve found myself dreading this time before the start of classes, unsure to decide if I have free time now in scarcity or abundance. Before being accepted, there was just one thing on my mind. But now, I--I don’t know.”

My wife grasped my hand more tightly, slowing our pace to stop and turn towards me. She cupped her hands firmly around my face, and squished in my cheeks.

With her eyes wide and bright and in the encouraging tone of a coach giving her players a pep talk, she told me, “Hey, right now is a time we should be celebrating! I know there are going to be a lot of changes happening soon, but whatever happens, I know you’re going to be able to handle it--we’re going to be able to handle it. I promise I’m going to support you every step of the way, and you’re gonna care for and support me, too. And when all else fails, God is going to see us through it, just like he always has. Don’t worry, we got this!”

I grinned stupidly and felt my chest and shoulders broaden, making room for the swelling outpour of love from within my heart. Who was I to be married to someone so gentle and kind? It was my turn to cup her face, and I grabbed her cheeks and smacked a kiss on her lips loudly. We both laughed at our embarrassing display, then hurried home with growing appetites for dinner that grew from our good mood. I thought back to my view of the window, and I looked past the bushes and trees, across the street where cars zipped by, for a moment at the lady in her sunhat, and up towards the white building. Way back in the distance, on top of its old shingled roof, I saw the thin silhouette of a tiny white cross--my gaze had skipped over it until the final moment. It stood in the background, and I turned to my wife to tell her what I saw.