We wake up with a feeling in our chest, either bitter or blissful. We carry on our day with it. One may say you woke up on the wrong side when you’re having a bad day; it could be from the dreams of last night. The pigments of our imagination. Could be our minds playing tricks with us?

However, when good, so does your day go, perhaps throughout or not. Then there’s the feeling of familiarity. They call it deja vu. Then there goes the comment ‘it could be from your past life’, albeit while still trying to figure out the present one.

The dreams however may remain in our memories or not but we all want to retire to bed every other night. A comfortable bed.

Comfort is what it all boils down to. From suckling to adulthood, we struggle to have the life we want. The baby cries whenever it needs anything; food, change of diaper, or just attention, and sometimes is rocked to sleep. To comfort.

Another kid may do the same but on its mother’s back under the scorching sun while she hawks. The kid may carry on with the hawking in a few years to attain a life of comfort which he or she may never get. Another kid may be born still. Another may not even be born at all due to a miscarriage or abortion. Another kid was born during perilous times, famine, war, a pandemic and never knew comfort. Another grew up and saw no point of it all and took his own life. Another met a great opportunity unexpectedly. Destiny. It could be to wealth, love, or perhaps to comfort.

Happiness it may be but we keep searching. Some find it in their lover’s eyes. Some are restricted from their lovers due to society, religion, the law.

Law they say is morality. The law however bred slavery, discrimination, homophobia, sexism, and a lot of regrets. But the law is only the law depending on location.

Novelty they say is embracing the new but not doing away with the old and there lies bits of injustice, malice, hatred and lots of unresolved issues in different parcels of our lives.

We keep searching for happiness or comfort or whatever life is about throughout our lives. We never even know when it may end. We struggle to bag a degree we may never use. To win someone we may never get. To try to be someone we may never be.

There’s no rest in this world. Some of us rely on a deity to lead us through. Some of us serve ourselves until the end. Believing in a divine being gives some a kind of purpose here but it’s different for others. Some others spend their whole lives trying to avoid a place called hell. Meanwhile some create Heaven on earth.

The French have no word for home. Perhaps, Jack Gilbert’s poem “The Forgotten Dialect of The Heart” are words to live by. Tablets translated as business records, historical figures may have been poems or psalms or perhaps not. Home is where the heart is. I hope we all have a home.

Language, culture, religion, race, beliefs, nationality, gender, sexuality, zodiacs, appearance. So many differences to keep us apart when we all have one beating heart, one sun, one moon, one earth which could sink any day or not.

To live is to be happy they say. Someone once said “You will find happiness only when you stop searching for it”. We all want to wake up happy but some don’t even wake at all.

Life is lot of complexities. It’s roses with thorns, love that hurts, youth that flies away, wealth that could fade, health that could decline, death on the way.

I don’t know what life is. I’m still figuring it out like everyone else, but I know it’s what comes before death and I don’t want to feel a void before that emptiness.

I just hope we live in peace and harmony.