The Mind Palace

It is difficult not to see life itself as something inherently beautiful and deeply fascinating. Yet the society humanity has constructed has stripped much of that joy away, replacing a sense of safety with pressure, and in doing so, making control easier to impose. I continue to argue with myself over whether this control was ever truly necessary to prevent chaos, or whether it simply arose from the intoxicating feeling of power, the desire to dominate others and dictate their actions.

We have a tendency towards arrogance. The authority we create and the impulse to lead others can be overwhelmingly powerful, so much so that I sometimes believe it is instinctive. We consider ourselves conscious beings rather than mere animals, yet are we aware enough to recognise how limited that awareness may be? In a universe vast beyond comprehension, the extent of our consciousness may be negligible, and yet, despite being no more than a fleeting point within it, we perceive ourselves as immense within our own world. I cannot help but wonder how we fail to see our own smallness.

Perhaps what I seek is a deeper state of awareness, one that might unlock clarity and allow me to see life more truthfully. For this reason, we must continue to question, to doubt, and to challenge the things we believe we know. It is worth remembering that our thoughts are largely shaped by others, influenced by systems of logic once deemed “right.” At the same time, our ideas of right and wrong were also formed through empathy and instinctive emotional responses, shaped by what we collectively felt to be harmful or unjust.

I remain fascinated by what we have created and by the origins of everything we believe to understand. Yet perhaps life is not about reaching definitive answers, but about the pursuit of understanding, even when we sense that there may be nothing absolute to uncover.

Observation, in this sense, is one of life’s greatest tools. We all see, yet very few of us truly observe.

— H.S