There’s a version of you that exists before words arrive. Before the explanations. Before the memories organize themselves into something that feels like an identity. Just a silent presence, here and now. Unfortunately, the mind typically doesn’t rest there for very long. It likes to gather pieces. Moments. Emotions. Experiences. It weaves them together into something that tries to make sense of the world. A story.

There’s an idea, a perspective that I enjoy. It might sound poetic at first, almost like something meant to comfort rather than explain. It can be summed up in four simple words. You are the universe. You are not separate from reality, observing it from the outside. You are reality, expressing itself from a specific point of view. The same process that formed stars, galaxies, oceans, and forests is the same process that formed you.