leiju - living, enjoying and simply being

Balls of light, splashes of colour, my hands yearn for the ability to spread paint on a canvas, a support, a white surface, anything. I wish I could splatter all of these things that inhabit me out, about, around.
Put me into a room covered in white.
Give me paint to play with.
Let me express all of that which waits to explode from within me.

Words are like tiny tubes into which only fragments fit, tiny particles of all that which is within, abstract, non-verbal, human, organic, a grunt of inner worlds.

Lines drawn onto a paper, onto a screen, words are but squiggles of symbols, nothing more than etches of the rich worlds that inhabit these thinking vessels that walk about, melting into their surroundings even as they believe they remain eternally separate.

Images are but frozen sections of a melody that exists beyond sound, beyond our comprehension of ourselves. They are but snapshots of a world filled with connotations, hidden messages, communication, meaning, usage, emotions and existence... Even when they convey more than a thousand words ever could, they fail to grasp the depth of this endlessness that inhabits my being.

If I could sink my hands into existence and shape it to show You all of that which is within me, would You see better? Would You pause and listen to all that which we share? Would You open up and hear the sound of the beat that lights us all up? Would You let me reach into You and mix with all of that which You are? Would You let me penetrate You with all of that which I carry within me?

Like fingers sliding into a bag of lentils, I would like to penetrate the pulse that animates existence, that fills all of this space we occupy in the Universe. I would like to grasp it, feel it run between my fingers, wrap itself around these hands of mine, and then feel it spread as I press my hands against the materiality of all that which holds us separate from one another...

I dance, I dance with wind in my hair
I dance with Love in my Heart
I dance with Life as my music

I dance
I dance, dance, dance
I dance, my long skirt flowing in the wind

I dance with my Heart
I dance and dance, and dance my way into your dreams
I dance with your memory on my skin

I dance with your laughter in my Heart
I dance with the sound of your voice in my veins
I dance with the memory of nights spent in your loving embrace

I dance, dance in my mind
I dance my way deep into remembrance, deep, deep into the past
I dance hoping to appear in your dreams, hoping to light a smile onto your face while You are deep in a world of slumber...

I'm not allowing myself to experience the compliments or attention I'm extended because I seem to believe, somewhere deep down below, that if I accept any of it I won't know how to be open to criticism anymore, that I'll get a big head and that I will come across as self-centred and righteous.

I am not allowing myself to let go and embrace the goodness that comes my way because I am afraid I will get hurt once more, weighed down with the weight of human existence, human needs, human desires, human games, human humanness...

I am not allowing myself to demand for more as I can't see why I would have the right to demand more than what Life grants me as it is. I mean, hey, who do I think I am, eh?

It's amazing to come face to face with the borders of my sanity, feeling the slippery slope beneath my feet, that path that leads to a world within millions of worlds closed in on themselves.

My whole inner world swings from one end to the next, sometimes glimpsing bits and bouts of that Light I have cultivated for the past years, yet most of the time spending my woken moments in a thick fog of doubt and uncertainty.

The sunshine pierces through, momentarily, as the blue sky covers my whole being with quietude; the sun-kissed autumn leaves shine bright, the air smells of pending hibernation and the warmth of kindness stretches itself around my fingers.

The Light shines through as kindness pours itself onto myself through a shared thought, a shared poem, a shared care, an extended kindness that squeezes tears out my Being.

But the swing swings back, into the depths of shyness and weakness.
I lose myself in the expectations of performance I place upon myself, in the flawlessness I demand of my flawed Self, in the requirements I will never be able to fulfil. I let myself fall into a world I thought I'd left behind ages ago. I let myself drown. I swim aimlessly, heading straight down, deeper into the depth of the darkness that fills the depths of my void Self.

Where did I go?
Where did that carefree me go?
When did I abandon that child to all the adult fears I worked so hard to break free from?
When did I embark upon this slippery slope down this lane of insanity?
When did I give up the light that has brought me to where I am today?

I'm searching.
Searching for me.
I know I am here somewhere, somewhere amongst this mess that has found its way into my mind, my Heart, my Soul.
I know I'm lost but not gone.

Maybe I've just gone for a hike, left this messy shell of mine to deal with the world while I roam around the beautiful landscaped of Earth. Maybe I found some Light in another place and I wait for me there, by the crackling fire, that beautiful warmth that can be found when with friends far away, away in lands filled with only our laughter.

Did I forget my Self again in the nostalgia of my distant dreams?
If only I remembered how to wake up along with my Self...

It feels like venturing out into unknown lands,
Into unknown territories,
Heading out to there where none have ever passed before,
To the hidden depths of deep forests and hidden caves.

It's almost an act of courage,
A magnificent step,
A breach into somewhere where one is alone,
Abandoned to solitude,
Adrift on a tumultuous sea while all others have returned ashore.

The traces of people past still linger on its borders,
The pages filled with notes,
Underlines and comments.

You turn the page, a new chapter begins and the marks of those before You are there no more: this is the section of the book none bothered to read.

You are left alone to venture into carelessly scanned lines of thought,
Alone with the content shunned for its lusciousness,
Bypassed and skipped over for the benefit of a more detailed read of the last few pages, the transcription of the author's conclusion.

And it's there, deep in the heart of the abandoned pages, that You discover the gems those before You forgot to pay enough attention to, to underline...

What can be the meaning, then, of this twofold process of de-signification and valorisation of the elements of exchange? Perhaps it expresses - even beyond the attachment of culture to its values - the hope of nostalgia for a mythical time in which everyone would accede to the fullness of a bliss unlimited by the exigency of exchange.
- Pierre Clastres, Society Against the State.

The sound of my heels carried far through the night.
Alone. In the middle of a street. In the middle of the night.

I feel like I'm piercing through a layer, like a flower that is finally coming out of gestation and is ready to explore new depths of existence. It's almost as if all the dirt around me was exactly what I needed to be able to see clearly and to feel the sun shine on my newly rediscovered skin.

As I walked along the park, the sun shone through the leaves, I listened carefully to the beautiful song of a bird perched not far from where I was busy passing. I could hear it sing with its whole Heart and Soul, its voice filling the air around itself, rejoicing at the mere fact of existence. It was the first time I could hear each note as it was sung - pure vocal crystal.

I smiled, as I so often do when walking alone.

Today, as James lectured us about Adam Smith and his perception of a human being unable to happily exist in solitude, a frown gathered itself on my face. Who in their right mind would think that we exist solely for others? Oh, wait, yeah, most people do, I guess.
And then there are those that live alone for 55 years and return to social existence with such clarity and such genuine kindness and Love that even the most revered scientists are unable to comprehend.

We come out with all kinds of theories as to why such and such a person would experience such and such emotions in such and such conditions. Yet we are all so far away from reality. All so far away from the magic of existence.

We've theorised our way out of existence in its purest form.

We've moved away from being enraptured by Life to being bogged down by illusionary constructions, and what do we get?
Depression, alienation, illness, separation.

Yes! We have gained science and the ability to map out how genes are switched on or off and how a liver comes to be a liver.
Yes! We think we've pierced the mystery of the deep end of the cosmos and it's apparent loopholes.
Yes! We've figured out how to explain the fact that we give meaning to all that which we give meaning to!
Yes! We have achieved great depths of knowledge in knowledge institutions that exist for the pure sake of their own existence.

Great!

And still we are lonely, sequestered and not sure of how to talk with those that inspire us to smile, laugh, Love and breathe.


It's been a roller-coaster, really.
One day up, in the evening down, then up again and all over, round and round again.
Pure doubt followed by certainty and then fear followed by courage and then all of it mixed up again in a blender of raw emotions and a zest of tears.

And now, I walk in the middle of the street, at night, my high heels banging on the pavement in ways unusual to me, and I smile, let myself get carried away. It feels like the web of Life is here again, supporting my existence every step of the way. The roots grow deeper and stronger with each passing day, and despite the wind of doubt and the storm of fear, I slowly rise up and reach for a new definition of my Self.

Indeed, there is no going back; I can feel it.
I've moved on to another plane and there is no going back.
All that I feared has come to pass yet none of it has brought destruction. Rather, all of it has brought unexpected gifts and endless curiosity as to what is this thing we like to call Life, especially when it comes to experiencing my Self.

My insides twist and churn.
I just watched a film I've wanted to see for months: Khadak.
A movie about Mongolia, shamanism and the modern world.

It was visually stunning.
The content was tangibly powerful.

... and then I received this article via e-mail
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&sid=a6QgPaf5ZMiY

My mind and inner world are torn.
I know what I know and I know the world is not listening anymore.
I know I am fighting a losing battle and that the end of the world as we've known it is coming close.

Soon, it will be no more and the knowledge we've cherished and sheltered through generations will be buried under a pile of stuff.

Where am I to go?
What am I to do?

A shiver of disgust runs through my body as I think of the human mass that has come to envelope this Planet. No, it's not disgust, it's fear.
We are being born anew.
We are moving through something, a collective formation making its way through to another dimension. But perhaps, just perhaps, this dimension is like nothing we have ever imagined. Perhaps we are taking ourselves to Hell. Perhaps we are moving our selves onto another space entirely.

The Love and care I have seep through every membrane of my Body.
Like a tree that rains water onto the Earth that has given birth to it, I shed the endless Love that springs forth from within me.

My Love is as unconditional as the Sky under which we Live.

May there be floods of Love.
May You be flooded.

Mongolia is like a dream that I dreamt
before I knew I could exist

Its windswept hills filled with the breath of Life
Its rivers rinsed with crystal clarity
Its people's Hearts filled with genuineness

This Life of mine is like a reverie
a reverie that tastes so sweet
and feels so real

What a privilege to exist
as me

What an honour to experience this dream
this trance that still seems so real

Like flashes from Heaven
past Moments return
titillating the tip of my Heart
pulling me into total recall

The flavour of the wind
its texture on my skin

The warmth of the horse
as the day breaks
as we climb up a hill
as I run my fingers across its smooth fur

The taste of sunshine
its caress on my skin

His deaf silence
as he helps me off my ride
as he sits in the high grass
as we wait together for the rest of them

The twinkle of the rain
its sharpness on my skin

The sounds we make
as we ride down
as we cross a river
as the hooves of our horses crack fallen wood

I dance with my horse
as he runs across the plain
the wind in our hair waving to those left behind us

His wildness seems natural
Why does he keep on wanting to run into trees?

Can achievement truly turn the sweet taste of trial into the bitter dumbness of done?

Once upon a time, barely a few days ago, my inner self was filled with the tingle of a future full of promise. Tonight, that space has been replaced by an old stale smell, the one that comes to live there where dead-end turns keep each other company.
The tears of effort that beat fruit have been turned to anxious memories of the illusion of potentiality, the fantasy of importance and the dream of advancement. The rip that had set itself as the promise of growth, evolution and perhaps even progress has been bandaged by the dawning memory of immutability.

Why do I keep churning the present?

We are the only specie able to negate our instincts.
We are also entering an era when religion, and beliefs, must enter the realm of rational argumentation rather than simple emotional stimuli.

This human animal I represent, fascinates me.
How intriguing to be able to consider oneself separated from the self. I often wonder whether we are the only animal able - or even willing! - to detach ourselves from our experience of the world. I become so consumed with my interpretation of events that they lose all meaning. From stimuli that could potentially affect my response, events happening outside my mind become so abstracted and loaded with internal questioning that they appear to have no effect.

So, who am I?
The person whom others perceive through their personal filters and subjective observations? Or the one that inhabits a mind within an apparently detached body, seemingly immobile in the face of targeted stimuli?
Or am I simple flesh too consumed with itself to allow a space for all that which spans outside of itself?

It's been too long since Descartes successfully formulated the basis to all western comprehension of the self: I think, therefore I am. I say too long because it seems no one has come along since to add that something that would allow us to step beyond such a self contained line of thought.

I do not like answering the question 'who are you' as I am unable to articulate - or even conceive of - a definition of my self. Yet I have been defined as having "a very strong sense of self."

What does that mean?

And in other terms... an FPIF take with Noam Chomsky.

Wow.

One moment my internal self is buried under a pile of emotional turmoil, past wounds hurrying around the re-torn cut as zombies around fresh flesh. Some minutes pass, I find a comfortable nest to sit in and write, and POOF, all of it is gone. The internal hurricane of chaos is gone, it has vanished, returned to the skies and left nothing but a still and bare landscape filled with a void and cruel sensation of Peace.

Neat.

I often use writing to clear out my head. I guess it's my internal chaos seeking some sort of arrangement in the form of words laid out on a page, no matter how virtual the latter might be. Recently, however, it seems that just settling down to write does the trick, leaving me gasping for the material that was spiralling in my head just a few seconds before.

I'm not quite sure yet, whether I like this or not.
I do most certainly enjoy the Peace that seems to wrap itself like a Gore-Tex membrane around my mind, yet I also recognise the pleasure I suck out of the emotional turmoil that leaks through.

My Life is boringly useless, yet I act as if it mattered.
I write, as if it changed anything.
I think, as if someone else was listening.
I Love, as if someone could comprehend.
I choose, as if it made any difference at all.

In reality none of it matters. At all.
My Life will be only as great as I make it out to be, for myself.
Those I know and come to spend Time with will vanish, just as I will, sooner or later.
My words, my actions, will have made no difference, even if some will choose to believe that some words and some actions matter more than others. In reality, nothing has any meaning beyond the one we choose to grant to whatever it is we are talking about.

We are on a small ball, lost in the middle (or side) of a vast endlessness we are unable to even truly capture in our wildest imagination. Whether we exist, or not, makes no difference in the greater scheme of things. For there is no greater scheme. We just are. That's it. That's all there is to any of anything.

I am God, just as You are, because I create my own Life, just as You do. I forge meaning there where none was to be found before, because that is what I compulsively do, human that I am. I fabricate stories and create intricate webs of emotions there where only atoms rule according to their own rules.

And it is truly Beautiful, no matter how meaningless.
Despite the burps of passion and emotional turmoil, despite the doubt and the desire to feel worthy of breathing the air I do, despite the endless internal as well as external changes that sway my Life, it is truly Beautiful, all this that is.


It is through the meaning I bestow upon my Life that my behaviour is influenced. It is through meaning that action spurs. These metaphysical questions are not merely a waste of time, but help define how I perceive the world and how I am to exist within it. It is through our perception, or attribution, of meaning that we choose to act or not to act - or define the quality of our in/action - in any given circumstance.

What is the meaning of your Life?
- or in other words, why do You do all that You do and leave undone all that, which You don't do?

Isn't it amazing how fleeting human emotions seem to be?
It's almost as if they went with the wind, from South to North, East to West, hot to cold, kind to cruel, and then round again.

Or is this a specificity of mine?
I doubt it.
But it could be.
It could be that I am unstable, easily swayed, rootless and unable to find stability in anything else but that hidden yet unconditional Love, there where I find refuge whenever my human Heart suffers too much.
It could also be that I have learned such tight and unbreakable patterns that they override my very volition to enjoy a quiet internal Life.

Who knows.

What I find most fascinating is my ability to turn cold. It's almost as if I had some internal switch that allowed me, thanks to even very little argumentation, to completely switch off from any feelings of care. They do creep back up after a while, after such a cold operation, yet usually in a much less potent format. There is a smooth detachment that appears, as a safe rift between my sense of Self and the raw emotions. It's a good detachment, as it allows for more sane relationships with those I care for, yet I still wonder where this all comes from.

Why do I have such raw and ravaging emotions bubbling beneath my skin?
How come I have such a hard time with closeness, when at the same time I would like to give myself wholly to whomever would desire me?
Do other people experience such a clear separation between knee-jerk and raw emotions and their attempt at appearing sane to the outside world?

At times I'm peaceful and collected, feeling almost unreachable, as if all these emotions were only far away cries from beyond the horizon. Then there are times when each word that hits my sensorial system can either make or break me, like a scalpel about to either save me or sabotage me.
What is it that pushes me over the edge from one side to the other?

When I give myself a lot of time to meditate or otherwise do physical activities (dancing around like a nut-case alone in my apartment does count), I usually manage to remain at Peace, and whatever whomever might toss my way barely even scratches the surface. It would then seem only reasonable to realise that when I fail to take care of my mental silence or physical activity, that I become engulfed in the passion of human emotions, but it is not so simple. It's as if there was a part in me that thinks the quiet and detached bliss is boring. So boring in fact that this part of me is happy to sabotage the internal harmony and Peace I have sometimes spent quite a while to get to.

But this continuous back and forth is starting to wear me out.
I'd like to swing and stay in that place of quiet detachment.

I have had the most amazing Life I can possibly imagine. I have seen so much, more than I would have ever dreamt of seeing; I have experienced so much, more than I could have ever dared to hope for; I have felt such a vast array of emotions, I don't know what could possibly left to be felt...

Life is Beautiful.
No matter the ugliness and destruction we, humans, are so busy spewing around, Life is Beautiful, truly.
And my Life has been, and still is, simply amazing.

I have only pure gratitude in my Heart for all that I have seen, experienced and felt during these 26 years.

Yet there obviously is something I still long for.
Why else would I still play such painful games with myself?
What do I still seek?
Clarity for all those things that still make no sense? Do I still yearn for some hardship? Perhaps I still yearn to learn how to remain detached, no matter the external stimuli?

Uncharted maps and change rock my boat more than workable answers pulled out of another's head.

The beauty in Life is the incessant potentiality for change. You can be a million different opinions about one single thing throughout the course of your Life. Even though we are unable to know for sure, is there any other creature upon the fine crust of this Planet that can constantly reinvent itself, like humans have the potential to?

I like the certainty of uncertainty, the fact that the only thing that never changes is the constancy of change, or at least its illusion. I would hate to be sure about something, to reach a conclusion about anything before the time of my death. Happiness is not the goal, happiness lies in the journey, in the fleeting moment, in the evasive nature of Life, in the bounty of points of views.

While some thrive on the attempt to keep up permanence, I dance in the Joy of change.

We come and exist. A space of pure thought. Our reality is only a fragment of our imagination. A space between things, we compose our reality by creating differences, by negating, by saying what something is not and how it is different from yet another particle of what we perceive.

Does the world exist without us, does it continue existing once we die?
What if, what if You are not real?
What if, what if I am alone?
What if it is all an Illusion, an intricate construction of my mind?

What if I wake up from this human dream and realise these are just layers of a deeper veil of polarity within a space and time continuum? What if my real Being is something totally different? What if I spend my time taking myself way too seriously, worrying about all that is, when none of it really is?

One day, I will die.
That day, and that day only, all will vanish.

My mind will be gone.
Or will it?

Perhaps it will simply melt into a different continuum, one I cannot perceive whilst I am stuck in this body. Perhaps it will simply stop and my molecules will regain their freedom and become one once again with their surrounding?

How do You undoubt things that You have learned to doubt?
How do You manage to bring Peace there where there are raging questions that just will not accept to be answered?
How do You find stability, and a footing to stand on, in absolute and pure uncertainty?

Why would any of that even be necessary?

I guess it belongs to the order of the day. When You are desperately trying to live without feeling attached to anything but still suffer from the whims of your internally unsatisfied doubts and needs. But why abandon oneself to those whims?
Because if I shut them out, I shut my screaming Heart into a cold-room.

Is it possible to Love without a needy Heart?
Can one bypass human attachment without letting the Heart bleed dry?

I know there's a trick.
I know it, because I've passed this Life quiz before.
I know it, because I've been there.
I know it, because I've pondered about it before, before realising that my mind is the only thing holding me back. It's pure logic that fails to support me, but rather, like a bamboo scaffolding, pretends to stand on its own, when in reality it's leaning on something far bigger than itself.

Oh Fuck!

It's like roller-coaster again. There's moments of intense Joy, moments of intense pain, moments of just plain Nothing.
It's funny to notice that I have come so far back from where I had managed to get myself to, barely two years ago. It was the trip to Asia last year that made me retreat into some sort of a shell filled with waves of insanity.

One moment I feel like a child, completely taken over by her emotions, barely able to think coherently about anything, barely able to contain herself and the amount of everything that pours in and out of her Self. Then a sudden shift, within seconds, when I calm down, come back down to a more rational Self, a more quiet version of who I am, the grown up persona. I smile, discreetly, wondering why I become so emotional and what needs of mine still hasn't been fully understood and/or fulfilled; what stage of infancy have I remained stuck to.
And ka-pow! Then enters the serene me, the Peaceful, Loving me, detached from this world, floating on a spiritual plane of pure Existence and Love. I smile, laugh even, at the little human being that fights and fights and tries to keep herself miserable and in doubt, for some greater human cause - such as the eternal need for valuable doubt and human growth.

Ah, the three characters of I.

The three parts sometimes interlock in internal battles of logic. The problem with this being that all three agree upon most issues internally, but deal with external issues rather differently. The fundamental core issue all three are unanimous on is that without such a diversity of experiences, Life can become quite fucking boring.

While the first self (the overly emotional one) is a painful I to be encapsulated in, she serves a great human experience, filled with all those emotions people sing, paint and write about. I have recently come to understand a great variety of art and feelings, that had previously eluded me, thanks to the presence of the jolly weeping Julia.
She does get onto my nerves after a while though.

The second part of me is quite cold and calculating. She doesn't seem to always experience feelings of any sort. Only pure rationale to feed her bones. But this I is a bridge over from the first to the third version of this human Self that I experience. It's thanks to her that I have reached amazing insights into a superbly vast array of issues - ranging from economics to enlightenment.

The third me IS.

The trouble at the moment is that the three parts do not always quite manifest themselves as clearly as I would like them to. Sometimes I say, or write, things believing I am acting from a rational or spiritual centre of myself when in reality it's a needy and uncertain Julia that carries the action forth. This puts me in embarrassing situations. And fills me with discomfort and somewhat disturbing pain.

Barely two years ago, I had managed to bring the three parts much closer together and nearer to harmony. All three managed to cohabit and not fight so much. I had more clarity within my Head, Heart and Soul. Now it's a shackles or mix and unmatch. In a way, I miss the Serenity that came with that state... but now I am enthused by the amount of ideas that bubble within me. I'm quite certain I won't get much done of all those ideas that envelope my brain, blood pump and cells, but I still enjoy the feeling of enthusiasm this internal chaos is bringing forth.

"Are You happy?" You asked, one night, as we randomly browsed the paths that crisscross Helsinki. How could I possibly answer? My mouth went numb, my mind overloaded with questions as to what You were really asking and whether I could ever find a truthful answer to that question.

"Yes... and no," I hesitated, as if all of Life could be explained in three simple words unfairly juxtaposed in a sentence unworthy of such a qualification.

What is happiness? How could You quantify what happiness is? Is there a universal formula that would allow people to determine whether they are happy or not? How can any person truly answer such a subjective question and still truthfully convey their internal state of happiness to another Being that is wrapped up in their own subjective measures of everything?

How are You?
You can answer by adjectives, adverbs, verbs, nouns, titles, whatever. An open question that leaves room for whatever the other person might feel like saying at that very Moment.

Are You Julia? - yes.
Are You sad? - I would like to think I'm not. But sometimes I do feel sadness.
Are You funny? - some people think I am. Others consider me pathetic.
Are You alive? - yes, I would like to think I am.
Are You sociable? - to a certain degree, yes.

Are You happy?

There are so many things we are, or are not, that can be defined through other people's perception of, and reactions as to, who we are. But when it comes to happiness...

Another night, You asked me again. This time I wanted to know how You defined happiness, but You refused to quantify it with other words. What do You really want to know?

How are You?
We ask each other such a mundane question day in, day out, yet do we really even stop to listen to each other? Do we even expect other people to really answer the question? Do we just go about throwing random questions across the rooms we cross so that we may feel like we are part of the society we so dearly long to belong to? Do we really ever take the time to care?

Are You Happy?

Gross National Happiness.
What a strike of genius! The former Bhutanese king hit the world on the head and laughed out loud at the face of our ever-so important capitalism, as he decided not to invest in the country's Gross National Product, but rather GN Happiness. He defined it through rather simple questions that relied on people's ability to quantify their subjective experiences relating to their lives, as lived within a given society and its rules. Thanks to, or perhaps because of this, the King decided to remove the country's only traffic lights. The cold red, orange and green were replaced by a traffic policeman, and the GNH took a leap upwards.

I'd probably experience a lot more of happiness, if I were able to live in a world where leaders took time to care about the world's GNH rather than GNP. I'd probably experience more happiness, if people expressed more compassion towards each other. I'd probably experience more happiness, if we were more honest to one another, if our lives were ruled by Love rather than money, if our future was not as important as the present, if humans learned to open up and become aware of themselves as well as others, if homo sapiens took time to listen and not only preach, if this Earth turned to the beat of our Hearts and not only to the crack of our logic.

Am I happy?

When I dance around in my apartment, in the fading golden sunlight - yes, I am.
When I sing out aloud in the car to old Finnish pop-songs - yes, I am.
When I look into the eyes of children - yes, I am.
When I say whatever is on my mind without being afraid - yes, I am.
When I feel understood - yes, I am.
When my mind expands by learning new thoughts, points of views - yes, I am.
When I sleep - yes, I am.
When I abandon myself to words - yes, I am.
When I remember all the Moments that took me to unmapped lands - yes, I am.
When I hug You - yes, I am.

Am I happy?

Do I need to be? How could I box myself as being happy? Would I want to be?
I am filled with Joy, just as I am filled with questions and doubts.
I am filled with Love, just as I am filled with fear and an uncanny unwillingness to let go of past traumas.
I am filled with Peace, just as I am filled with all the world's wars, fights, murders, rapes, injustices, pain and suffering.

I am happy, just as I am unhappy.

Ask me once more, and You might perhaps understand my hesitation a bit better, as I attempt to explain the whole world in three simple words unfairly juxtaposed in a sentence unworthy of such a qualification.