It’d be a lot easier to go through life avoiding the big questions: “Who am I?,” ‘’Oh god where am I?,” “God, are you out there?!” and so on. They all exist in relative planes and elements of existence meanwhile they surround us and our understanding of life’s purpose and the meaning of existence.

One dead guy, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, wanted to answer one of these questions. Around a hundred million years ago, he took on the task of identifying “the self” by adapting Rene Descartes’ famous latin line, “dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum,” also known as “je doute, donc je pense, donc je suis,” also known as “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am.” In a non-pedantic and ostentatious sense, basically these men were just yelling into the void and finding that their own ability to doubt and think was enough for them to know life is real. People are more than bodies, more than cells, more than atoms… our world is not all a simulation.

As for me, personally and spiritually, I believe in the six elements of the known universe that prove my existence. Proponents of the show “The Last Airbender” would say earth, water, air and fire are the only elements; however, one would be forgetting the element, tungsten. Its symbol on the Periodic Table is “W” and thus is one of the dumbest forms of modern Latin to date. I mean, who even came up with a “W”? Wild thoughts. Through this strange lettering, the appearance of tungsten in the known and natural world represents all forms of the element of surprise, a crucial element for life itself. Lastly, there is the element of vibes, which are, of course, the transcendental flow of positive energy in times of dire stress and circumstance. (Please note: vibes are not suitable replacements for contentedness nor happiness.) Vibes, along with the element of surprise, are together the only two, and I mean the ONLY two scientifically proven phenomenons that benignly contribute to the human psyche, offering both forms of delight, horror and chaos. Our natural humanity thrives on this combination.

Switching gears for a moment, it’s easy to acknowledge the one-sided forms of happiness that manifest on social media without considering their implications. We look on Instagram and find images of success and happiness, being in the form of all-expenses paid vacations, models with fashionista flair, hypebeasts with hordes of sneakers and other objects of eye-candy wealth. These all may be fun to read about and watch videos of and “like and follow,” however, these images of success, happiness and fun are unrealistic and intrinsically false.

As I’ve learned, after six months of being a junior, happiness is a strange concept and vagrant mode of dwindling internal light.

Happiness is meant to be a sustained amount of joy and content that, through dreary days and sleepless nights, happiness is supposed to be a feeling that is sustainable and attainable. We can’t always wear smiles or feel full hearts, so accepting our own ability to feel our own emotions and love others are some of the only ways to get by.

In a silly kind of stupid depressed sense, I could argue that feeling happiness is pointless because words have no meaning. Words are just vowels and consonants and syllables and weird tongue movements to create these sounds.

The word happiness has no meaning if you don’t let it. It has three vowels, just like the Unholy Trinity has three components (the mother, the daughter and the blasphemous gender-fluid spirit, of course) and this connection cannot be misunderstood. As well, it cannot be understood. Like many of the connections that can be made using words, such as the idea of a Schenectady toboggan team wearing meatloaf loafers, “happiness” has absolutely no significance and provides no importance. But this is a false, dark mindset.

We should all try to feel something, even if it feels foreign and bizarre. Really, happiness is hard to come by. Feelings, generally, are hard to come by. Moments of content self-love are hard to come by. When dealing with stress and increasingly busy schedules, it’s difficult to find the time to feel anything, but we all deserve happiness, just as we’re all capable and responsible for finding a love for ourselves and others.

We can all feel something.

Everyone has a way of doing so, a way to cope through struggles and try to get a sensation. Some of you may turn to drugs or alcohol, but there’s a world of alternatives. For me, I used to drink fruity vinegar concoctions that left a burning sensation on my palette. Then for a time, I was on a dried mango bender that had similar effects. Now, I just drink kombucha. It’s not very funny, or even very enlightening, but it’s real. If I ever need to feel something, I turn to a bottle of “happiness” Dr. Brew Kombucha and feel the joy of white rose fermented tea.

So yeah, kinda funny, kinda lame, kinda sad; junior year do be like that. At least I haven’t lost my sense of school spirit along the way. Go Lakers.

If you have a question you’d like me to answer, please email me at [email protected] or talk to me in person. (Beware: I don’t normally wear the clown nose around school.)