If you look at us humans as a species, if you really take an enormous step back and just describe what we do all day, you could almost say we’re hilarious beings. Not in the telling-a-joke-way but in our most fundamental ways we are a very entertaining lot. We bend our legs in this funny way and sway from left to right, barely keeping our balance, just to get to places. When we make these ridiculous sounds with our food-intake-gap, we can tell others about our thoughts and feelings, and we can make them laugh or cry or scream with anger. If we like each other, we sometimes use our elongated, freely swinging arms and wrap them around each other, just to press our hearts together as close as possible. And we proceed to call this a hug. We meet with other humans when the completely arbitrary tick-tock reaches a designated number, we fold our bodies onto wooden objects for more comfort (apparently, we don’t like standing on our feet for too long), and we move between our living cube and working cube, and maybe a sports cube or an arts cube, in these funny rolling objects (some bigger than others, some even on rails).
I force myself to take this enormous step back as often as possible. It puts things into perspective. It helps me understand why certain things make me feel alive, and why many fellow humans feel similarly about them. A thirsty sip of cold water. Warm sunshine on skin after a long winter. Smelling freshly baked bread. Holding the hand of a loved one. A really good sigh. Receiving a letter (and not one from the Gemeente). Laughing uncontrollably, gasping for air. Following raindrops on a window. Those few seconds of a song that just hit different. There is something so rudimentary about many of these examples because they are a distillate of our most basic human needs: hunger, thirst, shelter, love, pleasure. The needs that unite us.
Then again, I dare you to ask the people around you: What makes you feel alive? And they will give you an adorable or hilarious, but often also a deeply personal answer. The things that make us feel alive speak volumes about who we are, how we experience pleasure, what and who has shaped us, what we value in life. I like to imagine that the feeling of being alive is something as unique to each individual as the pattern on their fingertips. And it is this uniqueness that might have inspired the term glimmer: the things and moments essentially functioning as the opposite of a negative trigger for us.
Identifying my own glimmers is an ongoing act of self-love; it means understanding what defines me and makes me human simultaneously. While most of these moments are mundane, I treasure their effect on my perspective and attitude towards life. They elicit this calm and grateful optimism that I will be okay, that my effort is enough, that there is time to grow if I want to.
I dare you to take a step back whenever you can and look at us humans. How we sit together in the autumn sun, drinking fermented fruit juice or bubbly water, look at our fellow humans and feel at home. How saltwater drips down our cheeks when we laugh too hard, read a book, or feel incredibly grateful. And I hope you will, at least for a moment, feel alive.
If you look at us humans as a species, if you really take an enormous step back and just describe what we do all day, you could almost say we’re hilarious beings. Not in the telling-a-joke-way but in our most fundamental ways we are a very entertaining lot. We bend our legs in this funny way and sway from left to right, barely keeping our balance, just to get to places. When we make these ridiculous sounds with our food-intake-gap, we can tell others about our thoughts and feelings, and we can make them laugh or cry or scream with anger. If we like each other, we sometimes use our elongated, freely swinging arms and wrap them around each other, just to press our hearts together as close as possible. And we proceed to call this a hug. We meet with other humans when the completely arbitrary tick-tock reaches a designated number, we fold our bodies onto wooden objects for more comfort (apparently, we don’t like standing on our feet for too long), and we move between our living cube and working cube, and maybe a sports cube or an arts cube, in these funny rolling objects (some bigger than others, some even on rails).
I force myself to take this enormous step back as often as possible. It puts things into perspective. It helps me understand why certain things make me feel alive, and why many fellow humans feel similarly about them. A thirsty sip of cold water. Warm sunshine on skin after a long winter. Smelling freshly baked bread. Holding the hand of a loved one. A really good sigh. Receiving a letter (and not one from the Gemeente). Laughing uncontrollably, gasping for air. Following raindrops on a window. Those few seconds of a song that just hit different. There is something so rudimentary about many of these examples because they are a distillate of our most basic human needs: hunger, thirst, shelter, love, pleasure. The needs that unite us.
Then again, I dare you to ask the people around you: What makes you feel alive? And they will give you an adorable or hilarious, but often also a deeply personal answer. The things that make us feel alive speak volumes about who we are, how we experience pleasure, what and who has shaped us, what we value in life. I like to imagine that the feeling of being alive is something as unique to each individual as the pattern on their fingertips. And it is this uniqueness that might have inspired the term glimmer: the things and moments essentially functioning as the opposite of a negative trigger for us.
Identifying my own glimmers is an ongoing act of self-love; it means understanding what defines me and makes me human simultaneously. While most of these moments are mundane, I treasure their effect on my perspective and attitude towards life. They elicit this calm and grateful optimism that I will be okay, that my effort is enough, that there is time to grow if I want to.
I dare you to take a step back whenever you can and look at us humans. How we sit together in the autumn sun, drinking fermented fruit juice or bubbly water, look at our fellow humans and feel at home. How saltwater drips down our cheeks when we laugh too hard, read a book, or feel incredibly grateful. And I hope you will, at least for a moment, feel alive.
