When you look around you, what do you see? A concrete jungle? A city filled with smog, traffic, and people who don't care? I don't. I see a city filled with architecture so beautiful you admire the craftsman hundreds of years gone. I see a city with people, so beautiful and diverse, each an individual, each with their own lives, their own inner purpose. A city that in winter, is cold and frigid, yet the white of snow only softens its hard concrete lines into a flowing work of monumental art. A city that in summer, nature blooms from every crevice immaginable, and bursts into a maze of green life.

Bliss has infected me, engulfed me, consumed me. Like a secret that only I know, it brings a smile to my face, and I see the world in a new light. I see people, not as combatants, that I must overcome in a war, but as stories, adventures, new perspectives and views as wonderful as my own. Have you ever stopped to think about how someone else's life has been different? How have the events of their lives shaped them, as your own have shaped you. What do they hold dear to their hearts, what are their passions, their views, their passtimes. What do they regret in their lives, and does it really matter in the scheme of things? Probably not, but just stop, and look at the world around you, unfocus, stop, look, listen.

It is only when you release yourself from your own petty conserns, that you can really appreciate how little they are. How small, yet vitally important you life is in the grand scheme of things. Think about the miracle of life itself, of the unlikelyhood of not just your own birth, but the entire human race, evolving to how it is. Think of the sheer number of flukes of nature it took to get to where we are. Do we control our own destiny? Do we control the destiny of our planet? I don't think so. The natural beauty, the synergy of man made and natural creations forming such an eye-jarring, but somewhat fetching thing of beauty ... like this city. Despite our specie's desire and attempts to conquer and hold dominion over nature on this small patch of dirt this city is built on, Nature reminds us of our arrogance in thinking we're above her.

So stroll, don't hurry or rush, around this beautiful city. Stop and look at buildings built hundreds of years ago, a testiment to man's achievement, a thing of true beauty and craftmanship. Then turn your head, only slightly, to see the beauty crafted by no man's hand, the beauty of nature shining through, without so much as a by-your-leave of mankind. Admire your fellow man, their lives, their individual styles, think about the storys they can tell, think about what they're trying to tell you now, by their very appearance. Let yourself be taken by bliss, even if only for a few minutes, before your oh-so-important life intrudes upon the moment, and you rush off here, or there ... but for the rest of your life, always remember, you had one moment where life was perfect, one moment of pure bliss.