Life is a hard thing to measure.  As humans with vastly complex minds, we are in constant assessment of the world around us at any given moment.  Every day new experiences are added to our depository of what we know.  But what is it we really know?  What do we really base our judgments off of?  The truth is, I have only gained slight glimpses of this planet's nature and story in my time spent here.  I have read books of authors from other times; I have seen beautiful pictures of nature that fill my imagination; a brief sketch of history has been outlined in my mind; my own culture's mores have been inculcated within me; the words my friends have spoken to me represent a close and personal reality—and all this serves as the information I use when sorting out a picture of the world.  What is the world?  Using all these different sources, we automatically answer this question.  But when we compare the amount information we have to the amount of information there is, we begin to understand how little it is that we have seen and know.  What a small dot of the universe we have been exposed to!  How tiny our lives are compared to everything!  Of all the experiences in the world, of all of history, of all words ever said, I have known a perpetually diminishing amount.  Not only is my ignorance large in scope already, but is continuously becoming greater.  I am ignorant of everything that is happening in the universe right now except for my presence in this room. 

In fact, the context of every human's existence is mystery.  Every person who has lived has known that they are at some point on the timeline of mankind's story, but they do no know at which point.  They also do not know what part they are playing in the prodigious story of mankind.  Most of the things we know are hearsay accounts, distant reports, and relayed information.  This loose information is translated by our minds into what we think the world and universe are.  Other than that, we only know the relative stories of us and those around us—if even that.  Every place we go we are reminded of our unquenchable ignorance: all the faces we see everyday, the hollows of space at night, the books resting quietly on the shelf.  In the long story of mankind, I have but read a sentence.

Love your days!  Goodbye!

It is a problem about words that they may mean something or they may not.

One cannot know the nature of the truth until one knows the truth.

The moon is a friend of the thinker late at night.

Night is when the curtains are pulled back, and we may see the setting of our grand play.  The stars are the audience looking on, their flickering the applause.

Never work off the assumptions of the crowd.

All words are glimpses into the minds of others.

How long the transcript of my life must be!  How many words spoken, thoughts had, and things seen!

A quote may be intelligent, witty, eloquent, and completely wrong.

Dreams are like the commercials of life.  They happen in-between what's really important.  They're often random, funny, vague, and stupid. 

Life either means everything or nothing and we are all living moderately. 

No day is unimportant: there is always something to be learned.

Alex:  See how the car in front of you made the green light? If you would have been going faster you would have made it too.
Philip:  Yeah, but we were accelerating from the last green light.  I don't want to just accelerate as fast as I can every time, it wastes gas.
Alex:  But if you accelerate faster then you get to the place you are going faster.
Philip:  Well, obviously, but that's the entire point.  My aim while driving is not to get to the place I am going as fast as I can.  Driving is necessarily a form of transportation.  So I'll get to wherever I'm going.  But my main aim other than that is to save gas.  The principles of going places and saving gas are not mutually exclusive.
Alex:  Yeah, but driving is just for transportation, so I think when I am in the car that I should get to wherever I am going as fast as possible so I can spend more time there.
Philip:  Why?  What is wrong with being there a few minutes later if it saves gas?
Alex:  Because it's better to be there than to drive.  I'd rather drive as fast as I can, that way I'll have a few more minutes there.
Philip:  Why?  I don't see what's so wrong with driving.  It doesn't put life on hold.  We're still living right now you know.
Alex:  No, if you would drive faster we would have been able to spend a few more minutes at my house.  Wouldn't you like that?  We could just hang and then get to the place real fast.
Philip:  What's wrong with you? Why do you hate driving so much?  It's worth it to leave a place a little bit early if it saves gas. 
Alex:  But we are trying to get someplace.
Philip:  But we're not late.
Alex:  But we're trying to get there.
Philip:  So?  We'll get there eventually and we might as well save gas in the meantime.
Alex:  But if we drive FASTER then we'll have more TIME there.  It's better to be there than to be driving.
Philip:  It's a few MINUTES.  What is the big deal?  Do you hate driving that much?  Is it that intolerable?  ... OH MY GOSH.  WE'RE DRIVING.  THIS SUCKS.  THIS IS SUCH HELL.  GET ME OUT OF HERE.  GO PEOPLE, GO, WE'RE DRIVING AND EVERYONE KNOWS DRIVING SUCKS.  AHHH!!!! WHY AREN'T YOU CARS GOING I NEED TO GET OUT OF THIS CAR!!! GO, JUST GO, WE NEED TO GO GO GO!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Socrates:  How is your search for the truth going?
American:  Um, my search for ... the truth?
Socrates: Yes, aren't you looking for it?
American:  No, I'm not.
Socrates:  Well then what are you looking for?
American:  I'm not looking for anything. 
Socrates:  Ah, so you have already found it?
American:  No, I haven't found anything.
Socrates:  Well, if you aren't looking and you haven't found anything, then what do you have?
American:  Well, my life, I suppose.
Socrates:  So you have your life, but you do not have the truth neither are you looking for it? Don't you think the truth might pertain to your life?
American:  No, I don't think so.  It doesn't seem to be an issue of large concern to anyone.
Socrates:  Have you asked it?
American:  Well, no, I haven't asked it. 
Socrates:  Because you haven't found it, right?
American:  Right.
Socrates:  So maybe you should find it and ask it just to make sure.
American:  Perhaps.  But what if I don't want to look for the truth?
Socrates:  Why wouldn't you want to?
American:  Well, I have a good life.
Socrates:  But don't you want to know? 
American:  I don't know if I want to know.  It depends on what the truth is.
Socrates:  Well, then it seems like you should take the risk to look for the truth in case that once you find it, you discover that you wanted to know it all along.

Ever wake up and you are already having a terrible day, regardless of the fact that nothing has even happened?  Does it seem as though a bad mood was implanted into your brain during your sleep?  Do you ever take life too seriously, as I do every ten minutes or so?

Here is an imagination exercise to lessen the stressin'. 

You have awoken and are in a dismal mood.   Now as your crinkly eyes learn to grasp more and more of physical reality, you begin slowly traveling to do whatever it is you do first in the morning. 

But now, to start, imagine yourself from outside your mind, as a camera shot looking at you from a third person perspective.  Look at yourself indifferently, as though a person watching a movie, as a moody schlub schlepping across the floor, protesting angrily against nagging gravity and the intrusive sun.  Switch the camera angle a few times as you walk through the hallway or as you are in the kitchen or wherever you are. 

Next, as you are watching yourself galumphing along haplessly, cue the soundtrack.  Unless you are particularly fond of a specific song of a band, just imagine a basic instrumental piece to run as background music to the start of the movie of your day. 

Naturally, you begin rolling the credits after this.  Depending on who is directing and producing your life, roll the appropriate credits, all while watching your life from the camera angles as you enter each new room.  Perhaps if you go to pick up the paper, set the camera angle so that it shows the outside with animals already busy in movement, and then you opening the door to retrieve the paper.  Do remember to include who co-stars and the guest appearances, depending on who you are going to be interacting with during the day. 

Mostly, your work is finished.  You have pictured the beginning of your day as though you were the star of a movie, using the aspect of camera angles, a soundtrack, and credits.  If you time things right, once you are done with the credits you may begin dialoguing with someone, as it happens in real movies.  This person obviously knows nothing of your mind's fantasies so far in the morning, and you find it funny that your movie-esque imaginings have climaxed with dialogue, just as they do in actual movies.

As you realize the facetious and brilliant work of your imagination, smirk slowly to yourself and think of what a wonder it is to wake up every day and be a person.