đź“ś How to Be Alive: A Founding Essay
A quiet essay about disconnection, remembering, and what it means to be alive in a loud world.
1. A Quiet Disruption
When our dog died, something broke open inside me.
Some people don’t understand pet grief. That’s okay.
Loss is loss. And this one hit deep.
I spiraled — not into reflection, but into avoidance.
Substances. Poor habits. Risky behavior.
And in the process, I hurt some of the people I loved most.
Eventually, everything came to a head.
And I chose — not with confidence, but with necessity — to face myself.
Sober.
No veil.
No distractions.
Just me… and the full spectrum of emotion I had been trying to outrun.
It was brutal.
And it was beautiful.
Because for the first time in a long time, I slowed down enough to ask one question:
Why?
Why do I feel this way right now?
Why have I been afraid to confront it?
Why does it feel like something essential is missing — not just in me, but in the way we’re taught to live?
The why didn’t lead to answers.
It led to more questions.
And eventually, to something I hadn’t felt in years.
A soft, flickering sense that I was… coming back.
Not to a version of myself I had lost — but to a self I had never fully met.
A self that had been waiting patiently beneath the noise.
A self that remembered what it meant to be alive.
2. The Drift
Disconnection is knowing what you should do —
but not understanding why you don’t.
You know movement would help.
You know that call you’ve been meaning to make.
You know that project, that dream, that one step you’ve been avoiding.
And still…
You scroll. You snack. You settle.
Not because you’re lazy.
Because somewhere along the way, your attention was rerouted.
Trained to serve systems.
Hijacked by noise.
Redirected toward what others wanted you to see — often for their own gain.
What gets normalized is subtle:
Physical discomfort.
Mood swings.
A quiet acceptance of “I'm doing pretty good, all things considered.”
We treat the symptoms with dopamine bandaids.
We monetize our habits into loops that no longer serve our well-being.
And then we wonder why we feel stuck —
Not broken, just… muted.
This isn’t about demonizing technology.
Or capitalism.
Or even ourselves.
It’s about recognizing that many of us have lost touch with the reason we’re here.
We’ve confused contentment with aliveness.
We’ve replaced hope with resignation.
We’ve built a culture around winning —
when what we really need is to remember how to keep playing.
And the thing is…
There is a key.
There is a door.
But first, we have to slow down long enough to remember we’re inside a room.
3. The Remembering
What were the first signs that you were coming back to life?
They didn’t shout.
They whispered.
A breath that reached deeper than usual.
A quiet hour that didn’t ask to be filled.
A childhood memory rising from nowhere — not to stir pain, but to bring something warm and familiar back into reach.
Little things.
The smell of wood.
The sound of wind moving through leaves.
The times when the sky color is just right.
You pause.
And something in you exhales.
I didn’t try to feel anything.
I just began to notice.
The body softens when it’s not being pushed.
The mind, when left alone, starts to wander in new directions.
Not to escape — but to explore.
Rest helped.
Not the kind that comes from crashing, but the kind you choose.
Rest that makes space for silence.
And in that silence, I felt it: curiosity, waking up.
Not to solve anything. Just to look around again.
This is how soul returns.
Not all at once, but in pieces.
In texture, scent, memory.
In stillness.
In the wonder of life.
This is how we remember what it means to be alive.
4. How to Be Alive
There’s an open-source guide to living — not a rulebook, but a rhythm.
Something quieter than advice, more flexible than fixed principles.
It doesn’t judge.
It doesn’t preach.
It listens.
With compassion. With patience.
With the kind of presence that helps you remember something you didn’t know you’d forgotten.
How to Be Alive isn’t here to fix you.
It’s here to meet you.
Right where you are — tired, burned out, or just quietly wondering if there’s more to life than the scroll, the grind, the performance.
It’s not about becoming someone new.
It’s about coming home to who you already are.
There are no promises here.
Just good questions.
Gentle invitations.
A way of noticing what matters.
It helped me.
It’s helped others too.
It might help you.
5. The Invitation
You don’t need to change before you’re welcome here.
You don’t have to explain yourself.
You don’t have to earn it.
This space was made with you in mind — the real you, just as you are right now.
If you’ve been carrying something you couldn’t name,
if you’ve been moving through life with questions you didn’t know how to ask,
if part of you has been quietly waiting for someone to understand —
You’re not alone.
You’ve found language for things you’ve felt for years.
You’ve found a map you didn’t know you were looking for.
The path ahead may not look like what you expected.
But somehow, it makes sense.
Not because it tells you what to do —
but because it reflects what you already know deep down.
You’re not broken.
You’re remembering.
6. The Practice
Being alive is not a finish line.
It’s a rhythm.
Some days it looks like flow — moving with life instead of fighting it.
Other days, it looks like friction — the quiet work of facing old patterns, seeing clearly, choosing differently.
The practice is learning to listen.
To your body when it asks you to slow down.
To the world when it nudges you forward.
To the part of you that sees more than black and white — that can hold contradiction, tension, possibility.
It’s integration, not escape.
Honoring who you’ve been while creating space for who you’re becoming.
Making peace with every version of yourself.
Giving each one a seat at the table, even the ones you’ve outgrown.
And it’s wonder.
Letting yourself fall in love again — with your own life, not because it’s perfect, but because you can see what it could be.
Not someday.
But here.
Now.
This is the work.
This is the gift.
This is the practice.
7. Start Here
Before you figure anything out, just pause.
Let this moment be enough.
You’ve made it this far.
You’re breathing.
You’re aware.
You’re asking better questions.
That’s the real beginning.
Start with noticing.
Start with a breath.
Start with the feeling that's hard to describe.
Start with whatever thought just came to mind when you read that line.
You don’t need a new identity.
You don’t need a plan.
Just a willingness to see what’s real.
To feel what’s true.
Maybe it’s time to tend to the parts of you you’ve been ignoring.
Maybe it’s time to rest without guilt.
Maybe it’s time to ask what life could be — if you stopped performing, and started listening.
There’s no rush.
Just begin where you are.
And stay with it.
—
With love,
Tyler
P.S.
If anything in this stirred something in you… stay with it.
Let it work on you.
You don’t need to do anything right away.
Just don’t forget what you felt.