A manifesto on LIVING, this brilliant video explores the deeply personal desires of the artist to LIVE a deep, wonder-filled, passionate, and beautiful life.

“Living is difficult.
It is full of sticky situations and exceptions to truisms.
But you don’t need it to be spelled out in a book to live by strong moral principle.
I want to be the best person that I can be.
I want to do well by people, to love deeply and be loved deeply.
I want the best life I can get, to be excited to wake up in the morning.
I want to think about existence, to stretch and bruise my brain through learning, to raise children who love learning, who are confident and open, and love others.
I want to pass to them as many of my pros and as few of my cons as possible.
I want to laugh, to enjoy the pleasures of food and travel and art and literature, to see great sunsets and be thrashed by great storms.
I want to shiver with wonder and awe at the universe, and nature, to sob at the absurd unbearable brightness of human existence, to glow red in the heat of human triumphs, and shake my head in shame and disbelief at our broken record failures.
I want to be stirred by music, to be broken by drama.
I want to live forever, and I see the appeal of slipping away eventually into the eternal quiet.
A human lifetime is a seasonal growth of a tiny twig of the human branch of the mammal limb of the tree of life.
It is a carnival ride and a game of dice.
The low bar is survival, the high bar is progress, and the taste of brie and sound of children’s laughter are the sustaining fuel keeping us aloft through the surprises of each fresh day.”

(*Please note that while we love the message conveyed in this video, we also recognize that it does not appropriately represent the beauty of the full spectrum of humanity and wish it were more inclusive. Let’s take this as a spark to prompt us to consider whether our printed, video, or digital imagery fully represents who we are.)