I’ve never finished a day feeling so exhausted. This is the third day of jet lag, starting with a night of shallow sleep. My eyes were heavy almost all day, but I still had to keep them open to take travel photos. I should have taken an afternoon rest, but instead walked almost non-stop along the typical tourist routes. It’s now 10:43 PM, and I should be lying in bed rather than writing notes on my computer. But I want to record a feeling I shared with my family while walking in the evening twilight. Is the life we’re living made up of the subtle emotional baseline, or the intricate details of each small event? Is it the chord progression, or the melody and orchestration?

Perhaps it was the extreme fatigue of this day that made the emotional baseline so apparent, making the entire day feel unusually “lucid,” clearly aware of both the undertone and details of today’s musical piece. Is it possible that I’ve been dragging my tired body and mind through every ordinary day without realizing it? The anxiety I’ve invested in - is it because things are truly difficult, or am I just climbing mountains of emotional garbage, becoming anxious over any trivial matter?

People with deep understanding of music can discern chord progressions, tonality, and dynamics. What about those with deep understanding of life?

Ultimately, this feeling I experienced today is just about the relationship between surface appearances and deeper layers. Specifically, all conflicts don’t happen suddenly; contradictions are planted early. What can be properly resolved isn’t the conflict itself, but rather its root causes. And all causes stem from circumstances, and more importantly, the human heart. The human heart is both the most intangible and the most real thing. Intangible because it’s not physical, yet real because it becomes the subject that defines reality. And the more intangible it is, the freer it becomes. The objective world isn’t free, constrained by physical laws, but the human heart is free. When people feel unfree, it’s often not due to objective reasons, but because they don’t recognize the chord progression they’re in, having unconscious limitations. And remarkably, freedom is just a feeling - people have the freedom to make themselves feel free.