Who told us this was living?

Are we happy, Or were we told we should be?

Somewhere along the way we inherited a script.

Go to school. Get a job. Earn money. Buy a house. Build a family. Retire. Hope it was worth it.

People call it the American Dream.

But who decided this was the dream?

And more importantly...

Is it yours?

Every generation seems to inherit the same race without remembering who fired the starting pistol.

Why does existing cost so much?

Before we were born, we signed nothing.

Yet from the moment we arrive, life comes with bills.

Food. Shelter. Healthcare. Transportation. Insurance. Taxes.

If we don't participate, we're told we're irresponsible.

If we question the system, we're told that's just how life works.

But why?

Who created a world where surviving depends almost entirely on money?

Do most of us even know how to survive without it?

Could we build a shelter? Start a fire ? Find clean water? Hunt?

Even the land beneath our feet belongs to someone else.

There isn't much Earth left that simply... exists for one to live on for free.

So why are we punished simply for existing?

The birds don't seem to ask permission, Why do we?

Sometimes I watch birds.

They wake up.

They fly.

They search.

They sing.

Tomorrow they'll do it again.

I know their lives aren't easy. They face predators, storms, hunger, and death.

But somehow they seem freer than we are.

Maybe they aren't.

Maybe I only envy the fact that they don't appear to carry tomorrow before today is finished.

Humans are supposedly the most intelligent creatures on Earth.

Yet we're the ones lying awake wondering what to wear, what to eat, whether we'll have enough money next month, whether we're succeeding, whether we're enough.

What kind of intelligence is this?

If God is enough...

People often say,

"God is enough."

I believe God matters.

But then another question appears.

If God is enough, why do so many of us still wrestle with this feeling?

Why do peace and purpose seem to arrive in moments rather than remain?

Why do we experience a few minutes of hope, only for the questions to return?

Perhaps faith isn't the absence of questions.

Perhaps faith is continuing to ask them without letting them consume you.

I don't know.

I'm still learning.

Maybe this isn't home

Sometimes this world feels beautiful.

Sometimes it feels unbearable.

Maybe that's why so many religions speak of another home.

Heaven.

The New Jerusalem.

Something beyond this place.

Because even when life feels heavy, something keeps interrupting the darkness.

A child's laugh.

A baby's cry.

Trees moving in the wind.

A smile from a stranger.

Dinner with family.

A conversation with a friend.

None of those moments solve life's biggest questions.

Yet somehow they keep us here.

So what do we do?

Lightning strikes.

Cars crash.

Life changes in seconds.

Every day we're reminded how fragile we are.

Yet every morning we wake up again.

I suppose that must mean something.

I don't know what.

I don't have answers.

Only questions.

And maybe that's where The Verdant Vine begins.

Not with certainty.

Not with solutions.

Just with the belief that silence has never solved the questions that refuse to leave.

So I'll write them.

One vine at a time.

Until next time, my Vines

- A. Vale