I have not written in a very long time. So many things have been happening since I came back to the states from home, England to New York city on Inauguration Day. One thing after another. A new America. A sweeping anger and sadness that has affected the whole world. Like many others here I am angry. I am sad. I am shocked. We are protesting. We are fighting in all the ways we know how. All the things I care about are on the edge of destruction.

But I believe we will rise. We persevere because that is what we do. We are stronger when we are united against the very things that threaten to destroy everything we stand for. The dream of life is in our power to make happen. We are the creators of what is good and beautiful in the world. For me the universe is a reminder of my truth. A truth greater than anything happening today.

Is there anything more amazing and powerful than the universe? Our final thought every night before we close our eyes to go to sleep should be a thought of wonder. Just look. Just look up. Look deep within you. Look at the hearts of those you love. We are so insignificant to the rest of the universe based on size alone yet we are significant to the things that matter in our lives. We are significant to each other in a way that is more significant than anything out there.

I wish more people will see the stars and see not just stars but also the beauty and light that defines our existence on this tiny pale blue dot. We are our very own significance in a universe of eternal wonder where no story ends to end for good but to only begin again. And it will begin again, it has and it always will. Time is nothing more than a mover of stories. 

I am about to embark on my next chapter. In a way it is a whole new story. A new book but still connected to my other stories because no one story is truly complete without taking into account of every page that has been lived to the present. I am again reminded no matter what my path ahead brings, whatever way this story goes…the dream of life is my one and only life. This is it. I am what I dream and the dream of my life is the most powerful thing in the universe. The dream of our lives is what drives this world towards a better world. A new world. A new dawn…is only a dream away.

My story began one summer morning light in the midlands of England. As the Sun was rising I took my first Earthly breath and opened my eyes for the very first time. Nottingham is my birthplace. My home. My first world of many. The story of my birth was the first chapter of a story that would be like no other. Growing up in Nottingham was living inside an endless world made up of wonders but wonder did not come without a price – another story for another time.

Coming home for the holidays is always an interesting experience for me filled with nostalgia, ghosts and surreal moments. Taking walks on the streets I grew up and seeing familiar places always takes me back to my childhood. The overcast still feels darkly beautiful and the rain is just as transforming as it was when I was a boy daydreaming of worlds out there.

Christmas was always my favourite time of the year. A homely British Christmas was a family tradition thanks to my mother. I will never forget waking up on Christmas Day so eager to open up my presents under the tree. We always celebrated Christmas as something joyful minus the religious element. For me as a young boy I saw Christmas as a time when the world stood still, forgot about the differences that kept the world apart and remembered the things that made us human.

As I got older I became less naive. Yet the message of Christmas I believed to be true as a young boy, I would try bringing this same message into my world every day whilst growing up. Maybe the true message of Christmas has nothing to do with anything holy but with everything to do with what makes us all the same. After all no belief or religion is above humanity because without humanity there can be no place we call the world. But there is one thing I do believe in and that is a non-British Christmas can never compare to a good old fashion British Christmas. Sometimes all we need is love in the shape of a Christmas cracker.

A new year is here. I guess for some it is like a new beginning of a new chapter. For others it is a continuation of the same chapter from the previous year. In the end 2017 is another year just like 2016. It is another orbit around the Sun. Nothing special. However a new year brings great potential for something new, better and wondrous…and that is up to us. Special is what we make of it. So let’s make 2017 special. Let’s take control of our lifetime spaceships and make this next trip around our star a spectacular one.

Have a stellar 2017!

Watch this time….and space.

It is the small details that make up the big picture. The tiniest event can be the catalyst for the greatest adventure ever. Why is it we sometimes fail to recognise the real thing as it happens? Why do we steer away from something that could lead to something beautiful and amazing? Why do we decide to turn away from the person who could be the one to unlock our heart?

As I write this over 39,000 feet high in the sky half way across the Atlantic on a red eye flight to the land where it all began – my home, I realise while looking out through the airplane window how different and wonderful this world looks from above. Some see only darkness and emptiness. I see wonder and a billion reasons for being alive…for seeing beauty in life itself.

We see our world as something we wish we can change in an instant. Yet we are changing our own worlds all the time without ever knowing we are doing it. We want to help the masses. We want to change the world. We try so hard to the point where we put the world first before ourselves. I am guility of this more times than I wish to admit. 

With so much wrongdoing and sadness all over the world, what can we do to change that? We are the lucky ones not just because we live in a free world but because we have made it this far. We are still alive. A part of being alive is to remember and acknowledge the ones who have faded so life makes it possible for us to appear and continue an existence far better than theirs.

Billions of people on this planet live to struggle so we can keep breathing. For every breath we take they take one less. This world will always keep turning. Humanity will always keep moving. To where? Do we decide humanity’s direction? I believe we do. As a humanist my faith is in humanity to be better and do better. 

What will become of us as we keep breathing? Can we be the ones to move the world towards betterment of us all? Can we make it so we all breath the same? We all have a gift, an individual gift and within that gift are a billion reasons for why to make the world better. And it only takes one reason out of a billion to actually pursue a path to make it happen, to be the catalyst for great amazing things. 

The world is not empty as long as we recognise the billion small details that creates the big picture. The world is not empty as long as we keep breathing. After all every one of us is one in a billion transforming reality as we dream it to be. Every one of us makes up the big picture by connecting to one another.

Once upon a time in the not-too-distant future…humans marveled at what could have been if they had taken a path of wonder and discovery instead that of greed and power.

It is not too late.

As days pass, from one morrow to the next I wonder what will become of the human race, of our world and of our legacy among the stars. Will we bring about our own extinction? Will we ever overcome our ignorance and idiocy? Will we ever put aside our petty differences and focus on the things that unite us for a better tomorrow? The future is just as scary as the present. What we do today determines what happens tomorrow.

When I was young I often looked up to the sky and lose myself in the stars. Even on the cloudiest of days I knew the stars were still there even though I could not see them. I learned that every time I looked up I was also looking deep within myself. It was like looking at a reflection of myself inside a sea of waves and ripples. I discovered no matter what happened the stars were always up there shining down on me. It brought me comfort. It gave me hope.

Who I was back then I still am today. I am still that boy who looks up to the heavens every day and every night. Still looking beyond the greyest of clouds and seeing the stars shine brighter than ever. My hopes and dreams live on in the boy that continues to live on in the man I am today. I guess I will always be that boy for as long as there are stars in the sky.

I hope more people look up to the stars. I hope even for just a brief moment people experience the humility and awe of the heavens – our true birthplace. The stars are the only proof we need to create a better and beautiful tomorrow for every one of us. The stars bring out our humanity in its most purest and truest form.

Who we were we will always be as long as we never forget the child we once were. We are the only ones who can change the path we are on by creating whole new different paths made up of the pieces from who we were…and who we aspire to become.

No matter how grey things look just remember to look up. The stars are always there shining down on us brighter than ever…deep in the past for a better tomorrow. 

All things lead to defining instants in our timeline. Connected. Intertwined. We are mere blips in time. To what end? On what path? At what cost? We move forwards and backwards in continuous flux. The past sometimes becomes stuck in the present. The future sometimes becomes an endless cycle of history repeating itself. But what makes us who and what we are is that we create and experience moments on our timeline like a story. Every decision we make, every choice we take, all determines the next page or chapter. As a result we are our very own heroes and villains. 

We are timeless creatures bounded by the limits we create in our minds yet we can live on beyond death in the minds of others. In a way we are space-time humans. Cosmic nomads traveling from world to world searching and wandering. We are our own metaphors, projections writing our life’s story alone and together at the same time. The hero and the villain. As storytellers we are on a cycle only we can break. When it breaks new wonders emerge. New discoveries are made. New encounters that shape our lives forever.

Recent events may have turned our worlds upside down but we have the power to turn the next pages and chapters into something amazing. We cannot let the villian beat the hero inside us. This is our story. We get to decide how our story goes not some other person of power. The hero inside us must learn to defeat the villain within and the villains that roam our timelines. What was once good can be good again. A wise doctor once said “We are all stories in the end, just make it a good one eh?”. 

In the end all that matters is our story. In the end we are more than just blips in time. Every heart beat is a letter on a page writing out the story of your life. We are the makers of our own worlds. The greatest story ever written, ever told and ever lived…has been, is and will always be….your story.