To me the sublime is something that makes someone react in some way, either positively or negatively, in respect to an image, words, etc. The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh is something that never ceases to astonish me. To me this image never fails to bring my ego back to reality. I’m the kind of person who always constanly finds himself asking questions like, “what is my purpose on this planet?”, “why do some people remember their past lives?” and “why do we live only to die?” instead of the “normal” questions a 20-something year old human tends to ask. The Starry Night’s portrayal of the night sky is very soothing to me. It makes me realize that there’s so much more to being human than living the way society tells you to. The way the stars are portrayed–the universe, it makes me feel small, but not exactly in a negative way. It makes me realize that maybe my life doesn’t mean much on the grand universal scale of things, but humanity itself can mean something great if we all find some ideal way to unite.

My motto has always been, “peace through unity, not division” simply because division, for example borders and walls, are what cause conflicts and wars. Wars cause death and it always pains me to see a fellow human eternally strike down one of their own. It’s been that way since humanity’s birth. I feel like, over the years, my question of, “what is my purpose on this planet?” has changed to something more along the lines of, “what is OUR purpose as a collective on this planet?”. I could probably write pages as to how my sublime reaction towards The Starry Night has influenced my way of thinking such as my belief as to what steps the human race has to take not only to survive, but to advance and make their mark in the infinite universe as well as how it personally makes me want to resolve my own internal conflicts and my strive towards reaching a higher level of consciousness.

Carlos Montoya