1.While the word does stem from the Russian verb for “to be,” the exact meaning contains a metaphysical property English can’t relay. “Bytie” (бытие) hints at hyper-consciousness or an objective and analytical mindset. Russian-to-English dictionaries might translate it into “being.”

2. I sit in class as we talk about the power of the ocean, to give life and take it away. It wasn’t until I was 18 that I learned about many of my relatives who had been lost at sea. I don’t know why my family never told me about these people I never got to meet. It was normal, I guess, to belong to the ocean. I guess I didn’t ask.

3. The first moment I hear about the Russian use of bytie is in an examination of V. Kuzmin’s “Problems of the Scientific Organization of Everyday Life.” Kuzmin advocates for the rigid scheduling of every moment of the day. He argues that the happiest life is one “where men and women live through the scientific organization of material life—living space, light, colour, ventilation, and the total environment in inner space.” The best use of the everyday life for Kuzmin was as a tool for control.

4. At 9:50 pm, I get a message that reads as follows: “What is your definition of happiness? Or the things that if they would occur, would put you in at least a moderately long term state of happiness? It’s interesting how each person defines happiness in their own respective ways.”

5. I wear my great-grandmother’s wedding ring around my neck. It is 101 years old. I have her name. She died long before I was born. Although we spoke the same language, I don’t know what we would have had to say to each other. Her life seemed so vastly different from mine.

6. Noun: Being, Entity, something that goes beyond what we know in our ego-bound existence.

7. To be reminded of things that take you completely out of your body, to smile and breathe and to have fun for the fun of it, for all your problems to disappear while you dance and make a fool of yourself, knowing that in this moment you feel thankful to be exactly where you are.

8. I find it easier to write about the past than I do the present. The past is explicable, exciting, something that can be rewritten. There is something about it that seems so simple, although I’m sure it was not. I can imagine my great-grandmother raising her kids in the tiny cabin I spent my summers in, baking bread and bathing in the waterfalls. I think about what it would be like to live there in the winter, with the wood stove and meals of preserves, salt fish, and dried bread—when the river froze and so did their feet. I think about the hot water bottles my grandfather always depended on, even when he lived in a house with heat and electricity. Sometimes the cold can stay with you forever.

9. 9:55, the message continues. “I wonder if the average person is happier than they could have been a hundred years ago, or two hundred, and if so, is the ultimate goal for the evolution of society to be happy? I don’t know anymore. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I’m trying to believe that short term happiness is possible. If so, what should we be doing to achieve it?”

10. “bytie is not just life or existence, it’s the existence of an objective reality that is independent of human consciousness (cosmos, nature, matter).”

“The past is explicable, exciting, something that can be rewritten”

11. I cannot conceive of anything outside of the mood I am presently in. To combat this, I will write notes to myself from each state of mind, knowing that later on I will never believe I was ever that happy, or that sad. 

12. How does love manifest itself in your body? I am told to notice what is happening on my face, if my eyebrows are raised, if I’m breathing from my shoulders. Each time I say I will pay attention and remember, I will be present, I will let the feelings move out of my stomach and into my fingers. Each time I forget.

13. 9:57, I respond: “Passion. Passion = being so immersed in something I care deeply about that it’s impossible for me to think about anything else. Creating as much as I take in without the constraints of money and creating with people I love who share my passions. Being able to instill the value of passion and creative self-expression in others.”

14. Related words: character, person, soul, spirit, ghost, creation, essence, wind.

15. I want to be able to look back on each era of my life and be happy that I lived in it. As much as I feel dread looking in the mirror and wondering if I will ever stand up straight, I know that I won’t be here forever.

16. I hear a woman in the bathroom talking on the phone in a Newfoundland accent, the accent I didn’t inherit. I wonder why I had to lose it. More often than not, I get questioned about why I do not speak like the rest of my family. I am erasing my history, I must not love where I come from. It was trained out of me. Sometimes I wish it wasn’t. What does training mean in this sense, why was this being rewarded? Positive reinforcement if you don’t sound like the past.

17. I love creativity and I love those who are passionate about creativity. Does that dictate who I allow myself to love? 

18. 10:01, my friend responds. “It’s nice that you know what your happiness is. It’s nice that someone can put it into words.”

19. Bytie: everyday life, how people live.

20. I do not understand how to exist in the everyday. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it hurts more than you could ever imagine. But sometimes I find myself in unexpected places, in corners of the world I thought meant nothing until I loved away the dust. I must remember this. This is the lesson. I can write what is at the tip of my toes when I stretch, I can write for hands that appreciate how gentle I am. For hands that have lost the same things I have lost, for a sparkle and a kiss in the right direction. Write for them, for what the ceiling would look like if you took a breath and paid attention. I should start paying attention.