In recent days, the capacity to realize that we are alive has become more visible to me, an experience that occurs constantly yet rarely receives direct attention. Being here, breathing, thinking, and perceiving, on a planet that rotates around a star within an expanding universe, is something that happens right now, and we often normalize it until it becomes invisible.
Yesterday my son asked me if I believe in magic, and the question made me stop and focus on something very concrete: the experience of existing and knowing that you are existing. Everything we are happens within a precise physical framework, supported by laws that allow structure, stability, and motion, and at the same time by the possibility of living all of it from the inside, through consciousness.
Consciousness, Experience, and Reality
Consciousness remains one of science’s greatest questions, not because of a lack of data, but because no description of the brain, however detailed, exhausts the experience of being alive. We can observe neural networks, electrical impulses, and biochemical processes, but the fact of realizing that something is happening introduces a dimension that cannot be reduced to those processes and, at the same time, is not separate from them. Experience emerges at the point of contact between the physical and the lived.
From classical physics, the universe has been described as an external, predictable, measurable system in which the observer occupies a secondary position. When observation shifts to the quantum level, reality stops being understood as a collection of independent objects and becomes a network of relationships. Systems are defined by probabilities and correlations, and observation participates in the way those possibilities become actual.
Entanglement, Coherence, and the Nervous System
Quantum entanglement shows that systems that have interacted can remain correlated even when separated by large distances, behaving as parts of the same extended structure. This physical principle invites us to view human experience from a relational perspective, where thoughts, emotions, body, environment, and relationships do not appear as isolated elements, but as interdependent aspects of the same process.
This network is also visible in the nervous system. The body constantly responds to what it perceives, anticipates, and remembers, adjusting its internal state to ensure survival. When this system enters alert mode for prolonged periods, stress appears. Stress is not inherently an enemy; it is an adaptive response that becomes problematic when it becomes chronic and no longer aligns with the present moment.
Stress and the Loss of Awareness
Sustained stress reduces the capacity to observe. Attention narrows, the body focuses on threat, and consciousness becomes absorbed by reaction. In this state, experience becomes fragmented and automatic, and the sense of separation increases. The world is perceived as something to manage, control, or resist, and the direct experience of being alive fades.
From this perspective, stress is one of the main obstacles to perceiving the coherence of the network in which we live. It does not destroy reality, but it limits our ability to feel it and understand it from within. The body falls into repetitive patterns, the mind accelerates, and consciousness stops recognizing itself as the space in which everything happens.
Why Paying Attention Matters
Paying attention is not a superficial act or a practice reserved for special moments. It is a form of deep regulation. When attention stabilizes, the nervous system receives signals of safety, perception expands, and experience reorganizes coherently. Thoughts, sensations, and emotions stop feeling like disconnected fragments and start to be experienced as parts of the same process.
From this viewpoint, spirituality is understood as deep, embodied observation. It does not add beliefs or external explanations; it adds presence. It involves recognizing that reality includes physical laws, biological processes, and conscious experience occurring simultaneously and intertwined, and that our level of attention directly influences how this reality is lived.
Magic then appears in a simple and direct way. It is the recognition that everything is happening at the same time: the expanding universe, the body regulating itself, and consciousness observing. Paying attention allows us to move out of the automatism of stress and return to the coherence of that network. Being alive and realizing it is not a minor detail; it is the point from which everything else gains meaning.