Law One—

Emotion will not move unless a force is acted upon it.

Notions move emotions.

By law, if we want to change what we feel, we must change what we think. The rain is just the rain; it’s what we think about the rain that determines how we feel when it falls.

And it’s hard to be a positive force sometimes.

Negative inner voices can get nice-and-snug in gray matter, making it difficult to choose thoughts that will make us feel better even when we’re longing for relief.

But all is not lost. When positive thoughts are out of reach, we can use outside forces to reset our minds and move emotions in the directions we desire.

Enter fiction.

The most moveable of all feasts.

Some stories stay with us the way Paris stayed with Hemingway—the way Paris stays with me. I was fifteen when I met the City of Lights, and thanks to her proper seduction, certain parts of me will always be fifteen, rushing through glossy streets as if the world is mine and made of candy.

Paris is like that.

Her molecules are designed to slip into our taproots and remain in our cores.

And Paris isn’t alone. Some writers reach taproots. There are writers of movies, books, and songs who know how you feel and how to make you feel. Maybe you met one at fifteen. Maybe you met one yesterday. You know who they are. You know how breathing your life into their worlds changes the tone of your inner voice.  

And sometimes, that voice needs to change. Especially when it sounds more like Vader than Obi-Wan.

Sorry—I was raised on Star Wars. Like Paris, it takes me to my happy place.

Maybe like me, one of your happy places is Tatooine. Wherever it is, it’s always there for you, waiting somewhere between the Seine River and the Outer Rim. We just need to remember how this goes, how feelings are moldable things, how we can mold them. We need to remember the worlds that soothe us as they move us.

I hope you feel good today. And if you don’t, may you remember emotion’s law. May you use whatever muse is yours to find your way to better.

May you be the force that’s with you.

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