That time of the year... Buying Love time.

And once again, here comes the emotional time of Christmas, and all the family, friends and gifts high expectations, plus the reviews and more expectations of a new start. Intense...

For me this was the worst year ever, but with an important side to it: questioning everything I knew without getting angry or frustrated, but instead, with an attitude of love. Simple, gratitude based Love.

Love is really the only right answer...

Love is brave (hate is cowardness)

Only Love can calm us down... we should spend more time in that space, Love space.

We should get used to feel/be in Love

Not being afraid of getting hurt, or losing false ideas of ourselves.

Seeing with an attitude of healing. Can I help healing you or me?

We could get used to the feeling of being in Love...

Forgiving through understanding and Love.

"Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet"

_

Bob Dylan

Christmas reminds us of being closer, of thinking more like a family, a big family. Of being one. Humanity as one.

Please Love... and not just yourself. Feel your surroundings, feel the birth of a word, a gesture. Everything matters. One simple word can do so much...

"Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?"

_

Bob Marley

Let's be brave and fall in Love...

The wound

... we are all part of a big plan, or chaos, or something, but we are all in this together. When we ignore someone we hurt them deeply, or we hurt ourselves for not paying attention.

To be present it's not only to be in your own little and superficial world, it means to be alive, to see, hear, feel... and be there, to be there (for a friend, to help, to hear, share, etc...)


The Wound from Anna Budanova on Vimeo.

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... In a slow paced, close and warm manners, Cohen speaks about his search in Life for that feeling of connection with world, with others. Music, writing, meditation allowed him to enter those states of belonging and a sense of purpose in Life, as did alcohol and drugs too.

Some parts of David remnick interview for The New Yorker:

"(...) At a certain point, if you still have your marbles and are not faced with serious financial challenges, you have a chance to put your house in order. It’s a cliché, but it’s underestimated as an analgesic on all levels. Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable.”

“I have a deep tribal sense,” he said. “I grew up in a synagogue that my ancestors built. I sat in the third row. My family was decent. They were good people, they were handshake people. So I never had a sense of rebellion.”

He didn't like to be labelled jewish or religious, but his songs do have that prayer enchantment. His view on God goes like this: "... God, in creation the world, dispersed itself. The Creation is a catastrophe. There are pieces of him or her or it that are everywhere, in fact. The specific task of the Jew is to repair the face of God. The prayers are to remind God that it was once a harmonious unity."

In his search for his place in the world he mostly preferred simplicity, less...

"The minimum environment that would enable you to do your work with the least distraction and the most aesthetic deliverance came from a modest surrounding. A palace, a yacht would be an enormous distraction from the project. My fantasies went the other way. The way I lived on Mt. Baldy was perfect for me. I liked the communal life, I liked living in a little shack.”

So we have a person who above all followed is dedication to Art; Love; God and Unity

"Does artistic dedication begin to touch on religious devotion?” he said. “I start with artistic dedication. I know that if the spirit is on you it will touch on to the other human receptors. But I dare not begin from the other side. It’s like pronouncing the holy name—you don’t do it. But if you are lucky, and you are graced, and the audience is in a particular salutary condition, then these deeper responses will be produced.”

"(...) I know there’s a spiritual aspect to everybody’s life, whether they want to cop to it or not,” Cohen said. “It’s there, you can feel it in people—there’s some recognition that there is a reality that they cannot penetrate but which influences their mood and activity."

Listen to the Interview:

Interview Leonard Cohen - The New Yorker

"Time is like a river that will take you forward into encounters with reality that will require you to make decisions. You can’t stop the movement down this river, and you can’t avoid the encounters. You can only approach these encounters in the best way possible."

_

Ray Dalio

How many of us repeat the same mistake, over and over... what is it that stops us from learning???

Lying to ourselves about it, covering it up with excuses, or fear of actually facing the solution to change...

The desire to grow and be a cool, fond person, is probably everyones strongest driving force, and so, we actually can only enjoy a job, a sport, a relationship, if we feel that it suits our perspective of becoming the smoothest "cool" version we can be. We have an innate satisfaction for getting better. 

So, the opposite side is that if we don't do anything about it, we live unsatisfied. No matter what /who we "possess", if it doesn't feel right, if there's no connection, we'll keep on searching.

Finding the thing that drives us takes time, because we need to learn and experience. No one is born with the ability to make good decisions, we all have to learn it, and in order to learn we definitely need to push our limits, and that's a process that is sort of painfully satisfying...

"Successful people understand that bad things come at everyone and that it is their responsibility to make their lives what they want them to be by successfully dealing with whatever challenges they face. Successful people know that nature is testing them, and that it is not sympathetic. 

In summary, I believe that you can probably get what you want out of life if you can suspend your ego and take a no-excuses approach to achieving your goals with open-mindedness, determination, and courage, especially if you rely on the help of people who are strong in areas that you are weak."

_

Ray Dalio

Unfortunately there's too many people who try to prove that they have all the answers, even when they really don’t, so, whatever you find about yourself, remember, it's about and for yourself. We're all very alike, but no one is the same. The one thing we need to have in common to strive is being smartly brave. No more of that childish wishing and hoping behaviour, but smartly challenging yourself, taking risks and facing yourself in the mirror as you would look at your favourite person: proud, with love and with that deviant smile on your lips.

On this time we’ve got left what can one do?

It’s a blunt question, but sometimes a necessary one to wake us up.

For so many of us, the Ego steps in saying proudly, “I’ve done this, and that, and so much”, but for some reason, internally, we’re not usually completely satisfied with that answer… could it be that instead of thinking about what we’ve done, it would be more honest and valuable to state what we’ve learned?

Plato asked, "…why should we not calmly and patiently review our own thoughts, and thoroughly examine and see what these appearances in us really are?”

What is your core strength?

…”Looked objectively, your self-worth is essentially static: you’re worth the same as anyone else, no more and no less”, writes author Arno Ilgner, but because there have been important things/actions in our life that we consider as wins, self-achievements, we can feel some self-worth increase, but on the negative side, when we feel we have chosen poorly we can feel a real self-worth decrease.

So are we really the things we do?

“Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act”

_

Leonard Cohen

Or are we the lessons we learn in Life?

I’m not better or worse than you, but my choices can be, so what are our choices based on?

Experience.

We’re no more or less than anybody in the world, but our choices and the opportunity of having good mentors can define who we become.

Unfortunately we give it all to the Ego: I’m respected, followed, I’m part of this and that… but the Ego is so easily undermined by ways of thinking. The Ego needs highlights and victories and when it’s loosing it can still blame something else for it, creating traps and fantasies, distancing us apart from the reality we actually want to know and get closer to. The Ego continues to search for external proofs of its worth, external motivations.

So instead of self-achievement why not keeping the focus on self-growth. Which of the two do you think it gives you the confidence and motivation to continue?

When it comes to understanding what we might be in this amazing Universe, as a scientist recently put it, we’re like ants on the back of an elephant trying to figure it out by crawling on its back, and we know very little about ourselves, so who are we to judge others? Well, we can judge actions, and we can be inspired by others choices and achievements.

Some of us search it through meditation, sports, readings, food, hugs,. We all want that great feeling of being tuned into something, of having an internal motivation to learn, search, adventure. And that’s the best way to live life: playing and learning from it. Think of children playing, they totally forget about time, weather, clothes, needs. Playing envolves concentration, trial and error, getting to know our strengths and weaknesses, which in turn leads us into knowing what are our skills and how we can apply them. That is the best solid core one can have. To know yourself not through a fantasy Ego, but through a reliable knowledgeable self.

… but we have fears, fears that have to be faced and conquer, and that’s when playing becomes scary and we realize that there’s still a lot to learn about ourselves. One thing is certain, giving up will not bring us peace. Everything needs practice, even playing, and so, let’s face our fears, lets train and practice them. Let’s gain a conscious idea of what we’re really certain to know about ourselves and things, and instead of living in the land of “I believe I can fly”, let’s say, “I know I can’t fly, but there are planes or helicopters for that”.

Let’s go back to school and teach ourselves about ourselves, and on the playground explore! 

When it’s just simple entertainment we are searching for, then Art can lead us to that fictional Ego that makes us feel like rock stars, even in our old pijamas and poor stereos, as long it’s the right tune ; )

Breaking the habit...

... Habits protect themselves by staying hidden or unconscious, but then, someone points them out to you, or you're caught in some embarrassing situation, and they're out, mirrored, as you realize you've been foolish, comfortably foolish for some time.

It's important to feel conformable, but it's disappointing to find out that you didn't prepare yourself for something really important because you chose same old same, the usual way. And it's disappointing and sad when it's gone and over.

Our Ego loves habits. It feels normal, and to feel normal is what we all search for when we're growing up. We just want to be normal, and only if we're lucky, maybe we can have something else special about us. And society loves Egos! Oh yes, Egos buy, depend and support other Egos. We are all fundamentally trained to equate our self-worth with our achievements. The greater achievements the more valuable you feel, the bigger the Ego gets, but this kind of self-value is so limiting. To achieve a goal it's great, and goals are key to keep us motivated and happy, but do you really think you're better than everyone else just because you did this and that? .. drop that need to be better than others. Accept you're one of many, and as so, treat yourself with respect and empathy as you would treat any other.

Try, instead of using all your energy to feed an hungry Ego, to learn how to use your attention, your focus. First realize where your attention is. What thoughts keep showing up, on repeat, what's your position in the world, presence, attitude? Stand back, witness yourself. And prepare yourself to be astonished by how little you' are aware of yourself. This is a small step for humanity, but a huge one to yourself. It's the only way you have to know what you believe in, what you stand for and where you're heading.

Dare to question the habitual, and be brave to uncover, undress all the layers you've been putting on to cover your real aims and dreams.

When we focus on the external outcome of our efforts, we're left at the mercy of chance. If things go well we're super happy, when we mess things up, frustration kicks in... make it instead a habit of focusing your effort in learning, just learning and growing with  that. Shifting from external towards internal motivation gives you the power to determine value and worth, which builds self-esteem which creates a solid core to feel confident, and with self-confidence comes Power. Power to break habits, to start again, to catch that big but beautiful wave.

Let it be...

... what you say afterwards, does it matter? Yes. No.

Ask any scientist and they'll say to you that everything matters, from the largest things that we don't even consider as things, to the smallest tiniest speck of matter. So yes.

Ask a 6 year old and of course it matters! They didn't do it, it wasn't on purpose, they were sleeping the whole time...

Ask an elder and they'll say, with a big hidden sigh written all over their million face expressions, oh yes it matters a lot....

So, it matters... whatever you say or not say, do or hear afterwards matters.

Does this mean you'll get a second chance to change anything? Nop...

Ask the scientist, the kid or the elder, they'll all tell you, you do not get a second chance. Once it's done or said, that's it.

So why does that word even exist? After what?
We keep dwelling in the Past to change the Future.
There's no after, there's only now. Well, you've got the consequences and consequences do change things, but there's nothing you can to "un"change something. So as Lennon sang, "Let it Be ... Whisper words of wisdom, let it be. Let it be." One day we might get to understand the many "why's" in Life, but while we don't, let it be.

The same person that sang this also wrote a letter about meditation/prayer. Lennon writes...

"Transcendental meditation is not opposed to any religion — it is based on the basic truths of all religions — the common denominator. Jesus said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” — and he meant just that — “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” — not in some far distant time — or after death — but now.

Meditation takes the mind down to that level of consciousness which is Absolute Bliss (Heaven) and through constant contact with that state — “the peace that surpasses all understanding” — one gradually becomes established in that state even when one is not meditating. All this gives one actual experience of God — not by detachment or renunciation — when Jesus was fasting etc in the desert 40 days & nights he would have been doing some form of meditation — not just sitting in the sand and praying — although me it will be a true Christian — which I try to be with all sincerity — it does not prevent me from acknowledging Buddha — Mohammed — and all the great men of God. God bless you — jai guru dev.

With love,
John Lennon"

Forget afterwards. You're here now. Afterwards is a continuum questioning, it keeps us on the verge of happening. We're all searching for the right path, direction, choice because ultimately we "just" want to be happy, to be ok, but... to be happy we need to drop afterwards behind and embrace optimism.. afterwards who knows??

"Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they could be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life, — if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing."

_

Hellen Keller

So let afterwards be and focus on what matters, you being here & now, with optimism.

There's good in the world.

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope."

_

Hellen Keller

What if I am wrong...?

“To lament that we shall not be alive a hundred years hence, is the same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago”
_
Montaigne

When you ask yourself "what if I'm wrong..." any confidence you felt in yourself vanishes away. You could be climbing up a wall, you could be trying to comfort a friend or you could just be acting really bravely and questioning your Life choices, when suddenly you ask: what if I'm doing it wrong...

When you have nothing to loose it's alright be be humble and admit that you made a mistake, that you didn't know enough to make a good call on something, but when there's a strong possibility that you might get hurt from your misjudgment... glup... Because, hey, we are all wrong sometime/many times in Life. Wrong in the sense that you stood up for the wrong beliefs, the wrong feelings and dreams, wrong while judging how much your body or mind could handle.

When we take a look on things through the softening lenses of time, when we look back towards the past, it can hurt but it won't frighten us as it does when we're in the situation, when we realize, right there and then, that we miscalculated, you made the wrong choice

Well, so we start panicking! There are different levels to it, but what each of them has in common is the feeling of lostness, the "where's the escape button???" feeling...

How can we surpass this feeling?
How can we react with more calm and assertiveness to Life?

... Stop lying to yourself... if you believe in fairytales, be assertive on that, stand up for that. Have integrity on your words and show it in your actions. Get to know the risks, get to know what you're setting up yourself for, but then go and damn, give all you've got. Most of the times we've got more to give than we imagine.

If you're wrong you'll lose the grip, you'll fall and it will be a scary moment, but that's it, a moment. It will pass... Life is afterall a collection of moments, ups and downs, wins and losses... appreciate all of it, appreciate each opportunity you get to try again or change direction, "Our minds will create doubts–escape thoughts–when we are stressed. If we listen to these doubts we’ll tend to react and escape the stress by saying “take” or going down. In some cases like yes-fall zones we need to develop the ability to push through these doubts.", Arno Ilgner.

We all need big storms and rainy days to appreciate things we forget to do on those easy & sunny happy summer days.

“As we accept these responsibilities, we grow to accept a great truth: life is difficult. Once we fully accept difficulty as natural and normal, we cease to be offended or daunted when we encounter a struggle or a test. We can embrace these tests as opportunities. Difficult experiences are the way we learn, and they also are the way we can appreciate ease. We understand brightness by its contrast to dimness, happiness by its relationship to sadness. By embracing this duality of experience, we allow ourselves to find peace within our difficulties rather than wasting our power on trying to escape them. We”
_
Arno Ilgner, The Rock Warrior's Way: Mental Training For Climbers 

On Silence...

Hey, what are you in?
What makes you thizz?

Uppers, Snow, Yayo, Dexies, Meth, X, Smack... Silence?

Yeah, this last one, believe or not, it can be a trip.

We hold on to life till our very last minute, even through a self inflicted death, I believe that the deepest intention behind such choice must be driven by an intense desire to live, to really live and no longer fear and hurt. When we get inebriated, anesthetized by some drug, we get to experience a divine connection with the world, one that drives us into a non-frontier existence, a non-me, a non-you, just being in pleasure, plenitude, which then drives us, and that's the dangerous part of it, into a state of no fear, of no survival instinct. That is why so many of us need to be on something, to drink or smoke.

Jacques Cousteau in his first dives experienced what he later called the "l'ivresse des profondeurs" (Nitrogen narcosis), a relief of anxiety, a feeling of tranquility and mastery of the environment. High altitude climbers have also described states of strange peace and dreamy psychosis caused by the lack of oxygen in the brain.

Through silence, solitude, you can and will experience this kind of deep emotional connection with the world. As if in a state of being drunk, you lose your identity and just are, with no real sense of location or time, heavy or light, no distinction between inside and outside. And it's only when one gets back to his personality, ego, that these states cease and things come back to normal. But a certain feeling of loss is felt...

We all search, some more intensively than others, for what the french call as "jouissance", from jouir which means to play with pleasure, enjoyment. It's not the same as entertainment, to be entertained while your attention is absorbed by something else, but exactly the opposite, to feel intensely our own existence, the grace of existing, to feel and almost grasp the grandiosity of the divine.

Whether you believe in God or not, we have all experienced something in life that goes beyond explanation, and it's impossible not to think that there's something greater than us when we simply watch a hawk hovering so quietly in the sky. Whatever catches your attention and leads you into drifting to nowhere's land, that's silence, that's prayer, the closest to the divine.

Try Silence...

Fragments of Iceland from Lea et Nicolas Features on Vimeo.

On the feeling of guilt on living or not living enough

... we Live, we learn, that's what we are told as we grow up and it seems to make sense, to be true, but later, as we experience more than imagined, one does come to realize he learns to Live.

We need resources to Live and those are not only the basic ones: health through food and smartness/luck, but also to Live through the risk of believing and pursuing intimate ideas, also known as dreams.

All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our deep sadness, it's energy to exist.

To exist...
To have actual being; to be real.
To have life
To continue to be; to persist...

When sadness wins you over, one can feel guilty to exist, but also guilty for not fighting for living. Choosing to accept that to feel guilty is also to appreciate Life's immense value, helps turning sadness into a platonic love for all the experiences that happen to us, good or bad.

But here's the word, the concept, the thing we need and search our entire lives to feel we exist... be it platonic, dreamt, imagined, we need to feel Loved and Love.

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved"

_

Victor Hugo

In modern times...

Learning more on how to Live...

The way to live is through Love.
"If a person you love comes in the same door 5 times, jump in happiness everytime, don't hold back..."


Denali from FELT  SOUL  MEDIA on Vimeo.

We have evolved... and survived. You know why?

... the consciousness of community. The power of living in community saved us.

As we look into nowadays society's trends, it is interesting to see how much emphasis is put on the individual and his consciousness, the mind as the tool and medium, and how happiness can be achieved through some/or a lot of mind control. Disciplines like philosophy, psychology and other alternative non-laboratorial disciplines are no longer intellectual hobbies of eccentric minds, but instead have become sort of foundations to our development. With that focus on the mind and the individual, technology has evolved very rapidly through emotional seduction.

Thats is why everywhere you look, it's all about the Individual, the person alone, in itself, unique in every aspect, the concept of I-technology, of "Think different" and "Just do it", don't care what others think, be yourself.

But what do you really achieve just by yourself?
Do you really think you could survive just on your own?
No electricity, no tools, just you...

We could maybe survive for some time, but not as we have here in the world has a specie, surpassing a lot stronger enemy species like the Neanderthal man.

Some scientists have shown through evidence that we're not the strongest, but since we started cultivating, not only the land but the ties between our brothers and sisters we got more powerful. The sense of being part of a big family made us more resistant to change and more adaptable. We began to acquire social organizational skills and with that, we gained a sense of conduct, a sense of right and wrong. True that we did not care much for the good of other species besides our own, as we can actually see still happening today, but in a group, we take care of our kind.

“Primeval man regarded actions as good or bad, solely as they obviously affected the welfare of the tribe, not of the species."
_
Darwin

So we're not weaker of mind for caring about our neighbour. Instead we're acting smart by thinking about the health and balance of the group.

True or not, here's a good idea: "In the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the centre of the village, alone and unfettered. All work ceases, and every man, woman, and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused individual.

Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, each recalling the good things the person in the centre of the circle has done in his lifetime. Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy, is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths, and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length. This tribal ceremony often lasts for several days.

At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe."

We change, people change and with us, the world changes.

We can only survive in community, but community means that we share the same vibe, we share common interests, we care for the well being of all. Unfortunately race, religion, politics and wealth have classified, divided and separated us, but we can see the results of that disconnection: death.

Let's get together again. Forgive others for their mistakes, and help instead of just pointing the finger.

"We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who make a brighter day, so let's start giving. There's a choice we're making, we're saving our own lives. It's true we'll make a better day"

_

Michael Jackson

Vulnerable? Yes... but real.

This world is an amazing beautiful place, but we are not amazing or beautiful. I'm sorry if this is too brusk and too early/late on the day to read this, but how can we ever be amazing and beautiful if even towards each other we tend to choose defensiveness over trust and openness; if we doubt humbleness to ever be a choice; if we can only see miracles and grace as a subject for saints and holy spirits?

We share this same World and it's laws, and through curious minds we've learned that everything in the universe eventually moves from order to disorder, entropy.

We are taught that we must share some sort of moral conduct (aka religion), we must respect each other and live accordingly with society's rules, but what a pity that never we are taught to live with our hearts. Our Heart is not selfish, our mind is, our mind covets. Our mind wants to control, our Hearts wants to play, dance, sing, feel freedom.

The number one cause of everything, is Love: for Life, for another, for a feeling, for a belief, a cause, a choice... and being there a cause there's an effect.

Remember being in Love? Isn't it true that one of the first things that happen when you fall in Love is to lose control of yourself? Yes, Love teaches us humbleness... we fall in Love, we let our guards down and open ourselves to another. And to be Loved is to be able to show our weaknesses without the other person using them to assert their strength. We cannot love with our minds.

... but who can really surrender to the apparent randomness of Life?
How can we reconcile passion with patience? Through Love.
Love with the light in your heart and not with the "supposed laws" of your mind.

If we really care and think a bit through on what we are doing here, alive and breathing, then we can see for ourselves how this world is amazing, how incredible it is that all that had to happen in order for us humans to be here did happen. So, respect. Respect. We know very little of what there is to know. So, be humble, be gentle, be a brother and sister to the person next to you, and OK, solve problems with your mind, but feel with your Heart.

"The only way to reduce ugliness in the World is to reduce it in yourself"... and yes, we will fail over and over again to do the right thing, to choose the right word, to make the right choice, there, accept it, we will never be right. Nevermind being right! Feel love, and care for others, no one is perfect.

"Humility is the awareness that there’s a lot you don’t know and that a lot of what you think you know is distorted or wrong. (...) We don’t become better because we acquire new information. We become better because we acquire better loves. We don’t become what we know. Education is a process of love formation. When you go to a school, it should offer you new things to love."

_

David Brooks, The Road to Character

Open up, liberate... and start living.

"(...) Imagine you’ve got a hosepipe that’s twisted and you’re trying to water a garden. No water comes out. If you don’t untwist the hosepipe, the garden eventually wilts and dies, right? Now your secrets act like a twist in the hosepipe that allows aliveness to flow through your life. And unless we untwist the hosepipe by exposing ourselves and sharing our secrets, will always live with some form of a garden that’s wilting, some form of numbness.

(...) The dictionary defines aliveness as having life, living, not dead or lifeless. It’s that feeling you get when you go up to somebody you really really really like and you ask them on a first date. (...) we’ve become so good at looking outside of ourselves to get off fix of aliveness, that we’ve forgotten we can self-generate it in any moment."

Home

There's a place where we don't feel alone and that place is home.

Cowardness is hiding behind a fake persona all the things you believe, care, love and dream. Cowardness is watching life changing right in front of your eyes and all you do is turn your face to the other side.

I've been a coward, much through ignorance and fear. But this world does not let you pass by indifferent or untouched. Sooner or later, your fears will be speaking for you and your ignorance will become your solitude.

Don't be a coward anymore and open yourself to Life. Life is indeed full of surprises and traps. We choose rather to be honest with ourselves or not, but all the rest is beyond our comprehension. I do believe there is a reason behind all, but we inflict so much pain and anger on others and ourselves that we miss the sweet and deeper origin of everything that exists: Love, the deep appreciation for a kind smile, a kind word, a sunset, a memory.

Love is the origin of everything we know and it's impossible that there's an end to all of this, a black, empty space of non-existence. I really believe we go back to where we are from, back to our Origin, back to Love, that place "where we don't feel alone, that place is home"

... We'll "see" each other again...

In the Dark

... when wondering through her memories felt like walking into a pitch black room, full of sharp corners. "... You were right Selma, listen to your Heart"

Blindness is a condition of the eyes because science it's not interested in studying non-physical existences, but there's blindness in thinking too.

Listen to your heart, when your mind is seeing something else. The Heart will never be blind for it never has had eyes, so it doesn't need them. It can see far more than we imagine because it feels.

I feel, you feel, he and she feels, we feel and they feel.

Kindfullness

Our mind says it's too hard, our heart that it's essential and our soul/spirit is begging us! please, please be "kind, gentle, true... but not in a lazy way, please, do the work, go deep, find out what you are really about."

Oh, that question... That same, very old and very not simple question: what am I doing here?

Life, this one right here & now, is about the lessons we learn, but Life as a primary school teacher, it does not make things simpler or sweeter and so we as students, after any lesson, just keep adding up more questions and making up our "own" conclusions and of course, once in awhile, we wonder what can we really rely on?

The basic generally accepted ideas about our purpose and reason behind our choices and what follows after a lesson is "taught" is that we all want recognition, respect and we all want to feel loooooved.

But then we make it complicated (or not) with too many distinctions, titles between people, half truths, half honesty, half loves. Ok, we need structure, a certain hierarchy but shouldn't it always be based on the notion that everybody is important?

Hey, let's start there. Everyone is important, so You are important (despite the mistakes and wrongdoings, don't let cynicism hold you back here). We all deserve a chance in Life to change, to be forgiven and start again, this time a little "smarter" hopefully...

We also seem to believe that who we are is who we will always be for the rest of our lives, and this happens when we’re 8, 16, in our 20s, 30s, 40s… But we change so much. Dan Gilbert, psychologist says it as it is, "we start by pursuing pleasure, than success and later in Life, we pursue honesty". Word.

When we study we read things that were written in the Past and so of course we give a lot of importance to what happened, but if we put too much attention into that Past, what real chances can our imagination have to strive and inspire our Life, as it thinks in possibilities, Future maybes and why nots?

We're all looking for inspiration, but we keep searching for it in things that happened. Inspiration comes from a different source, out of time. Knowledge yes, it comes from the Past, and yes, study, be an informed person, don't let yourself be so easily manipulated, be aware, be smart, there's so much mass manipulation in society (here's something that we don't even have the imagination to picture the means and ways that big € groups imagine to "guard" the flock).

Long time ago Plato asked, "…why should we not calmly and patiently review our own thoughts, and thoroughly examine and see what these appearances in us really are?"

... why not? Maybe because we feel a bit of fear. Fear that suddenly everything that we know will change, be unsure, not right. Well there's a name for that fear: denial.

Life is a constant change and will always, always surprise you. Nothing is sure. Our only power and self-reliable truth is who we are right now and our openness to the unexpected.

Everywhere we hear about mindfulness, to quiet our mind, questions, being mindful, but I believe we should change that concept into Kindfullness...

"I started talking because I had studied environment. I’d studied environment at this formal level, but there was this informal level. And the informal level - I learned about people, and what we do and how we are. And environment changed from just being about trees and birds and endangered species to being about how we treated each other. Because if we are the environment, then all we need to do is look around us and see how we treat ourselves and how we treat each other."

_

John Francis: Walk the earth ... my 17-year vow of silence

Let's ask questions and make an effort to answer them, but don't just stop there. Share it, exchange, connect, listen, read and learn, and expect to be wrong about some things, but not about your motivation, your source. Above all, make your actions and words always come from a place of Love a place of Kindfullness.

Our Life After

In search for a grandiose, beautiful and strong tree, where I could rest under and meditate, I've found so many infant trees, thin and small, striving to survive. All of them so full of potential to develop into what nature intended them to be and multiply.

Unfortunately I kept looking for that special tree, instead of nurturing the ones that I had found.

We go through life with the same attitude. Searching for perfection, for the best shelter but blind to see the inner beauty of everything we're so lucky to encounter.

We don't think that much about those old experiences until age or wisdom give us a broader perspective and we finally appreciate what Life is really made off, which is the path we walked, the people we encountered, the choices we made. We could have chosen to be generous or greedy; kind or bitter; open or afraid, whatever we we chose defines us.

But we have a spirit, which is free and non bodily. A spirit that has a home to come back to and where it's forgiven and embraced. So we are ultimately free from all the darkness and sadness that consumed our dreams. But we are here now. And now is when we can choose between giving Love or responding with Hate.

Over and over I wrote for us to choose Love, but seeing now from afar, I have chosen self love. Love for my actions, my words, my friends, my, my, my... so self centered, so narcissistic. Maybe that's why noone has really resisted to the ultimate selfies fashion. You see them everywhere, selfie sticks, selfie apps, self grandiosity.

This self that is undermined by an emotionally bipolar Ego. An Ego that runs from accountability and it's fast in blaming circumstances instead of itself, for the sake of an healthy self-esteem.

But man has found religion to calm down it's internal turmoil and impetuous nature, trying to address the problems of life and love, death and sorrow, the universe and our place in it, what it means to have an “I” and what the meaning of existence might be... and it all comes down to one word: GOD.

And even though we don't have the means to prove an existence of beyondness, we are also not capable of living without. We need connectedness, we need to be a part of, we need to be seen, touched, loved. No one is immune to loneliness or a warm hug. No one.

... so instead of searching for the perfect match, the perfect theory, the perfect circumstance, context, situation, let's search for the meaning in our gestures and ask for forgiveness, forgiveness for our ignorance but with the conviction that we are becoming better, and we are helping our close ones to be better. What do you really believe? And are you alone in that? If not, congratulate the ones that listen to you, care for you and in the same way that you make mistakes and learn from them, allow others to make their mistakes without abandoning them, being there to embrace them again. This is Love, this is Humbleness, this is being Wise.



(...)
"At one seminar where I was speaking on the concept of proactivity, a man came up and said, "Stephen, I like what you're saying. But every situation is so different. Look at my marriage. I'm really worried. My wife and I just don't have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don't love her anymore and she doesn't love me. What can I do?"
"The feeling isn't there anymore?" I asked.
"That's right," he reaffirmed. "And we have three children we're really concerned about. What do you suggest?"
"Love her," I replied.
"I told you, the feeling just isn't there anymore."
"Love her."
"You don't understand. The feeling of love just isn't there."
"Then love her. If the feeling isn't there, that's a good reason to love her."
"But how do you love when you don't love?"
"My friend, love is a verb. Love -- the feeling -- is a fruit of love the verb. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?"

In the great literature of all progressive societies, love is a verb. Reactive people make it a feeling. They're driven by feelings. Hollywood has generally scripted us to believe that we are not responsible, that we are a product of our feelings. But the Hollywood script does not describe the reality. If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so. Proactive people make love a verb. Love is something you do: the sacrifices you make, the giving of self, like a mother bringing a newborn into the world. If you want to study love, study those who sacrifice for others, even for people who offend or do not love in return. If you are a parent, look at the love you have for the children you sacrificed for. Love is a value that is actualized through loving actions. Proactive people subordinate feelings to values. Love, the feeling, can be recaptured."
_

In "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Aloneness

Only when we're alone, undressed from all the should's and must's, do we really find ourselves to be. Letting the world speak in its own voice and letting this deeper sense of yourself speak out. To lose our periphery, our ego, and let the vast untamed reality be us. To feel lost but found at the same time.

That's why we find it difficult to turn the radio off, or the television, or not look at our gadget — we're afraid to lose our sense of direction, purpose or meaning, but that's exactly when we find it.

We have so many allies in this world to bring us back the sense of real belongingness, unconditional belonging. Just today an amazing red sun, reflected in some gentle and playful clouds, no wind...

SWEET DARKNESS

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
It’s time to go into the night
where the dark has eyes
to recognize its own.
It’s time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you
can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will make a home for you tonight.
The night
will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

_

David Whyte

Can we really change? Transform?
It is said that transformational change occurs when our foundational understanding of ourselves and the world around us significantly shifts. A transformation occurs when we go beyond the bounds of our current understanding and awareness. We cannot think our way through this change; we have to experience our way into it.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation,
we are challenged to change ourselves.” 

_
Viktor E. Frankl

The purpose of our Life?

How will you serve the World? What are you good at that could serve others?

"... the effect on others is the most valuable currency there is (...) that piece we're after is beyond our persona, alter-ego... let the armour go. The need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Risk being seen in all of your glory! (...) Our eyes are not just viewers, they are also projectors, running a second story (...) and we have two choices, Love or Fear... choose Love. (...) all there is is now, right now."

Choose... and go for it. Focus. Believe. Trust.

Integral

In nowadays it's getting more and more often that the word Integral is out there. People are choosing to eat integral, wear, read, listen integral stuff. You'll hear/read the word Integral in this and that almost as often as we can hear the word "baby" in a song.

... ok, it can mean a bunch of things too. In a sentence, Integral shows up when we want to highlight something that is necessary to make a whole complete; essential or fundamental.

So this thought leads me into asking, how can we also become/feel Integral?

Remember when you were a little brat, with no distinction between what was inside or outside of yourself, when there was absolutely no question about being or not accepted by the world, you were, simple as that. No need to cover up feelings... wholeness, integrity.

But as adults, who really feels integral with the world? Why as we grow up do we learn that it might not be safe to express our true identity, feelings and beliefs.

Everyone has some piece of him/herself that it's hidden from the world, and we do our best to keep it that way. We try to play a role that is acceptable. But that gap, between reality and self perception, usually leads to some pain, some regret, some sadness... We want to show up in the world as our true self, and leave this world feeling successful in that.

The desire to show up, to be more in the world with our true value, our truthness, with our true gifts, a not divided Life, that is fulfillment, and we all know how much better we get to be in society, be it in your work, your family or relationship, when we are free in our mind and spirit.

Again, connection is only possible when we show up in the world as we are, and not as we think others expect us to be.

"The heart is the path to wisdom because it dares to be vulnerable in the presence of power"

― 

Terry Tempest Williams

Let's be Integral in our choices. The world is full of good intentions, but if we don't actually do them, what good are they? We're not here just to be storytellers of other's lives.

Each of us has value. I have value, you have value, the person in front of you has value.

Feel your Heart, for it's really the place to understand what's worth fighting for... We can come up with lots of theories about this or that, but our Heart knows best where we should channel our energy.

Lets be Brave and grow our own capacity to express our deepest humanity, especially in places where it seems unwelcome.

Are we fully present in the world with our Integrity? 

It's not about perfection! It's about showing up "naked", with our natural humanity. Nobody is born with an empty self, but we can end up empty...

I wish there were more safe places for people to express their true selves. There's a voice of truth inside each of us, soulfullness. But we fear. We fear we might get fired, we fear we might lose friends or partners if we show ourselves completely. But we are beings before our "doings" or "status".

We want to be seen, respected, loved. Can you truly say, I Love you?

“Like a wild animal, the soul is tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient: it knows how to survive in hard places. I learned about these qualities during my bouts with depression. In that deadly darkness, the faculties I had always depended on collapsed. My intellect was useless; my emotions were dead; my will was impotent; my ego was shattered. But from time to time, deep in the thickets of my inner wilderness, I could sense the presence of something that knew how to stay alive even when the rest of me wanted to die. That something was my tough and tenacious soul.”
― 

Parker J. Palmer

Optimal state of Mind

Most of the time one wonders why does the mind persist in staying sad, in quitting, in being confused and going mad! But what if we asked the other way around... how does the mind manage to stay normal, despite the multiple processes and changes it goes through? We're restless... some get to meditate, but I dare to say that not so many of us are able to do it, to peacefully quiet the mind and heart.

Scientist will call these lesser than optimal states of mind as possible non optimal configurations... Indeed, they are non-optimal.

But we have an awesome power that too often is undermined by its lack of structure, ruling and consistency: Imagination.

“One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”

_

Bertrand Russel

Imagination allows us to create a different reality, empowers by surpassing what might hurt us and pull us down through imagining that impossible things can be possible, and they can... it's a whole new world that opens up in front of our mind eyes.

We can change... we can overcome and comeback. We can change, but to do that we can't believe in the same things we were taught to believe. We have to listen to our silliest laugh, to our trickiest smile, to our fantasy of being completely seduced by those "silly" ideas that come up into our attention which, in pure cowardness, we prefer to quiet them down.

Care less about what you will look like if you do this or that. Make it for yourself, for your own pleasure. Allow yourself to be delighted and then share! Yes, share with thankfulness for Life's amazing opportunities to experience beauty, to learn and grow.

Unfortunately we are taught too early to play in a certain way, within certain boundaries or we might risk loneliness, frustration and of course, punishment. So we keep on living respecting all the learnt rules without ever questioning. Why should we respect or even love another person besides the obvious ones... You must have your space and I have mine. Is this what you call belief?

What can we learn if we don't dare to break some "rules", if we don't dare to speak our mind, if we don't question and allow our imagination to open new "doors of perception".

I dare you to break the rules and desire. Desire, and feel pleasure.

"The human soul is hungry for beauty… When we experience the Beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming. Some of our most wonderful memories are beautiful places where we felt immediately at home. We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul."

_

John O’Donohue

We are always haunted by the myth of our potential, of what we might have it in ourselves to be or do… We share our lives with the people we have failed to be. Let's stop living frustrated for not being the amazing version of ourselves and let's return to that kid that ran and laughed simply, unequivocally (we didn't even know what that meant!), who cared because he/she could feel when someone just like him was feeling fear, pain or embarrassment. We were no more or less that the boy or girl sitting by our side. We were and we had fun.

"If somebody treats you with unkindness, it’s likely they have endured similar treatment in the past from others, and are only repeating unconscious patterns in search of a love they cannot find. They will continue to repeat until they wake up from their nightmare of projection, and truly see who you are, who they are, who we all are.
An excuse? No.
A way to begin to find compassion for them, to stop taking their behaviour so personally and so seriously, to begin to break the cycle of violence? Perhaps. And that ‘perhaps’ is everything when it comes to loving each other."
—

 Jeff Foster 

Has Life also become a task?

Where you put your Heart and Attention, that’s what you’re going to Feel.

Hanging between anxiety and depression, how many times does one feel fear of failure, but have no urge in being productive… or care about so many things, but realises that in the end nothing really matters.

Wanting, wishing, praying for meaning 

and having to conform with life’s absurdity…

But where you put our Heart and Attention, that’s what we’re going to Feel.

“(…)

No point in looking back

Over your shoulder

Leave your worries behind

For a while

You'll forget everything”

_

Junip - Your Life, Your Call

Has Life also become a task?

What are we doing, why are we in such a rush to go nowhere?

“What will be the good of the conquest of leisure and health, if no one remembers how to use them?” Bertrand Russell asked in his 1926

Living under a unrelenting cult of workaholism and productivity, where do our souls go?

The more inventions and speeding mechanism we create, the faster we’re driving and rushing. We feel like we have less time. Where’s the contemplative, excellent digestion “future man”, described by George Eliot in 1880, the stout gentleman “…of quiet perceptions, undiseased by hypothesis; happy in his inability to know the causes of things, preferring the things themselves. “

We were supposed to be creating a world where everybody had a reasonable chance of happiness.

… hey, focus on your Heart. It looks for kindness, value and sweet simple pleasures, even when everything else says it’s foolish or childish. Focus your attention on you Heart, and make those tiny little dreams come true. Simplicity it’s not easy, but takes you back to that nice place where you are nowhere else but present and alive.

Happiness is also a practice, it needs both learning and constant maintenance. In some studies they’ve seen that Happiness diminishes as we transition from childhood to adulthood and then starts rising as we grow wrinkles and acquire gray hair. Why is it?… Maybe because we stop taking our attitudes so seriously and stop worrying about who we should be and we simply are?

Because in the end “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives” (..) There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading — that is a good life.”

_

Annie Dillard

on Meaning

... what do you mean, what do you really mean?

I want to know, I need to know.

"What do you mean"... when you act in a certain way, when you say the things you say.

- My dear, you mean nothing to me.

Boom, punch in your stomach! Neck squeezed and head detachment possibly...

...

...

Why?!

Because to mean something, for someone, for a reason, for ourselves is our number one thing. We want/need to mean something, to have a definition, to make sense and of course, to be important in someone's life. 

But too often we forget that meaning starts with ourselves, with our own release and breakthrough.

We all have one meaningful song, thought, book, picture, spoken word and moment. More than one hopefully. And when we recapitulate who we believe we are, those are the moments that occur to our brain as defining of who we are. So when we're just killing time and waiting for life to happen, we are creating a void, an unmeaningful void... 

It's not about having an awesome inspiration on what your Life's purpose might be, but instead, really bluntly and honestly defining what's important to do with your time here. What can you do with your time that's important? or just for the sheer joy of it.

If you could speak with your old 8-year old self and he/she asked you, why did you stop writing, drawing or playing, and you answered, because I'm not good enough, or I have to pay my bills, or because no one else cares about it, how do you think your old self would feel? Would he/she cry? ... If so, don't give up on your dreams and fantasies. Take some time for yourself, play again...

We need to feel we have meaning. To feel that somehow we make a difference, we add up something to this world, something good, and that we will be remembered as someone dear to some...

Find meaning and let yourself be vulnerable. Being vulnerable is actually a very sexy thing, it "is usually downright uncomfortable. But that’s OK. Because being vulnerable in your interactions creates a greater deal of trust and intimacy, removes games and ambiguity, creates sexual tension through bold behaviors, accelerates sexual and romantic relationships, builds self-esteem and (usually) demonstrates confidence to the other person."

_

Mark Manson

Let's be authentic, accountable and unconditionally vulnerables.

Know, accept and appreciate yourself. Have one sweet loving & sexy relationship with yourself, and make that inner 8-year old happy again. Find all the meanings you need to smile, love and live, for "The greatest gift you can give somebody is your own personal development. I used to say, "If you will take care of me, I will take care of you. "Now I say, I will take care of me for you, if you will take care of you for me.”

_

Jim Rohn

And now, let yourself go with this amazing performance: Ólafur Arnalds - improvisations

... wow, on repeat...

On Hope… and the power of words.

Hope is a feeling, the somewhat painful expectation and desire for something to happen. We hope to come back; we hope to start or finish, we hope to surpass, to conquer and win, we hope to get it or leave it behind us. We Hope but we will lie to ourselves if we need to believe in it. So how good is to have Hope? It doesn’t push us forward to fight and look for a solution, it keeps you waiting, it seduces you into inaction, it retrieves power from you, who like any old leaf stands waiting to fall and be taken away by the wind.

Remember Pandora’s Box? Pandora opened the jar and all the evils flew out, leaving only Hope inside once it was closed again… what does that mean? Why was Hope trapped with all other evils…?

Pandora was created by the Gods to please Zeus, who wanted a Godlike woman. Hephaestus, the smith god from beneath the Earth, made her from Earth mixed with water; Athena, goddess of wisdom, taught her crafts and weaving; Aphrodite, goddess of love, gave her irresistible charm; Hermes, god of imagination, gave her a deceitful nature, persuasion… curiosity… because of her curious nature she didn’t resist to see what was inside the box…

Sometimes we can be having such a nice sweet dream that we actually might wish to wake up to see if its real. We expect it to be real. Hope is expectation, an illusion.

Is being hopeful a good thing? The higher you dream, greater the fall…

When we look into our inner mirrors and think there’s not much to hope for, either Love, growth, or safety, then we have lost our “lust for life”, and that is dangerous. Not only because it makes us disconnect from our feelings, but also because, right at the core, it’s a lie. We always Hope to be rescued, like food for the soul we imagine and fantasise a sweeter, happier Life

We always Hope, otherwise we’re just surviving… 

Are we just surviving? … 

If it weren’t for the dreams one sighs for and love, then yes, we would be just surviving, as it’s usually said after a couple of wine glasses, a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

We have to Hope, if not we would have to quit our struggles, and it’s those struggles to the top in themselves that can fill our Heart with the Love and energy to do better, greater and share. “Without the dark, we'd never see the stars.” 

Dare to Dream...

"(...) We have not overcome our condition, and yet we know it better. We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as [humans] is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls."
_
Albert Camus

Fiending... to incredibly crave for something.

We aspire and dream, we invoke and pray, we love and we're sure, ah... Heaven has to be made of sweetness...! Heaven is sweetness and a huge smile on your face.

But, nothing last forever right?

Says a million songs, says Life.

And we get scared, angry, frustrated, impatient! Dam, not again! Not again...

It's justifiable, everyone around you confirms. You're entitled to feel upset. You probably should respond with more emotions, creating some havoc. But..

"... anger’s long cultural history of being seen as morally justifiable and as a useful signal that wrongdoing has taken place, it is a normatively faulty response that masks deeper, more difficult emotions and stands in the way of resolving them. (...) Our emotional life maps our incompleteness”
_

Martha Nussbaum

So drop any resentment, free yourself from guilt, remember only the sweetness of Forgiveness, Understanding and Empathy. We all make mistakes, we all get confused. So remember that smile, the smile you've shared or lost in pure concern for that Love, that piece of Heaven, and Metabolize your feelings... And cry! Oh yeah, go for it, clean it all up! Tell your Heart it's ok and even good to cry, cry, but never, never break. Always go back to that sweetness of the Heart/Soul.
... Because “We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, we are still each other’s only hope” 

_

James Baldwin

Sustain that Hope, that Dream. Believe and Trust.
Getting hurt and acknowledging a learnt lesson is what growing is all about.

Maturity is the sense of enoughness in you.

"Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth."
_
Bruce Mau

Take it easy, take it slow and get on with the show... indulge, feel, connect with the art, poetry, songs of Life. Metabolize what does not serve you.

And this I must also share:

Kurt Vonnegut, father of seven children, who argues that the modern family is simply too small, leaving too much room for loneliness and boredom, and advises: “I recommend that everybody here join all sorts of organizations, no matter how ridiculous, simply to get more people in his or her life. It does not matter much if all the other members are morons. Quantities of relatives of any sort are what we need.”

(...)
"I am so smart I know what is wrong with the world. Everybody asks during and after our wars, and the continuing terrorist attacks all over the globe, “What’s gone wrong?” What has gone wrong is that too many people, including high school kids and heads of state, are obeying the Code of Hammurabi, a King of Babylonia who lived nearly four thousand years ago. And you can find his code echoed in the Old Testament, too. Are you ready for this?

“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

A categorical imperative for all who live in obedience to the Code of Hammurabi, which includes heroes of every cowboy show and gangster show you ever saw, is this: Every injury, real or imagined, shall be avenged. Somebody’s going to be really sorry.

(...) When Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross, he said, “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.” What kind of a man was that? Any real man, obeying the Code of Hammurabi, would have said, “Kill them, Dad, and all their friends and relatives, and make their deaths slow and painful.”

His greatest legacy to us, in my humble opinion, consists of only twelve words. They are the antidote to the poison of the Code of Hammurabi, a formula almost as compact as Albert Einstein’s “E = mc2.

(...) I am a Humanist, or Freethinker, as were my parents and grandparents and great grandparents — and so not a Christian. By being a Humanist, I am honoring my mother and father, which the Bible tells us is a good thing to do.

But I say with all my American ancestors, “If what Jesus said was good, and so much of it was absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?”

(...) Revenge provokes revenge which provokes revenge which provokes revenge — forming an unbroken chain of death and destruction linking nations of today to barbarous tribes of thousands and thousands of years ago.

(...) We may never dissuade leaders of our nation or any other nation from responding vengefully, violently, to every insult or injury. In this, the Age of Television, they will continue to find irresistible the temptation to become entertainers, to compete with movies by blowing up bridges and police stations and factories and so on…

But in our personal lives, our inner lives, at least, we can learn to live without the sick excitement, without the kick of having scores to settle with this particular person, or that bunch of people, or that particular institution or race or nation. And we can then reasonably ask forgiveness for our trespasses, since we forgive those who trespass against us. And we can teach our children and then our grandchildren to do the same — so that they, too, can never be a threat to anyone.

(...) You should know that when a husband and wife fight, it may seem to be about money or sex or power. But what they’re really yelling at each other about is loneliness. What they’re really saying is, “You’re not enough people.”

If you determine that what they’ve been yelling at each other is that, tell them to become more people for each other.

(...) and don’t give up on books. They feel so good — their friendly heft. The sweet reluctance of their pages when you turn them with your sensitive fingertips. A large part of our brains is devoted to deciding whether what our hands are touching is good or bad for us. Any brain worth a nickel knows books are good for us. 

(...) A computer teaches a child what a computer can become. An educated human being teaches a child what a child can become. Bad men just want your bodies. TVs and computers want your money, which is even more disgusting. It’s so much more dehumanizing!

The soul is like a wild animal

Are there bad things and good things? Aren't they maybe complementary of each other?
We do forget of the other when facing it's opposite peak, immense pain or joy.

Can different truths coexist? Well, it depends...
How far are you willing to go to make it true?

Unfortunately it's only when we lose something we had as part of our Life that we rethink about Life itself. Most of it is an illusion created to suit our needs.

We were taught to think one way, to cry or laugh accordingly, to pursue certain dreams, dreams that would represent success. But would you feel you were pursuing anything if you just had yourself and nothing else?

It's because there are so many opinions and rules, so many must, should, ought to, that we believe without hardly any doubt that something is right or wrong, good or bad. You'll save money and food for the future, you'll go to school and find a job for the future, you'll fall in love for the future. For that sweet envisioned future.

If things ever go wrong, blame it on your imagination. It was greedy...

But it's that willingness to go further and finding for yourself if the world has an end or not, that builds your strength.

"To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities — I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not — that one endures."
_
Nietzsche

To endure and not giving up in finding Life for what it is and not through the desire of having to prove yourself better or worse. We are what we think. Sometimes we are tired. We can be tired for years! but, we'll wake up one day.

"The test of one’s decency is how much of a fight one can put up after one has stopped caring.”
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Nietzsche

Opposites are complementary. Hardship and joy are in relationship with each other. You can feel an amazing jubilating joy, because you have felt intense sadness.

You can also choose to have as little displeasure as possible, but you'll be also denying yourself of Life's joy provoking events and growth.

There's wrong and right, but it's your choice which one is truer.

That's why we make such an effort to find our truth, our purpose. And no book or education will provide it for us. What others have thought can only serve us as a mask.

Actively surrender... Shake off those shoulds.

"Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent"

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Parker Palmer

How?

"The soul is like a wild animal — tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek."

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Parker Palmer

It's our imagination that is responsible for Love - Proust

This TED Talk is for anyone who has ever loved.
It speaks about how monogamy used to be one person for life, but today, monogamy actually is one person at a time.

We have this romantic ideal:

- one day we'll find that one person that will fulfill the endless list of our needs: to be our greatest lover, our best friend, the best parent, our trusted confidant, our emotional companion and intellectually equal. And of course, we will be their chosen one! Unique, Indispensable, Irreplaceable, The Special One...  but then suddenly, infidelity, whatever the kind (thought, neglect, forgetfulness, indifference, physical) tells us that we are not that special after all. It is usually the ultimate betrayal, "infidelity shatters the grand ambition of love".

No doubt that affairs are an act of betrayal, but they are also an expression of longing and loss.

Affairs are way less about sex and a lot more about desire: desire for attention, desire to feel special, desire to feel important.

In relationships, in Life, we forget how essential it is to do things that bring us back that sense of self-worth we had as children, we forget how we need to surround ourselves in love, with friends and activities that give us back Joy, Meaning and the sense of Identity. We need Purpose, we need to Believe in something greater, fair, true. We need to feel we have our hidden secret spot, where we can close our eyes and finally breathe out our fears... so nice when that special place is your lover's arms.

Because "the more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand" find compassion and happiness in yourself, and when you become a wealthy person, in a world where the biggest wealth is the one that comes from the Heart, share that abundance, please...

How?
Mindfulness prepares ourselves to be compassionate.
If we're in a rush, we have no time to be compassionate.
To listen, to look and touch another.
... and our default wiring is to help/be with others!
That's when we feel connected, intertwined.

Thich Nhat Hanh said "If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform."

Let's expand! With no shame or reservations. Let's show to the children in the World that parents Love each other and are happy. Let's show Love happening and being shared. Let Love inebriate your senses, let the Heart speak it's own truth and lets all become rich.

"If our parents didn’t love and understand each other, how are we to know what love looks like? … The most precious inheritance that parents can give their children is their own happiness. Our parents may be able to leave us money, houses, and land, but they may not be happy people. If we have happy parents, we have received the richest inheritance of all."

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Thich Nhat Hanh

It's true that Love hurts, but it hurts when we cling, when we don't know ourselves and pursue in the other what we wish to see in ourselves, “to love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.”

... Life can be a a grey and unhopeful wasteland or a beautiful warm felted ocean of grace.

The Farmer and the Clown (Book)