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.