Drafting through Life

How can one ever know this is the real deal, no last minute change, no shift in perspective, no recast, conversion of mind, view, way, feeling… that this is the Life you'll be remembered for. When it’s over?! You know, when you’re no longer around to talk with and the memory of your best features is all everyone can have from you.

Yeah, nothing ever stays the same, things change, and for some, or in some days, feels good that Life is so unpredictable. There’s some sweet surprises, there’s some cool “outpost” of who we can be, but, depending on your personality and life experiences, there can also be a lot of frustration towards this thing we call living.

We all feel the need for a purpose, for an interesting story, better yet, an interesting narrator. We don’t imagine ourselves becoming old, but we picture often who we will be like looking back. Deep inside each of us we dream of finding Love, finding words and actions that reveal who we are while being useful and recognised in the world (the simple world of our close ones is enough).

And so we keep trying, sketching in what way we can be closer to the right, corrected, evolved version of ourselves. Will that final version ever exist? Yes, we will find that final version of ourselves when we accept that our flaws are what makes us who we are, and with humility, we forgive ourselves and others, for not living always accordingly to what our thoughts, gestures and words say behind our back.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

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Mahatma Gandhi

But, there’s this thing that, unless life shakes us up, very few get it, which is, Life has no experience trial mode. We’re born and we’re living it. This frustrating tendency of leaving for later what could be done, could be said, let go, keeps us in a constant draft mode…  It’s indeed scary to compromise in ignorance, but to keep being ignorant for the sake of not submitting that Life’s draft, takes us nowhere. Keeps us in repeat  mode, and eventually, as any old record that is heard only through the same track, we get scratched, never moving on to the next tune.

Over and over it’s hard to be fully present. There’re things we wanted to say, there’s ideas we want to share, there’s situations we wish we could change… and over and over we live overriding this moment, right now, with those wishes and fantasies, pretend talks and false projections, thinking that one day, we will manage to change from the draft version of ourselves, to a final complete one.

… well, we are, right now, right here, and where we will go next, no one knows.

So be present. Be you. Share what you’re scared off, share what you’re giggling about,  share your ignorance, staying present, being real. Stop being only a draft. Submit yourself to the world: I am.

" (...) I've got the world by the balls
Am I supposed to behave? (...)

It's easy to assume that you've built some rapport
With a someone who only likes you for what you like yourself for
Okay, you be my mirror but remember that there are only a few angles I tend to prefer
I'm only here to serve"

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Father John Misty

Shortness of breath...

We listen over and over the powerful advice of living in the present, between inhales and exhales, focusing our minds in one specific task, be it breathing or really just grabbing hard any loose thought that tries to travel far. Supposedly this control will bring us freedom, freedom from rush, from stress, from ups and downs and consequent sadness.

Then we get out again, and we try to stay with that calmness inside. To continue not to be in any rush, with a constant forgiveness and understanding attitude… till you’re fired because they want someone more energetic, and still you force yourself into numbness/coolness, you don’t have any food or can’t pay the rent because you don’t have enough money, but if you stay in the flow of nothingness things will fall into their right place, whatever that is, and eventually you just end up having only the present reality, the breathe in or not breathe any more.

Passiveness leads into “whatever” and in whatever mode, we act disconnected, we act on repeat. Whatever is when we’re tired and afraid, and we’ve actually given up.

“Then I’ll imagine”, she said, that’s the only way I can feel myself happier. I’ll use imagination. “Ah, you’re wrong”, imagination can also lead you into reclusion and loneliness. What you need is reality. Pure uncovered reality. That’s where you need to be in and feel, reality. “No…” said another voice, reality is made by others and the reality they share comes from their own imagination. Reality is really just our own interpretation of the world. Even the most scientific views of the world, are projections of self ideas, individual bets of hypothesis…. “Well, then I give up!” Or better yet, I choose not to think any more. But isn’t that dying?… Isn’t it wanting, real curiosity that keeps us alive?

Pain keeps us alive.

We need pain to change, to question, to feel lost and only after, in survivor’s mode, we grab on to what can really bring us to surface. Our last instinct is too survive, but our first reaction to sadness is the opposite. We can live our entire life holding on to a well disguised pain, just not to let us fall… so, let go, fall face down, risk it. Scream if you have to, but give yourself the chance to be forgiven and to start again. Fall to get up! We learn to ride any bike, skate, hey, just walking, by falling down over and over. And when we were told that its was too dangerous, or shouldn’t have been done, we questioned it. With age and routine, we get more scared of reinventing and challenging our beliefs. But so many times we carry more pain for not having shared that scary thought, that scary choice, for not having taken the risk.

“The unhappy person is one who has his ideal, the content of his life, the fullness of his consciousness, the essence of his being, in some manner outside of himself. The unhappy man is always absent from himself, never present to himself.”
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Kierkegaard

To know ourselves, and feel what is, feel what we are, we can’t be the version for the easy listener, or the grumpy old man. We have to cry and we have to forgive, for after despair, the one thing left is possibility.

Crashing Cars

Fui eu que escolhi, vesti o fato, tirei a prancha e caminhei até ao mar, mas os meus sentidos deviam de estar desligados. Não dei importância ao vento, não dei importância à quantidade de espuma branca no mar. Só no primeiro mergulho, quando a prancha resistiu e deu resposta a estar submersa é que acordei da alegria de ir surfar ao final de mais um dia. Mas tudo bem, a natureza mexe conosco e ás vezes até fere, mas a dor é ganho, é recompensada pela energia que ganhamos por estar com o vento. entre o mar e as nuvens. 

Escolhi ignorar, e é sempre uma má escolha, seja no ignorar das nossas vontades, sonhos ou a vez de outra pessoa. Ignorar é virar as costas ao que existe mesmo. Por isso posso chamar-me de ignorante, muito, porque viro sempre as costas ao que me dói, ao que traz tristeza, achando que não se deve dar atenção ao que nos magoa. É entrarmos em negação, e é nesse estado que a maioria de nós vive. Em negação com os seus sentimentos, desejos, mas mais importante, na semelhança com o outro que age de forma absurdamente diferente, mas foi gerado da mesma forma. Tivéssemos todos coragem de olharmos o outro e compreendê-lo, perceber que somos todos ignorantes no erro ou no certo dos nossos gestos. Com humildade repito as palavras de Sócrates, sem o final de superioridade, apenas a afirmação da ignorância, do saber que nada sei, que sei muito pouco de muito para saber.

E a Arte mente, mas às vezes só assim encaramos a Verdade.

Que pode um fazer quando a tristeza de não sentir um propósito pesa mais que qualquer distração? Vivemos todos num estado de constante arrependimento, caso contrário viveríamos como santos, em beatitude de anjo. Mas podemos abrir os olhos e perceber que somos herdeiros das nossas falhas, não das nossas escolhas. Que sabemos nós do destino para onde somos conduzidos. Vamos num carro sem destino, por vezes em excesso de velocidade, a passar vermelhos, a sofrer acidentes. As falhas são o ter pressa, o ser impaciente, o ser egoísta, o ser preguiçoso e escolher ignorar, o não tomar tempo para estar consigo próprio e conhecer-se.

“The true and durable path into and through experience  involves being true … to your own solitude, true to your own secret knowledge.”

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Seamus Heane

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