From the Inside to the Outside

Because

"There is nothing inspiring about a person's imperfections on display."

We have all been there (or are).

Life feels empty of any content, and the question, why we're here, does not get any answer. I'm here for my family and kids, I'm here for my job, I'm here because my parents did what nature intended them to do...  but we don't get the "why" behind the facts. This "why" is what we call the "Meaning of Life"

Starting in a simplistic way, Life does feel many times as that first day at school...
Why?! Mum? Dad... don't leave me...
Who am I here? How should I act?
Hum... Ok, I'm not the only one... but this feels strange.
But then you find out the things you like the most and you focus your attention on them, becoming the fastest runner, or reader, or a great storyteller, or a quiet observer, and not because you though of becoming one, but because you followed your gut, you followed what gave you pleasure!

As we grow, we also learn that life is even better when we're not just focused on our self-pleasure, and we get motivated by engaging in groups and later on, in making someone else happy. First our parents, teachers, best friends and one day, that one person we start dreaming about.

If we had gotten stuck on being upset and frustrated, no way we would have reached this far. We would be stuck in kindergarten! Complaining and acting as victims of a world that does not understand us.

So, in the most simplistic way, it all comes down to our choices. And where do we make them? Inside. Inside ourselves. We can be driven, suggested, manipulated even, but in the end, it's always our inner self that makes that last decision. So workout that muscle!

We're always searching for meaning, for that self drive. That inner power that breaks through our fears and insecurities. But here's where it gets confusing.
The search for meaning, much like the search for pleasure, can't be rationalised, for meaningfulness is a by-product of engagement and commitment. We have to live and experiment to find meaning.
Only when we go for it, trial and error style, do we know what really drives us into the right direction, to what gives us an identity and beliefs.

“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”

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Stanley Kubrick

But don't just jump and see. Get to know yourself by caring of your health, your social life, and so importantly, your mind. Read, write, think things through, don't let your brain get lazy in the same old same patterns, challenge it! This is called (again, in a simplistic way) to care of yourself.

Not caring for yourself leads to loneliness, and loneliness it's the saddest of feelings.

When a loved one passes away, it's the loneliness of not being able to share with them any more thoughts that hurts the most. When Love breaks apart, it's the loneliness of questioning what that love really was that keeps us in the dark, be it between lovers or children and their parents.

But if we care for ourselves, we find out what it is that we particularly like, what it is that makes us laugh, jump, sing, and we do it, ultimately finding space in our life to give to others who didn't care for themselves. We feel pleasure in giving and being compassionate.

So, what's our purpose here, and why are we here? Blank hard truth...
We are here to let the "sunshine" in, grow, love and share ideas, thoughts or feelings, and give fruit!
So, find your self strength, and get out of that cave you've been in.

"Plato then supposes that one prisoner is freed. This prisoner would look around and see the fire. The light would hurt his eyes and make it difficult for him to see the objects casting the shadows. If he were told that what he is seeing is real instead of the other version of reality he sees on the wall, he would not believe it. In his pain, Plato continues, the freed prisoner would turn away and run back to what he is accustomed to (that is, the shadows of the carried objects). He writes "... it would hurt his eyes, and he would escape by turning away to the things which he was able to look at, and these he would believe to be clearer than what was being shown to him."[3]

Plato continues: "Suppose... that someone should drag him... by force, up the rough ascent, the steep way up, and never stop until he could drag him out into the light of the sun."[3] The prisoner would be angry and in pain, and this would only worsen when the radiant light of the sun overwhelms his eyes and blinds him.[3]

"Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun. First he can only see shadows. Gradually he can see the reflections of people and things in water and then later see the people and things themselves. Eventually, he is able to look at the stars and moon at night until finally he can look upon the sun itself (516a)."[3] Only after he can look straight at the sun "is he able to reason about it" and what it is."

_ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

Don't be afraid. We are all in the same boat. We don´t live separated from anything, we are all part of something. We are all part of a "one" thing, and if what we choose to give to this "whole" are only negative feelings and sad thoughts, we're not only hurting ourselves but others also. So don't allow yourself to get stuck in fear and frustration. Follow the sunshine, the positive, the poetry and contemplation.

“To lose the appetite for meaning we call thinking and cease to ask unanswerable questions [would be to] lose not only the ability to produce those thought-things that we call works of art but also the capacity to ask all the answerable questions upon which every civilization is founded"
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Hannah Arendt

That's why...

"There is nothing inspiring about a person's imperfections on display."
Don't remain as a victim. Heal. See yourself from a loving and caring you.
Take the risk and be surprised with the beauty inside yourself and how it reflects on others.


TheButterflyCircus - HD from The Butterfly Circus on Vimeo.

The Soul

Imagine a Soul, with no sensations, no memory or reason. Only conscious of itself and never aware of any other object beyond itself. Moving through the World without ever connecting with anything outside, following only its own necessary path.

This Soul it's only a word to us, that once was released into the air, and, as any word, became reflected in multiple bodies, with minds, feelings and a past.

And that's where we live, attached to sensations, memories and a constant need for reason.

A terrible thing that happens to us is sad, but it's worst if it controls who we become.

That's why there are so many forms of Art. We know we can be lift up to higher states of mind through contemplation. We can abandon our clothes, our bodies and be lift up into a state of pure simplicity and deeper understanding through Music for example, or a poem, or by letting ourselves immerse in Natures's delicate strength.

Action is a shadow of contemplation. If only one could keep himself in that unifying feeling of contemplating the amazing act of existing. No dispersion, but pure ecstasy of releasing ourselves from the physical world and contemplate the no absence of anything, for in letting ourselves rise up we become one with everything. Maybe the body is inside the Soul, and not the other way around.

“Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine. (...) The world is knowable, harmonious, and good. (...) The stars are like letters that inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky. Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together.”
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Plotinus