Seize the day

I can't think of a better way to start this but with a reference to Goethe's masterpiece "Faust". I have been planning to write an article about my trip to Africa next year as part of a charity trekking and kept thinking of a way to express my feelings the right way. While trying hard to explain why is this so important to me, I remembered Goethe's "Faust".

Faust, a man of great wisdom and virtue, made a pact with the Devil, who promised him unlimited access to all the pleasures and all the knowledge in the world. But the Devil, as a good advocate himself, has written a clause, which stated that if at any point Faust would be happy and would like to seize the moment, he would die the next instant. As much as he enjoyed worldly pleasures and had access to everything he could possibly want, Faust didn't feel the need to want to seize the moment, until he became involved in helping others. The satisfaction he received from helping, made him, without even realizing, intensely happy.

That's because Faust was probably experiencing what anthopologists and psychologists call the "warm glow" of giving.

I wanted to lay my motives bare in front of everyone and say that yes, perhaps I too, long for the "warm glow" of giving. And that perhaps it comes a time in life when nothing seems valuable anymore, when you stopp running for succes, money, career and everything that we were trained to pursue and wonder whether there isn't something else out that will make life worthwhile.

"Ah! Now I’ve done Philosophy,

I’ve finished Law and Medicine,

And sadly even Theology:

Taken fierce pains, from end to end.

Now here I am, a fool for sure!

No wiser than I was before:

Master, Doctor’s what they call me,

And I’ve been ten years, already,

Crosswise, arcing, to and fro,

Leading my students by the nose,

And see that we can know - nothing!" (Faust, Act 1)



What do we know in fact? That somewhere in the world people live different lives as if Earth was divided in different little planets. That we know close to nothing about the other little planets, except that they need our help. We also know that abundance doesn't bring happiness and it doesn't bring the satisfaction a person longs for. But what we do know is that we can take this abundance and put it to good use - maybe plant a few seeds of hope on a poor little foreign planet. While sacrificing for it. The "warm glow" will come together with the endorfines released from climbing the high Simien mountains and maybe then, on a high peak, surrounded by greatness and silence, with the wind telling magical tales of ancient civilisations and universal truths, perhaps then, the Faust in me will want to absolutely seize the moment.


If you would like to sponsor me in my trekking, please donate on my Just Giving page.
If you would like any information about the trekking, the charity or the cause, just drop me a line.

My way

In a world that keeps pushing dreams our way, it seems that living for what one really wants has become one of the biggest challenges one could encounter.
In a world that becomes more and more diverse and complex, one finds himself wondering how come that all that he has achieved up to date doesn't really hold any real value.
In a world that speeds frantically and irrationally, one has forgotten how to live.

If it was only my case, I would stand accused and say nothing, as I have always been one of those people that has pointed things out and has always complained about the wrong things in life. If I were the only one that didn't find my place and cried in the middle of the night because waking up and going to work just doesn't have any logic, I would stand accused. If I were the only one who finds herself suddenly woken up from the common dream and wondering what was life suppose to be all about, I would say no word.

But I am not the only one and the same way I stare at the wall and ask myself over and over again what is it that I am suppose to be doing with my life in order to feel the happines and satisfaction with my existence, the same way, I am sure, there are hundreds, thousands and possibly even millions of people asking themselves the same question.

In a world that is so big and yet so small, young Londoners find themselves wondering what will it take to make the life worth living... Surely it can't be the season sales, or the all inclusive holidays, or the drinking with mates, or the comfort eating, or the playing sports, or the pulling in bars, or... Surely there must be something else. That something that we were born to do and is probably just under our noses without our noticing...

One of my very good friends pointed it out for me the other day that I should stop taking whatever comes my way and go for what I really want. I stopped for a second to think about it and I realized that I have always(ALWAYS!!!) just taken opportunities that came my way. I have never gone for a job because I wanted that job badly and I would have polished someone's shoes for a year just to get it. I have just accepted offers that happened to seem reasonable at the time, never taking into account what would that offer mean to me in the long run. I just did it and moved on, hoping that the future will write itself somehow. As if I was afraid to make choices for myself, I have allowed fate to decide for me. I suppose this type of attitude is valid for everything else in my life: I have never chosen. I have simply accepted. Hence my lifelong dissatisfaction with my life.
I think the only choices I have made are my friends and my books. These are the two aspects in my life I feel strongly about and I feel entitled to accept or reject. Anything else, until now, didn't mean much...

I have worked hard with myself to not only give myself unconditional love, but change the way I look at life in order to reflect this self love. I believe that by making my own choices, I show myself love and respect and portray that person that I have always wanted to be.

I still don't know what choices will I have to make and what compromises in order to achieve my goals, but at least now I am sure that if I want to live a meaningful life, I will have to do things my way!

Trusting myself

I am sure my friends want the best for me. I am also sure that sometimes they don't know what to tell me anymore after hearing my complaints over and over again and end up telling me off. Or telling me something that I don't want to hear simply because it makes sense to them.
I suppose I do the same for my friends. At first I am sympathetic and encouraging and after a period of time when things fail to improve, I suggest to them to seek specialized help. I suppose we can't blame each other because no friend in the world holds anybody else's answers. The only answers are within us and all we have to do is stop and feel.
Feelings are the only reality and the only indicator of what a person is going through. Learning to listen to those feelings is probably a person's best chance for survival. Listen to yourself and nurture your needs.
A lot of the things that I have been through recently I had to deal with myself. Don't get me wrong, I did pour my heart out in front of my closest friends, but in the end I had to deal with all my issues myself. And it works. Learning how to listen to myself is probably the best thing I have ever done. After a while, you become a doctor in your own feelings and recognize signals almost without fail. I have learned that no matter how well intentioned is a friend that tells me "I really liked that guy you were seeing two months ago, what was wrong with him? I think you might be becoming too demanding", or "I think you should get back with your ex", or "Just find yourself a nice guy", none really knows better what's best for me than myself.
I can only be with the person that brings the best in me and awakens the playful side of myself and allows me to live life with open arms. Anyone else, will just force me to live with a side of myself that is miserable and aggressive, reproachful and nasty, cold and bitter. And this is why, no matter how great someone was, sometimes their presence and solicitude provokes the worst in me. The more they would try to please me, the more I would reject them. While others, perhaps less than an obvious choice, would make me feel happy and light, funny and attractive.

Therefore, my friends, I think I have answered my own question: I have only myself to trust to make the right choices in life. But thanks anyway...

Hypochondria - the new "mal du siecle"?...

"Hypochondria is a mental preoccupation with real or suppositional physical or mental disorders, a discrepancy between the degree of preoccupation and the grounds for it so that the former is far in excess of what is justified, and an effective condition best characterized as interest with conviction and consequent concern, and with indifference to the opinion of the environment, including unresponsiveness to persuasion." (Retterstol, 2007)

Hypochondria is not new, it hasn't been invented yesterday, but goes back as Hypocrates. However, after going through a terrible episode myself, I have reasons to believe that it might just be the "plague" of the 21st century.

After being asked and get my lumps checked, I started convincing myself that, although most lumps are harmless, I was the one who had the really dangerous type. I went as far as having panic attacks, nightmares and even thinking that if this wasn't the case, then I probably had some other horrible and unimaginable disease. I went so far as to get myself checked for many other diseases (which in itself it's a good thing, especially as I came out clear) and the more I got reassurance on some, I wanted to check other possibilities. But somehow this had to stop, as feeling the way I was feeling contributed to a rapidly declining state of mind, which was affecting my day to day life. And if my biggest fear was to lose my life, well, I wasn't quite living it, was I?...

After doing a quick search on the disease and finding out how closely it related to depression and schizophrenia, I still didn't understand the extent to which this apparently harmless and mockable condition could affect someone's life until I found out that so many of my friends had been through similar episodes. Close friends came up to me and confessed similar phobias, whether it was fear of heart attack, cancer or bubonic plague.

I don't base my statement on any evidence(I am sure I can find one, if I must) so you'll have to trust me on this one, but it seems that the increased awareness of certain types of diseases makes them the top of the hypochondriac's shopping list. I also tend to believe that the mounting level of information and statistics regarding deaths and cases of terminally illnesses, influences people nowadays to believe that one day it is going to happen to them...

Why do we get like that? I mean, I am sure nobody wants to go through hell and back thinking about illness and death, so there must be something more subtle at work. Based on my own experience, I believe that a certain level of stress and feeling of unachievement can easily trigger it. When happy, we don't really listen to our bodies, but when we feel low, everything surfaces. Our body reacts to the instructions of our mind.

Someone mentioned to me the other day that it might be related to the Quarter Life Crisis (I couldn't have said it better myself: Read about Quarter Life Crisis) which more and more people go through nowadays. Other will argue that we live in blessed times when opportunities are higher than ever and it's not fair for the people of the 21st Century to go through Quarter Life Crisises when they have so much more than their predecessors, including a higher life expectancy! I would probably answer to those people that then again we are brought into this world with higher expectations and not meeting them (which is probably the case of most people) makes us feel like we are failures and gets us steps closer to depression and related states of mind. Perhaps that's why we are so afraid of disease and death. Because we haven't fulfilled our mission, haven't reached our goals and we are terrified that we will leave this world without having lived up to the standards.

Yes, hypochondria is an expression of all that and not something we should joke about. I noticed that being part of a small community of hypochondriacs did help and I urge anyone who has ever felt that kind of desperation to give a helping had to someone in distress. An article published in the Guardian in 2007 ("How do you cure Hypochondria?") talks about methods of dealing with the irrational fear of illness and thankfully, there is hope. Apparently, receiving reassurance from your doctor doesn't remove the fear. The sufferer is trapped in his/her own mind and cannot escape without help. I hope this can help...

I still haven't received my diagnosys, but I am hoping that hypochondria is not one of them...

I stopped smoking. A habit that I mastered for over twelve years and yet it's as if it never happened. I don't crave. I don't think about it. I have just erased it from my daily life.

Of course it took a great scare to force this to happen, but I am grateful it did.

It's one of those things you keep procrastinating: I'll give up smoking one day, but just not yet, I'll have children one day but not right now, I'll sleep when I am dead etc.


I went to the gynecologist the other day to find out whether it's just my breasts or perhaps there is something really wrong with my uterus as well.

She wanted to know if I was pregnant. I laughed. She also asked if I was trying for children. I laughed again. I guess that she sees more pregnant women that women in their thirties with no real gynecological issue, but the hypochondria in their head. She did ask to see if I wasn't pregnant and I found myself looking at the sample of urine wondering what if I was pregnant... I also noticed a slight disappointment when the confirmation came. No, I wasn't pregnant...

I still don't have the official confirmation of what's wrong with me, but it seems that my lumps are of hormonal origin and the result of me not having had children yet. I guess that there is something really wrong with the world today... Socially, it is becoming more and more of a normality to see single childless women in their 30's and even 40's, however biologically, we are being told off...

Yes, I do find myself looking at children on the street and yes, maybe I did give up smoking thinking about the child I don't have yet...Apparently I have a nice womb...

Carpe Diem

Fear... Fear is the worst enemy of humanity. Of my humanity...

Fear eats me alive and makes me sick to the point of throwing up... I contemplate death and the idea of my non-being scares me to madness. As a human being, I realize how irrational I can be.

A couple of days ago, I decided to go and get the doctor to check some strange pain I felt in my breasts for a couple of weeks. I was sure he would just tell me there was nothing to worry about and just send me home with some paracetamol. He looked at me blankly and said I had lumps on both sides and that I should get them checked. Although that was probably the most reasonable thing to say in the world, I felt as if he was signing my death sentence... I went out of the clinic's door and couldn't shake off the idea I was going to die...I went to work and everything felt surreal. I wasn't there... It was Friday and all I thought about was how was I going to live until I get checked... To try and calm myself down I went to the yoga class at my gym but everything went from bad to worse.

I went to the gym, took off my clothes and started to fold them nicely as in a very important ritual. I suddenly had an image about my uncle's pijamas when he was in the hospital, before he died and I remember thinking that soon the pijama will lie untouched as he will no longer be around... A fear overtook me and I started to cry in the middle of the changing room. I looked at my clothes and a sinister idea took shape. I tried to ignore it and went into the studio. As I was performing down facing dogs and warrior ones, I looked at my body and felt an incredible love for it. I contemplated my hands moving in the air as if they weren't mine and wanted to squeeze them tight, kiss them and hold on to them for as long as possible, as if I had to say good bye to them...

On my way home, I saw a woman with a baby in a buggie. I felt I ran out of air and dashed out of the tube hyperventilating and crying at the same time. I felt I was going to die right then and there... I cried thinking that I was going to die and I was going to die alone... It wasn't until later on that night when I managed to recover a bit of my rationality.

I was told that I was probably still dealing with the sudden loss of my uncle. I remember that I had bought some parsley while he was in the hospital and kept it in water. When he died, the parsely was still in the glass of water. I remember thinking that even the parsley lived longer than him...

I guess I am dealing with a very strong irrational fear. I strongly love life and I would do anything to hold on to it. But then again, who wouldn't?... We would all give anything to live, we would all realize we would have wished to live our lives better, more intensley, more importantly... Carpe Diem has become almost a cliche and we all live away telling each other over a glass of wine "Life is short!" but how many of us really believe it? We all bloody think we're going to live forever...

How do I deal with my fear? I do what I can... I pray... I go out and see my friends... I go to the Opera. I go climbing and I make sure I reach the top even though I am scared of heights. I try and be brave and tell myself I will be all right against all my irrational instincts that almost make me faint of worry... I tell myself that if I am given the chance to life, I will make sure I will waste no time and love every minute of it.

I have never really liked my breasts. Too big, to heavy, not perky enough. But you know what, I love them more than anything right now and I pray for them. I promise to never think a bad thought about them ever again!

Oh, and one more thing: fear made me stop smoking!! So maybe there is something good out of this after all...

Being single

I have been single almost all my life. With the exception of a 4 years long relationship, which ended almost 3 years ago. But that's probably the exception that proves the rule, as they say.

In high school, I never had a boyfriend. I told myself I was a bit of a misfit and preferred to spend my week-ends reading literature than going out to the local disco (which, truth be told, was a real dump). I didn't lose my virginity in high school, which is probably a good thing. Not that it changed much - I was a bit of a naive late bloomer by the time I was in my twenties. Perhaps it would have been better if I started the dating game earlier. I would have been more equipped and probably looking back I would have been easier on myself, cutting myself some slack on the account of having been really young and immature.

But in reality things went a bit in a different way. I found myself in my twenties, knowing next to nothing when it came to boys. All I knew about them was that I liked them. Thank God, I was no lesbian! Everything else, was really wrong! I couldn't see bad news coming my way, even if they had it tattooed on their forehead. I was so blissfully unaware of the fact that things didn't happen like in fairy tales and that there were dating rules to follow and a commonly agreed coding system, that I truly believed that if a guy liked me, then he probably had the noblest intentions. And I suffered! I suffered profusely every time I got hurt. And I kept asking myself what was going wrong, without the faintest clue...I had such a bad impression of myself that I was terribly grateful to anyone that found me attractive. I didn't recognized my own power, even if it hit me in the face with a hammer.

So I remained single for most of my early twenties, until somebody decided I was girlfriend material. I didn't quite have a say in that, I just accepted it. For some reason, I used to think that things should just happen to me and I should just take them. Not for one second, did it crossed my mind that I could have a say in my love life.

After a few years, I realized that I wasn't quite happy and decided to take a risk and be single again. After all, I was in my late twenties and I should have known better by then. A couple of years later and I found myself making the same mistakes I used to make when I barely knew how to kiss. So it turned out that many years later, I was still as disabled as I was in my teens. Staggered by a string of disappointments, I kept crying myself to sleep and becoming less and less hopeful. I thought I would end up alone...

Strangely enough, I have spent such a long time being single, without learning how to be single and enjoy it. Having a conversation and a mouthful of chocolate with one of my closest friends the other day, I had a revelation. Actually two: 1) that too much chocolate can make you sick and 2) that I have only really been single for a year. Yes, that's right. He suggested that I have been single for two (not too mention all the other years before that) and that only in the last year I started to want to have a relationship (so beacause I wasn't supposedly looking for a relationship before, it doesn't count as being single!?), when in reality, ever since I have known myself, I wanted to be with someone. It was the idea of being in a relationship (some kind of childhood trauma, I am sure) that excited me, rather than being with someone because of who that someone was... Does it make sense? I was chasing a dream, a chimera, a notion. I wanted it so badly and at the same time, I wanted it to come my way, nice and easy. And all this time, I have forced myself to get something that was virtually impossible.

In fact, for about a year now, I have really started being single. I have given myself time, thought, care, I spent time with myself, I thought a lot, I got to know myself, I did things I enjoyed, I spent time with friends that are dear to me, I have improved the quality of my time, prioritized, went up in my career, travelled, exercised, ate goo food, went to see good movies, laughed a lot, flirted, enjoyed. Anything that came my way. And only since then, I realized I was ready to share all that with a special someone. And I have also realized that I am in no hurry. I want to find that person that will take me as a whole and live life with me, without pressure, with fun and excitement and peace. And I am giving myself time. Time to be single.

I'll take the Nice Guy!

It's only when really important things happen in your life - like re-watching an old episode from Grey's Anatomy - when you realize how much you've changed.

I was deeply involved with watching an episode when Meredith has to choose between McDreamy who broke her heart and Finn, the vet that made her feel special, and she ends up choosing McDreamy. "Why, Oh, Why", I cry nearly choking on my thai curry. "Choose the Nice Guy!", I shout, still fully aware that not only I am watching a TV show (not real! d'oh), but I am watching an old episode and everything has already happened. I also remember that the first time I saw this particular episode, I was happy she chose Dr. McDreamy Shepherd. Because at the time, I believed in passionate love and butterflies in your tummy and some other pain inducing self-delusional crap.

And for those of you who also know a thing or two about Sex and The City, the same happened when Carrie had to choose between Aidan and Big. I cheered for Big all the way in the past, but now if I had to give Carrie a personal, honest and life changing advice, I'd say: "Go for the Nice Guy! Go for the guy that keeps you warm at night and makes you feel like you are the most important woman in the world and hurting you for whatever reason is absolutely inconceivable..."

But out of the TV drama and back to reality. Truth be told, it's probably the first time when I notice this shift in my attitude. I used to find nice guys boring and unsatisfactory. Because I used to dream about totally unrealistic and romantic stuff like: stargazing with my lover and talking about the meaning of life, reading poetry to each other naked, riding into the sunset on a motorbike, falling sleep under the stars, making love on the beach and all sorts of other semi-cliches, half nonsense projections. None of this idiotic daydreams ever happened, however plenty of unmet expectations and disappointment have come my way. And only because I was looking for the Bad Guy, the guy that was making my inside flutter and made me feel really special... for a day or two.

It's been a while though (thank God) since this type of characters have made an impression on me. I am pretty knowledgeable these days (nothing can beat experience, ey!) to be able to avoid them as much as I can. And as much as I am avoiding the "Look at me, I am so cool" type of character, I get more and more drawn towards the guy in the corner, that says nothing but means a lot!

And yes, you do get sometimes a combination of the two (or maybe a fake Nice Guy?...) and, yes, you do make a mistake thinking he was for real, because dating the Nice Guy isn't supposed to make you feel insecure and bad about yourself... And yes, there is nothing wrong with that since once again you are convinced that only the Nice Guy is the real thing... Because the Nice Guy will only take out the best in you and love you (as Darcy nicely puts it in front of Bridget - yes, another film!) just the way you are...

Breathe away

I light another cigarette and breathe the smoke deep into my lungs. I know it's not good for me. I also know I badly want it. As if I try to punish myself for something. Or as if I am trying to reproduce a cliche, maybe a scene from a movie. It all feels wrong but, hey, there are so many wrongs in my life that a lousy cigarette won't make a difference.

Guilt creeps in instantly because I remember the pleasure of breathing. I remember how I tried to concentrate on my breathing the night before and joy filled me together with the air coming in and out of my lungs. And then a sense of peace overcame me and for a few minutes I forgot my silly worries. I remembered that I was alive and that a whole future was still laid in front of me, unwritten and inviting. I remembered that no matter what, I am part of a plan that will take shape with or without me worrying about it...

However, now I am drinking a Mojito and really craving that cigarette. While I am puffing away, all the wondering came back and became stronger and stronger. What if, what if...

I throw the cigarette butt away, wanting to do the same with these stupid thoughts. I start wondering what colour my lungs would be by now... Then I think about "what if" again. Then I decide to think about something really trivial to take my mind off things and realize it isn't working.

I start breathing consciously and my lungs, my heart and myself really become one... I really wish I took more care of this precious body I was given. It really isn't mine to trash... I tell myself, yet again, that I won't be touching any more cigarettes from tomorrow!

Why would you get a cat if you really want a dog?

I came across a very old post the other day about dogs. It was a funny post about me always seeing myself as an Eglish Bulldog kind of person and my annoyance at the fact that a dog compatibility website recommended me cocker spaniels and papillons (which I found at the time to be very ugly).

I have always loved dogs, I have loved them almost as frenetically as they love people. With dogs there are no hidden meanings, no ulterior motives, no reasoning, no arguing, just pure love. The kind of love that needs no justification and validation.

At this point though, I feel the need to explain a bit the term "love" and why I chose to use it in certain context. Some people might argue that Love is an absolute notion and it is what it is. Such as the love that a dog is feeling. It just is. Based on the fact that humans have a twisted way of "loving", I have decided to use the same word (and I apologise, as it is not entirely correct) - "love" - to describe a relationship between individuals (usually of the opposite sex, but not limited to) that have feelings of "love" (and now I am talking about the absolute notion) towards each other, but different other emotions associated with, such as fear, jealousy, too low or too high self-esteem, cruelty, distrust, desperation etc.

I have always wanted a dog because I am attracted by how dogs love. Their love is unconditional, pure, wholesome. I looked back at my old post feel amused by my superficiality towards Papillons. A dog is a dog...

Quite often I see myself trying to transfer my "dog love" into the human world and being remarkably unsuccessful into attaining what I am looking for. Is is perhaps because, as Miguel Ruiz was metaphorically wondering in "The Mastery of Love", if someone really wants a dog, why would they get a cat?...

I know it to be true (and more often than not I am completely blind to the obvious), but I would end up wanting someone who is not the person I imagine him to be and that will never change. I am just obstinately trying to train that person to be the dog I want him to be and getting really frustrated when that wouldn't happen. I would blame everything and everyone (but especially myself) for having failed, when in reality all I was trying to do was to change a cat into a dog...

Autumn smells of irreversible change

I don't know when this summer has gone? I don't even know when September has gone...

All I know is that the air is getting crispy and, should it not rain, it is actually nice and refreshing. I like wearing woolly scarfs and big knits and smell the spicy air that suddenly reminds me of the change in seasons.

I always associate autumn with nostalgia and this season nostalgia is even more poignant. I realised that my life as I knew it until now has gone... Even when I compare my life now with how it looked merely a year ago, I am amazed by how different it is...

I used to take things lightly and lived only for nights out. These days I am worn out, I work a lot more and go out a lot less.

I do less with my week-ends and many of my friends are not accessible anymore.

Last year my family was still the same way I left it, this year we are one member short - my uncle passed away.

Most of the people I know are settling down or going away. I haven't yet managed to settle down nor went away.

I live in a different house than last year, but surprinsingly, I have the same haircut as I had around the same time last year.

I am finding it hard to say goodbye to my old perspective on life, but it seems that I can't fight the change. It is taking over...

Last year I found it difficult to spend a week-end without something to do or somewhere to go. This year I spend most of my free time alone, going to the cinema, window shopping or daydreaming by a mug of cappuccino. Not sure if it's necessarily a good thing, but I am getting accustomed to being by myself most of the time.

Last year I didn't think about Christmas, now I dread it. Unless I'll be home for Christmas, which is a question of snow and airport authorities.

Perhaps I learnt to let go since last year. I learnt to be a bit more patient and let things happen. I also learnt that I can't spend my life complaining.

The only thing that seems to stay the same year after year is the fact that I am by myself. With my only real love in life so far: my books...

(Which reminds me, I had a sad revelation on the tube the other day when I saw an ad for one of the E-books which said: "Think about the book you want to read and read it"... A book that it's only a touch of a button away...Not only that the pleasure of holding a real book might soon become history, but the idea that you can read any book you want at any time, appauls me. Where is the pleasure of going out there and get a book? Searching through the hundreds of used Amazon books and waiting for the postman to bring you the book you so wanted. Or spending hours in Waterstones marvelling at the books that look at you with a life of their own, feeling like a kid in the candy store...)

It smells of wet leafs and Lemsip. But I can't complain. I had a good year.

Perhaps change is not such a bad thing after all.

Remember the forgotten

Forgetting...One of the most merciful qualities of the human being... If we didn't forget, we would carry around millions of images from the past, making us drag through our days distracted by the heaviness of memories.

But what do you do when you are trying to remember. And more importantly, what do you do when you are trying to remember something that you wanted to forget and buried it down in the subconscious? What do you do when you are shovelling through layers of memories and realize that the past almost has a life of its own that is no longer yours...

I woke up in the middle of the night a few nights ago and startled at remembering certain things. I realized then how hard I tried to bury all of them somewhere where nobody can ever find them, especially myself. I wanted to forget and start anew but something always triggers them coming back to life and haunt me. They say we all have certain patterns and by identifying bad habits and avoiding them, we may be able to escape the curse of falling in the same traps over and over again. But scooping back through memories is a hard task especially when youbelieve that no matter what you do, there's no avoidance falling in the same holes. As if it's already been written in your DNA.

Being in denial however, doesn't put a stop to making the same mistakes. I used to be completely oblivious to the implications of bad habits that root from deep inside our beings. When I realized that I had to take trips into the darkness of my own undesired memories, I took a great step towards a possible redemption. But being in the process of identifying the triggers and looking for possible solutions is a scary place to be. I might decide I want to forget all about it...

Walking the line

I don't suppose it's totally abnormal for me to go back and re-read my own old posts. I sometimes lose faith in what I have said in the past and need to refresh my position.
It is certainly not easy to walk the line every single day. It is instead so easy to get distracted from the clear goal of your existence and start believing all those rumours in your head. I know, I do it every day...
I tell myself sometimes that I am not happy when I have absolutely no reason not to be. I also tell myself that I am not smart enough when all it takes is just a bit of concentration. I tell myself some days that I don't look pretty enough when all it takes is a large smile and a bit of make-up. I sometimes believe that I don't like certain people when they haven't actually wronged my in any way. It's all those rumours in my head. It's all those voices I hear everyday and that I chose to listen to.
That's why it's not unusual for me to seek guidance from my own words. I do believe that we are not necessarily the owners of our ideas, but a medium through which they come alive. And it probably takes a certain frequency of thoughts to be able to receive the great ideas and a clean soul to express them as accurately and as beautifully as possible. Perhaps today is one of those days. When I chose to listen to my heart who is kind to me and forgiving. Perhaps it's a cry for help and by expressing it I already find the power to keep walking the straight line. I can only hope to keep forgiving my mistakes, making less of them and adding more inspiration to my stream of thoughts.
If anyone out there finds a bit of good advice in here, then you're not the only ones: I do as well... And I don't even find that strange at all...

The mathematics of existence

You know you have made an important step towards happiness when you can slow your pace down and even let go of things... One of the principle of Buddhism is to avoid getting attached to things/people as we are not the owners of them. We are only the owners of our feelings towards that thing or person and the only thing we can do is enjoy and rejoice in its memory, once it's gone...

Milan Kundera said in Slowness that speed is directly proportional with the power of forgetting and that slowness is directly proportional with the memory. We live in world where the speed is a sine qua non quality, but does this makes us a generation of amnesiacs?... Quite possibly so.

He calles this relation between speed and forgetting, and slowness and memory the existential mathematics and I tend to believe it is true.

In order to ensure the balance of the life equation we must foremost take things slowly, breath into the present (like in Yoga) and rely on the the stability of the memory rather than expect things to turn a certain way to avoid disappointment.

I noticed that most of my past frustration was generated by the impatience I was treating every situation with. I wanted answers right then and there, I wanted things to happen then and there, I wanted results there and then. Nowadays I have learned that it is far more pleasant to place the seeds of future circumstances and pick the riped fruits only when they are perfectly ready to be enjoyed, at their peak.

I noticed that the level of my patience is directly proportional with the satisfaction I get afterwards and I found out that I finally learned to let go. I can always rely on the strongest memories and indulge in them really slowly...

Where the truth lies...

The truth is that after turning 30, I started seeing the world with different eyes... It wasn't that before I wasn't aware of my surroundings, but as if by magic, I was able to look at my life objectively, as if stepping out of my body and contemplating it, rather than being stuck in it.

There is a lot of scientific evidence to explain the reasons why it happened and I am also not falling short of mystical ways of coming up with conclusions.

Reading this week's Stylist, I came across an interesting article about "quarter life crisis" and why so many brilliant musicians died aged 27. It seems that turning 27 can mark a turbulent time for people, with the brain going through an interesting transformation around that age. According to Dr. Daniel G Amen quoted in the article, a process called "myelination" occurs and nerve cells are being wrapped in myelin to provide insulation. If the process is disrupted with drink or/and drugs, the person is more vulnerable to depression and impulsive actions. Which brings me to the subject of depression...

Depression is a disease, a biological condition that affects the brain and it can be triggered by events, lifestyle choices, or genetic factors (though not very commonly). Sometimes it is something that builds up over time and it can, why not, start during childhood and erupt when the person is already an adult. Depression has been treated lightly and generally people have perceived it as a weakness rather than what it really is: a disease. The subject is, in certain cultures, quite a taboo.

According to the Toltec Master Don Miguel Ruiz, we are born perfect, happy and intact, but from the moment we learn how to speak and understand the power of the words, we start building up a "tree of knowledge" in our brain, that is made of common beliefs fed to us by parents, relatives, teachers, public figures etc. These common beliefs are not necessarily true (the author actually calls them lies) and we use them to make sense of life and produce judgements. So far it doesn't sound so bad, but the main concern of believing in the Tree of Knowledge is that it comes with a distorted image of the self: we should be like this, but we're not. We grow up with the image of perfection of what we should be and we're not, denying the reality that we are already born perfect.

Many cases of depression are triggered by this "I should be happy, but I'm not", "I should be rich, but I'm not", "I should be beautiful, but I'm not", "I should have children but I don't", "I should be married, but I'm not", "I should be free, but I am not" and the list is infinite.

This is the territory where science and mysticism meet. Depression episodes can be treated with chemicals, but the long time management of this fearful enemy, must be handed in to the people preaching inner happiness as a sine qua non condition for living a long and depression free life.

I have been depressed on this blog one too many times. If I hadn't, I probably would have ended up taking anti-depressants sooner or later... If I am to believe myself (though according to Don Miguel Ruiz, we shouldn't believe ourselves as we tend to proliferate lies from the Tree of Knowledge), I will reach this conclusion: I have suffered from depression for a very long time, with many lapsing episodes, probably ever since I was a teenager. Depression has been one big constant in my life and, due to my understandable ignorance, I have always blamed external factors (things I didn't have, not being in a relationship, not having the perfect job, being a foreigner in this country,,the weather,anything I could have thought about really) for my mood swings and lack of living enthusiasm. Luckily I've survived through all that and being able to complain about it on this blog has proved cathartic, perhaps it even saved me from far worse scenarios. If I am to believe myself, reading and being spritual had given me a completely new perspective and perhaps I don't exaggerate in saying that it has offered me a second chance to life. Perhaps my brain stopped producing myelin as well and that, combined with an improved drinking habit, may be the reason why turning 30 has actually completely shifted my perception on life.

Or maybe none of the above. Who knows where the truth really lies... I may be full of lies picked up from the Tree of Knowledge. I know one thing to be the truth though: I am perfect!...