The Questions of my Heart…

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.”
― C.G. Jung

Ah! What peculiar creatures we are… Us humans and our intrinsic egocentric need to “matter”, to be of some notoriety, of some importance or to be somehow “special” and superior to our fellow men and creation, to have dominion not only of ourselves but our surroundings….
Irreparably we live in a culture plagued by the illusion of separateness, of “every man for himself”, and so we are encouraged and driven to some extent by the need to compete in every possible manner even if only partially acting out on this sometimes unconscious programming…
But nowadays it seems to be our daily bread… The media is a constant unrelenting broadcaster of these pernicious arbitrary yet rigid assessments we pass on each other, every news article can be condensed more or less to be a rundown of who’s “succeeding” and who’s “failing” at the game of life, who should be admired and emulated and who’s to inspire in us disgust and should shamed or feared, this manoeuvres taking place both in an intimate personal level in our everyday interactions and on a large sphere in between nations or other social groupings…
We are constantly reminded of this virtual running score of who (as individuals and collectives) has got the most of (insert an infinite variable of any given possession or asset)… Who’s the wealthiest, strongest, smartest, kindest or even baddest… We are so quick to judge and look at the speck in our neighbours eye while simultaneously consoling our own insecurities as we strive to be the “righteous ones”, who, even if we only admit to it partially, want to have it all, know it all and want it now, guaranteed.

It seems to be part of our mere human nature that we are driven by a thirst to conquer our surroundings, to achieve quantitive knowledge, and immediate measurable results all the while suffering from a desperate silent need for the certainty that our grand life plans will be realised and that after all, there must be a reasonable satisfying explanation behind all our otherwise absurd toiling, that the lives we lead “mattered” somehow, and that once we have long been buried underground we will not be forgotten, that we won’t just vanish into the eternal unknown as if we had never even existed but that hopefully, some form of legacy will remain in remembrance or to the very least perhaps merely our memory will “live on” in the minds of others …

We live in a culture where being “ordinary” is classed an insult and to be considered “nothing especial” is to be cursed… It seems that with each passing generation this problem entrenches to the extent that in our increasingly narcissistic, “selfie” driven culture, notoriety, approval, admiration of some sort seem to be the driving forces behind a lot of the commonplace routine interactions and enterprises structuring our society…To live a quiet, reserved life, to pursue an “alternative lifestyle”, free of societal expectations and influences is an anomaly, and a sure way to be granted the grand tittle of “outcast” or colloquially speaking a “weirdo” or “loser” who’s sanity is put on the balance…
It seems to be an irrefutable truth, that as humans we are all dotted with the inbred need to know ourselves to be of some importance, we all want to be cherished and be the “anointed ones”, and that’s ok, it’s part of our human character and we are after all remarkable beings…. But the glitch lays in that when confronted with our actual insignificance and impotence when faced with the grand impositions of not only life and the world as we know it, but also with the unsettling knowing of our eventual looming demise, we freak out and seek out shelter in our “reason” by constructing intellectual fortresses and armours and holding onto some form of “safety blanket” to try and alleviate or distract us from the inevitable discomforting anxiety we feel in the face of a future by nature ambiguous and indocile, maybe a little too much for our liking.
However, regardless of our preferences, that seem to be the structure of the timeline of life; a promising magic casket containing an abundance of infinite dormant possibilities but yet also a finite one, with a limited number of permanent, inedible possible realisations…
In this scenario, our “safety blankets” wouldn’t be a problem if only they provided a real answer to our existential enquiries instead of being band-aid/dummy solution offering only temporary relief and perhaps unwillingly, as a side effect fortifying the actual wound even more since the cause is left untreated… These “safety blankets” or foe cures, look different for everyone of course, some of us find comfort in amassing earthly fortunes, others in attaining “prestige”, reaching some sort of respect or admiration from our peers, some sort of fame. Others feel alleviation when exercising some sort of power or control, others seek shelter in the presence and validation of others through pursuing relationships, romantic or otherwise… Or some of us by dedicating our intellects to science or any other subject we’ve deemed as worthy… As well as devoting our talents to the arts or some other craft we find purposeful…

It seems that even if we were blessed with having attentive parents and sensible mentors who from conception and throughout our formative years asserted our worth and did their best to lay the solid foundations for healthy self-esteem, we simply can’t escape the shrewd appraisal of the social structure we operate in, which as soon as we have full use of our faculties demands from us to “prove our worth” in some way and burdens us with the burning question of why it is we even came into this world? Some arrive at this conclusion either through their own self deduction often in the face of difficulties or others when being bluntly challenged with the query by an outside entity nonetheless it seems none of us can evade this nagging itch.

And so we’ve become these species of conglomerated lone rangers, all baffled busily walking our own strict business of high importance, oblivious to each other’s common pain, not recognising in each other our shared humanity, silently bearing this mutual existential enigma… And so through life, even if only unconsciously, we strive to “justify our existence” and make up or find a meaning (or in some cases absolve ourselves of the question which is in itself an answer) as we best see fit, one which satisfies our intellects and settles our souls? As aforementioned these “safety blankets”, some form of formal religiosity, scientism, humanistic, nihilistic or hedonistic dogmas are just some of the mediums through which we attempt to soothe our souls…. And so from the beginning we’ve unconsciously absorbed the implied message that maybe we are all just trivial mishaps of nature, genetic mutations born barren into a competitive, discriminatory terrain where only the “fittest” survive and so we must be productive and make ourselves useful, legitimise our lives and increase our chances of survival… And so the eternal striving and grasping begins…

It seems to me, that in these times we live in we find ourselves in a bit of a conundrum. The “dog eat dog”, “every man for himself”, “survival of the fittest” dogma which seems to be primordial and dominate the workings of our modern western world is in my view totally absurd and self defeatist. The reality is that we are a collective of temporal very fallible and sensitive beings yet we demand of each other and of ourselves to be literarily bullet proof, perfectly working omnipotent specimens. Furthermore, we expect or aim for at least some aspect of our existence to be transcendent and go on for ever, almost as if we intended to transform ourselves into the Gods many of us have renounced… So when confronted with the reality of our own flawed mortality there’s nothing we crave more than compassion and acceptance, connection and union, love, despite our evident shortcomings, but sadly these are the very things our own egocentric tendencies, customs and self constructed armours fight against and prevent from being realised.

Sadly, it seems that this materialistic profit-driven western world offers nothing to alleviate this deep existential hollow all of it’s citizens carry, but on the contrary it seems to be programmed and operate in a way which aims to negate and often dilates this latent blank space… Sadly, it’s quite obvious that we live in a culture which encourages competition and discord not only with neighbours but starting with ourselves…
Naturally, this disapproval and dissatisfaction with our own being carries onto our interactions with others…

Sadly, I know it’s not just me who’s for too long suffered from the infectious “not good enough” epidemic. For years I too was a subscriber to the perpetual hourly bulletins this society bombards us with, selling us the current and ever changing ideals of “perfection” being promoted at any given time…
Sadly, almost from birth I too swallowed this bitter pill, its destructive intoxicating effects only becoming stronger with the passing years… And so for most of my life I walked around in a state of blind deception, resigned to solemnly believing I had to justify my existence because I, as I was, was not ok, there was something inherently wrong with me… what exactly that was I wasn’t quite sure, but it didn’t matter anyway, all I knew is at any minute the jig would be up and I’d be found out, ridiculed and vanished into a corner of the universe where all of the “not good enoughs” go. And so my life became a constant and arduous DYI self-improvement project… An improvised stand up routine where everyday I put all my might into upholding the different masks I tried to juggle, constantly switching into different characters for my expectant and demanding audience to judge and value, review and categorise as worthy or not, A+ or merely a B… All the while, the leading actor, the “real me”, my “true self”, was never to be revealed. Whatever that “true me” was, at that point I didn’t even know anymore… The only thing I believed is that whoever that self was, could never be pretty enough, clever enough, thin enough, wealthy enough, kind enough etc etc… And so I became a dazed and confused stranger forever running from my own shadow…

I wish I could say that one I woke up and casually stumbled upon the antidote to cure my malady, but the truth is the road and quest for recovery has been and continuous to be more like a tumultuous high speed chase for the holy grail of “self acceptance” and peace of mind. Fortunately, I know Im not the only one who’s had the realisation that maybe this quest for perfection and superiority is futile. So instead of trying to fight my humanity, my imperfection why not accept it and even embrace it. Instead of always trying to outdo my neighbour why not help each other along the way, why not love?… Because it’s not our first or learnt response, but it’s always an option and for me love has been the answer, it’s being the light against the darkness of mere being.

After many years stumbling around in the shadows, blindly trying to “make something of myself”, trying out many different “safety blankets”, looking for a potion to quench the yearnings of my soul, it was only after I had exhausted all my options and had no bullets left that I had to put down my armour and do the one thing I hadn’t dared to do before. To cease all striving, call a truce and raise my white flag, only then I was free to the most simple yet most revolutionary thing I ever did, to turn to love. The answer I’d been looking for had lied within me all along, always being within mine or anyone’s reach, yet sadly more often than not its foregone… Maybe because it’s often misunderstood, seen as weak and dainty or infantile, a myth only valid for fairy tales or Hollywood films, a fleeting fluffy feeling we sometimes experience… When really, it’s the most powerful earthshaking, word-transforming power we all carry within us, if only we chose to honour and embrace it… The answer, love, being the only antidote towards all the indifference and frivolous inequity we encounter in this world.

I’ve now made peace with myself, both my light and my shadow. I now see the idea of “perfection” for what it is, a handicapping belief keeping us from fully experiencing life, from realising our full potential afraid we won’t live up to a certain ideal… Truth is there’s nothing wrong with making “mistakes”, with being different from the norm and breaking the mould…
I’m not perfect and I don’t expect to be. In fact I now see that’s it’s in my imperfection, in my idiosyncrasies where my unique power lies. It’s truly through my cracks that the light gets in. I’m broken and I needed to be so I could break free.

It feels amazing to say that I’m now ok in my own company. I don’t need anyone else to validate me or entertain me. I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m perfectly comfortable spending a Friday night in the company of my tranquil self and perhaps a good book rather than feeling guilty or pressure to be out and about “hitting the town” in the company of a million strangers engaging in social rituals I find no real enjoyment in… Societal expectations no longer seem to have the impact they once did. I’ve realised now there’s really no guidebook to follow or script I must stick to, it’s up to me to to create my own path and write my own book, and it’s doesn’t matter if it makes sense to others or not as long as I’m living and writing from my heart, all things in love. After so many years feeling like a stranger inhabiting an alien body I can finally say I’m at peace in my own skin, and I can breath deep down into my belly. Sure the future, is still uncertain, I’m well aware that I’m living in a very opinionated sometimes intimidating world, but I can now relax into the flow of existence knowing that no matter what the future holds it’ll be alright. There’s no need to walk around inflamed, geared up and armed for battle because I’m not here to fight, I’m here to love, myself, my messy existence and everything else in this truly quirky whimsical world…
I’ve realised I don’t need to do anything to prove my worth, life is so much more than a rat race, a pageant or stage play. I’ve realised there’s nothing I could achieve, no earthly fortune, no amount of fame or “success” that could satisfy if I’m not satisfied with my naked self, full stop.
I’ve realised I don’t need to make anything of myself, I’m already whole. I don’t know need to build an empire or a fortress where I may rule supreme, truth is the natural world is already a majestic wonderland I’m not called to conquer but to submerge into and integrate… I don’t need to try and control or manipulate others or my surroundings but instead embrace, become one and amalgamate into the flowing dance of life. I don’t know if my memory will go on living after I die, and it doesn’t matter for this one life I’m already experiencing and the memories I carry in my heart are more than enough. I don’t know if I can change this material world we live in and I don’t intend to, but the truth is I can certainly change my world and make it a loving place, if I can do that and in some way help change someone’s else too, I’d consider my work done.
I’ve realised I will never be next Einstein, Nietzsche or mother Theresa, Luther King, Picasso or even Michael Jackson (insert any other well-known icon) and that’s ok. I’m called to be nothing other than me… And maybe that’s what the world needs, people who are not afraid to be themselves and let their true colours shine with all their might.

So now, my only task is to have loving compassion for my flawed self, everything that I am and not as well as my mirrored neighbour. I’ve realised we are all in this together, we are all part of the same family, living this puzzling temporary human existence we at first know nothing about and try to figure out as we go along… I’ve realised that deep down we are all feeling just as overwhelmed and isolated, deep down inside we all just want to be loved and treasured, and why wouldn’t given the intricate, wondrous and forever enigmatic creations we are? Despite our fallibilities, despite our massive egos and tendency to turn on each other….

So I’ve chosen to take up love as my shining light as I navigate this excitingly uncertain life…
I’ve learnt that there’s no need to fear the future or my brother, I’ve learnt that by paying attention and taking loving care of the present, the future will take care of itself. I’ve learnt that as long as I’m living in awareness and present in each moment, living true to my heart and the values I hold dear not a borrowed ideal of a “good life” everything will be alright… So now I’m putting my feet firmly on the ground and standing true to myself and pursuing my own idea of a live well lived,  fully inhabiting my body and being present to experience all the joys and all the heartbreak, the thrilling vulnerability of life…

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Love, beauty and truth…

What are we here for if not to leave this world a little more beautiful than it was before?
But when I say beautiful I don’t mean simply in the aesthetic sense… Sure it’s nice to have pretty things to look at, but I think the current media and marketing enterprises this consumeristic society impulses already do a very good job at bombarding us with eye pleasing cosmetic ideals…

I’m talking about a transcendental type of beauty, one which can withstand the evolving concepts and changing fashions of cultures throughout the centuries, one which is available to anyone, male or female, young or old, rich or poor. Not a fleeting, flimsy ideal, but a sturdy kind of beauty we can all perceive and embody…

Oh! to be beautiful… A lot has been said about beauty. A quality that’s always been held in high-esteem and is especially embraced and dare I say, possibly distorted and taken advantage of in our current capitalistic western society of the rich, famous and seemingly beautiful….
In this materialistic world that seems to be increasingly concerned with achieving ideals of lavish majesty and grandeur through our surroundings and encouraging the spending of our efforts and resources into manipulating our facades to comply with the ever changing epitomes of physical attractiveness, in this superficially deceiving world where nothing is what it is seems anymore, just what is beauty? And is it even worth admiring and/or pursuing?

But isn’t the concept of beauty ambiguous and dynamic, subject to a society’s forever changing standards of what is considered attractive?

Although trying to define beauty just like any other virtue or moral concept can be met with skepticism, an even though many will try and argue the subjectivity of primordial principles such as good and evil, I believe that really, the truth is that when we lie in bed alone at night and put our hands in our hearts and consciously examine our intentions and values, we instinctively know and can intuitively differentiate on a very basic level between “the bad” that which causes harm and anguish or brings about destruction and “the good” that benign act and positive contribution which is for the betterment or wellbeing of self or another…

In the same manner, I believe that when it comes to “beauty” or standards of physical attractiveness, there are certain very well founded characteristics we can all agree make up what’s become known as “classic timeless beauty”; harmonious proportion, symmetrical, youthful and healthy looking features, “the golden ratio”, will always withstand the test of time. Certain visual qualities will always be appealing now and a hundred years back and into the future, here and in China or in the most remote village on earth as long as we remain human…
Therefore perhaps it’s not a vain or futile enterprise to examine and question our concept of beauty beyond that narcissistic, masticated ideal mass media tries to sell us…

A quick google search grants us with the common widely held definition of beauty which is “that which is pleasing to the senses”, thus from this definition alone it’s inevitable to arrive at the evident conclusion that to be beautiful or cultivate beauty one has to be more than just visually agreeable… For can we not perceive stimuli with more than just our eyes? Yet why is our culture so pedantically obsessed with simply prunning our looks? Isn’t it a wonder how beauty would be perceived by our other senses? Would we be destitute and oblivious to the presence of beauty is we were visually impaired? I believe that to prevent this situation, thankfully we have been all been blessed with a vital and reliable receptor, one which can not be deceived and we can always count on to recognise real beauty all around us… Our hearts.

Retracing the origins of our notion of the word beauty, perhaps it’s not unintended that in its etymology, “beauty” apart from physical attractiveness its also identified with “goodness and courtesy”. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that in Classical Greek the word “καλός” for beautiful can also be translated as “good, right, noble, moral, virtuous”.
Perhaps Plato’s ancient intuition was right when he theorised in the Symposium that beauty was a form of gateway or first stepping stone towards ascending into higher moral virtues…
So perhaps it’s time we stop neglecting or misusing the concept of beauty in merely banal endeavours but instead focus on another more virtuous and benevolent side of the beautiful.

I find it both comforting and empowering to know that even if some of us might have any of our basic 5 senses impaired, and so be disabled to participate in some aspect of sensual beauty, we all without exception have the capacity to discern and experience real beauty to its true extent given our intrinsic capacity to nurture and delight in beautiful hearts full of kindness, compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, respect, understanding, courage, wonder, joy, hope, faith; love.

I believe that although the physical concept of what is considered attractive will always be subject to alterations and even though the depictions of the ultimately beautiful tangible human form will vary to some degree; in the end the most valuable and honorable qualities integrated in a truly, timelessly beautiful person are perhaps more noble, unseen and ethereal, yet will endure the test of time and transcend subjective definitions…

So instead of spending more precious time looking in the mirror, taking and deleting “selfies”, more hard earned dollars trying to upkeep a perpetually modifiable “stylish” wardrobe or any other more efforts (from resorting plastic surgery to being more or less crippled “our problem areas”) in external pursuits of beauty, isn’t it time we started aspiring towards a more durable and resilient, pure and true kind of beauty?
The one which will still be evident even after our skin inevitably wrinkles and our bodies decay.

So instead of any more cutting, pulling and plucking out of hairs, how about pulling out the weeds of jealousy, envy and discord from our hearts?
Instead of disposing of endless hours working out our physic and trying to “bulk up” and “sculpt” our bodies how about working out our strongest and most important muscle, our sentient, compassionate hearts… How about sculpting our character? Our values, our morals? How about growing our love and kindness towards one another?

Instead of colouring our hair? How about colouring the world with more shades of joy?
Because let’s face it, at the end of the day, both the winners of the genetic lottery and us mere mortals will all perish and decompose the same way, no matter the colour or style of the fibres constituting our bodies or those covering it, wether we were a size six or sixteen, wether we donned the latest designer couture or recycled no brand…

Let’s not let beauty be an adjective reserved only to describe just a few genetically privileged individuals, let’s embrace and take appropriation of the word in all its glory and in a more worthwhile sense…
So to conclude, may I suggest that perhaps beauty is not in the eye of the beholder but in the heart of the bearer…

One which will always shine through.

So be beautiful, be you!

“She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

Namaste

It’s a constant wonder… A constant thought… Isn’t there more to life than simply fulfilling flesh desires?
What happens when I let go off my ego, what happens when I dissolve into my true nature, into pure presence, into simply being…
Who am I when I let go off the self constructed and imposed armour I squeeze myself into everyday?
Am I not more than simply a tittle, a name,  an occupation, a look, a number?
Isn’t there more to this life than simply what my myopic eyes can see, what my untactile skin can perceive and my limited mind comprehend?…
Why is it that I spend my days trying to fulfil the same mundane tasks of superfluous “achievement”?
What happens when I drop the facade and pantomime?

When my body is reaching its end will my soul be satisfied with the life my humanity allowed? Or will it curse this human carcass and the illusions it limited me to while in trance in this dimension?
My soul is restless; it quietly whispers to me each day it’s queries yet the noise of the world is so loud I almost can’t hear it…
It’s only when I compassionately turn my attention inward that it speaks to me about its worries and longings…
It’s only then when the communion begins, between this finite earthly me and my transcendent soul.
I don’t know what other worlds there are but I’m certain they exist, for my soul knows it’s not from here. It knows it’s a a stranded traveller in a foreign land of concrete mystic.
So when I’m on my death bed I wonder if my soul will be still and content and say “I can rest”.
I lived this one precious human life to the “best of my ability”, what does that even mean? Well for me it’s not about how much gold or earthly commodities I gathered but about how much my soul was able to fill its eternal granaries of love, of joy, of compassion, of peace and serenity.
It’s about how well I manufactured all the pain and suffering this world threw my way into lasting and non-depreciable life lessons. It’s about how well I learned to carry my battle scars, how graciously I learned to step in this world, not leaving behind withered grass and destruction but seeds of hope and sprouting new life.
It’s about how well my heart communicated with other hearts and outstretched arms in brotherhood offering a caring helping hand. It’s about how many other anguished souls my eyes could actually see when I peered into a hazy, cold world. How many trees of kinship, of friendship I planted and cultivated, how much of its fruit I harvested and enjoyed.
This is what my soul longs for and I’m glad it knows. I’m glad it’s wiser than I’ll ever be… if only I listen.
So this is my resolve; to live my life true to my hearts desire, to hear the calling of my soul.
And that is simply love; my duty is to love myself and where I come from and my neighbour as much as myself. To rise above all the filthy hate I grapple on this tainted world.
To walk on this earth, yet not become earthly. To honor my soul.

When we are in dreams awake…

 

“To be yourself, in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Why should I sensor, chop and cut myself so that I can fit societies expectations of me? Or more like, what the frightened and insecure part of my ego thinks is expected of me? Truth is nobody really cares, and if they do, that’s their problem not mine.
I’m tired of striving towards something I don’t really believe in, I’m tired of feeling guilty for wanting what I want and forcing myself to aspire towards goals I see no real benefit in.
Having a high paying job, a “successful career”, paying a mortgage, investing in property, procreating other humans?
Does any of this appeal to me? Not really.
So what do I want in life? There might’ve been a time when I wouldn’t have given this question much thought or discarded it as egocentric or irrelevant but after spending years being a passive vagabond and basically a victim of my circumstances, at the mercy of the tide… I’ve arrived at the conclusion that one else can take responsibility for my life other than me and so I can’t let life outlive me but rather the other way around…
And it’s in this realisation where my power lies and the transformation begins…
So to answer my question…
I don’t mind sounding cliche (maybe cliches are there for a reason?) when I say I want to live each day of my life like the sacred miracle it is… I want each day to be filled with endless adventures, with pure love and magic… I want my life to be a living testament and ode to love and the tenacity of the divine human spirit. I want to realise my dreams with which I mean literarily living out my fantasies, the ones I would’ve put on the back burner because “being realistic” that’s just not sensible, responsible, possible… According to who? To this capitalistic western society that’s doing it best to dull our sparkle and turn us into its soulless, minions, who are regrettably made to conform and waste away their infinite potential…
Truth is I truly believe that just like Eleanor Roosevelt said, “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”,  I believe and am not afraid to pursue them anymore.
Call me a fool, call me a dreamer, so be it. This is my life and my existence and I intend to do with it what my heart desires, not what the media or the millions of hypnotised zombies tell me to.
Just like everyone else I came into this world, naked and alone, nothing especial, without much to give other than my heart and soul, and that’s what I intend to do. Live and love each day, as if it was my first and last, because it might just be… There are no guarantees in life and also no rain checks. If I’ve learnt something in my time on this planet is that the future is uncertain and that the only thing constant is change, no matter how hard we try control and predict our circumstances and hold on to illusions of security and stability… Life, the world, the universe is forever changing and moving in ways that as mere humans we just can’t begin to comprehend, and trying to fully understand and control it, is embarking in a frustrating dead end, futile task… So I’ve to come to the conclusion that I’m better off honouring the constant wonder of change, embracing the uncertainty, the many mysteries… Making peace with insecurity, expecting the unexpected… Only then I find real freedom and begin to really tune into the flow of life, accepting the request and merging with the acrobatic dance of life, of things as they are…
As me being a finite being, merely another ego having some illusion of self, the universe manifesting itself in my personhood for a limited period of time… For what reason? That’s only up to me to answer, and for me personally, I choose for it to be love in all it’s possible manifestations…
I don’t know how long it’ll be until I leave this earth, until my consciousness obliterates and my time is over… All I know is the clock is ticking and I have no more time to waste, giving away my power, standing by the sidelines, watching seasons change while repressing the impulse of life inside me, watching my days slip through my fingers like water going down an eternal drain with no return, existing but not truly living…
So I’ve come to the conclusion, as mistaken as I might be, that dreams are there for a reason, and that’s just not to entertain our nights and wonder at their awesomeness or ridicule them as outlandish but rather to propel us into action when the morning comes… They are messages from the heart, callings of the soul, although sadly it can take whole lifetimes for us to pick up their call… Because we are too busy with our 9 to 5s, thankfully dreams are forgiving and persist, always leaving a message and making a date, which benignly, as long as we are still breathing it’s never too late to show up to.
I wonder what sort of world it would be if we would all wake up to our infinite dormant potential?… To the magic we carry inside us but sadly and obliviously don’t realise or have scrubbed out of us as we grow up and so we forget or give up…
What would happen if instead of going around our lives anaesthetised, completing monotonous meaningless tasks, in our black and white, one dimensional worlds, ruled by a “reason” we don’t even understand, all the while silencing our hearts, resigning ourselves to half lived life’s, consoling ourselves with excuses, making promises to ourselves that “one day” we’ll do the did, that one day we’ll start living….
What would happen if we all connected to our higher purpose, as the magnificent, ingenious human agents that we are? If we rejected an existence as just inert, disposable pawns in this game of life and instead lived from our hearts, and embraced our power bringing about change, manifestations, creations only we can conceive and realise… It’s mind-bobbling for me to think that there will never be another you, thinking and feeling exactly what you are thinking and feeling, right here, right now, so don’t let this minute go astray, your life un-lived…

Fully inhabit your presence and honour your existence, make it count…

 

Where your treasure is…

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be”
― Abraham H. Maslow
Money…
I will argue, is perhaps one of the greatest, if not the chief evil of our modern day, materialistic yet supposedly advanced human race ….
Money or our current economic arrangements, I will argue, are perhaps both the evil mastermind and also the callous executory mechanism systematically manufacturing millions of slaves… Routinely giving birth to millions of walking dead worldwide; who unfortunately appear to be mostly sheepishly and naively unaware of their cruel fate.
I can’t help but notice when I look at the way our society works nowadays that sadly, the futile and absurd pursue of money and the mythical “financial security or stability” has turned the naturally free-spirited, original, inventive and sensitive human into just another cold and hollow nut in the well oiled machine of capitalism we are all hoodwinked into being a part of.
It’s heartbreaking to think of the endless millions of lost ideas and ideals… All the frustrated possibilities; frustrated artists, frustrated dreamers, frustrated healers… All because of the need to pay for our existence.
It doesn’t make sense.

No one chose to be born and willingly occupy space  in this planet, no one purchased a ticket catapulting themselves into existence… Yet we are forced to pay the enormous outstanding debt this society imposed upon us the moment we start breathing, almost as if having to literarily buy the oxygen to fill our lungs…
The thought of it is ridiculous! Yet as a society we are happy to go along with the status quo?
Are we not aware that money is not a natural element of creation? Are we not aware that money, currency, the whole economic system is all a recent human invention, which in my opinion is  causing us more harm than good…
As a species how is money helping us evolve? How is money helping us connect to our higher purpose and nature?
On the contrary money keeps us stuck as pedantic troglodytes only worrying about striving for commodities to merely fulfil our sole survival…
Sure, we might not be running from feral four legged predators anymore but in reality we are still very much living in a wild concrete jungle, where savage animalistic predators still exist and primitive tribal combat is still very much latent… Where woefully, if we want to merely survive as standard compliant members of society we need some little metal coins or preferably a piece of plastic containing virtual figures which we can exchange for paper notes in exchange for, in the most basic level, our survival, our right to exist and if we are so lucky actually thrive on this planet…

Our intrinsic worth, our being, reduced to and dependent on these inert objects and fictional numeric ruling which for some reason we’ve chosen to be subservient to and to give more value to than our own precious souls…

Sure, our surroundings might’ve changed, our dens and vestiment might appear different, seemingly upgraded to lavish and comfortable looking exteriors but at the core our every day concerns of having enough resources to survive remains very much the same…
It might not about who’s the fastest runner or best hunter anymore but it’s about who’s got the economic smarts or financial wit about them to navigate the ever fluctuating economic market or I guess in some cases just the literal plain good fortune to have been born into a nest of gold or stumble upon a profitable enterprise at any given time…
To see our society as evolved, sophisticated or enlightened is to be suffering from the collective delusion society itself does it best to place upon us from the moment we are born…
We call ourselves civilised even though we are constantly at war, killing each other in both the figurative and literal sense everyday.
If money in itself was any good, if currency was necessary for our existence, for our survival, for our thriving as a species wouldn’t the lives of the richest of man be by now living proof that indeed money is the indicated instrument compulsory to bring about human flourishing? Yet the very mundane destinies of the monetary privileged few our society has produced are living proof that this is not the case time and time again…
It seems to me that although at some level we profess to know that money doesn’t equate to real wealth and that no amount can buy us eaudemonia we still can’t help to fall victims to the false propaganda and glistening allure of the money hungry epidemic.
It appears that wether we like it or not, we are all coerced to enter this financial monopoly of a society, and once we do, we either become hooked on the insatiable quest for more dollars for the simple sake of satisfying the addiction in itself and so convert to the “financial success” religion or we become disillusioned, bitter and resentful yet sadly nonetheless trapped in a system virtually impossible to escape.

For the sake of playing devils advocate and assuming the supposed scenario where currency, as we know it, was really vital to human survival, and if the lack of economic progress really was the issue handicapping human evolution, it’s certainly not the shortage of resources or their equivalent in money that’s the problem but the inequality with which this wealth is dispersed and managed on a global sphere.

And I believe that this is not an issue that the most cunning economist or any more advances in scientific faculties can resolve, but an issue which commences in the human heart and only a deep hard look into our collective consciousness can decipher… Yet it’s also one we get more and away from with each passing decade and each economic crisis…

Instead of looking within into our hearts and assessing our moral standing balance and spiritual assets, we are too busy looking into our wallets, pulling out our calculators and working out a budget that sadly will never provide for our real needs and satisfy our souls…

“What do you do?” Code for, “how much money do you make?” Code for, “how much are you worth?” Code for, “how much is your existence valued at?” This is now the equation we have degraded our humanity to.

Isn’t it sad how we have devalued our worth to mere made up numbers…
Isn’t it sad that wether we like it or not we are forced to contemplate the way we intend to spend our precious life’s based on how many numbers our chosen occupation can accumulate in a virtual vault we will never see…
Isn’t it sad how even in this day and age in the 21st century, after 200,000 years of existence (or thereabouts depending on which theory you choose to subscribe to) we are still forced to give up our innate gifts and talents, our dormant potential for creativity, for transcendence, and all then uniquely sensitive aspects of what makes us humans and in many cases not just our childhood dreams and aspirations but high held morals too just to toil?

To be subject to a system that literally slowly but surely extinguishes the spark of life out of you…

In which way are we advancing human kind? The way I see it we are just as ruthless, just as vengative and selfish now as we were back when we first started our brutish tribal rows…
I believe that if we, as humanity in general, truly wanted to, we would’ve solved world hunger, all territorial disputes and every other economic and political strife causing the growing division and deeply rooted network of bigotry we actually have… If we would’ve really “advanced” as a species, in fact, none of the above would be an issue at all by now?…. If we think we are so clever….
But maybe our intelligence or lack of ingeniosity isn’t the problem?… After all haven’t we succeeded in advancing ourselves from the Stone Age to our technology plagued, “artificial intelligence” era…
Maybe the dilemma with human kind is a more intrinsic, more sensitive one… One which we have always been too ambivalent to touch… Or should I say to feel.
I think the problem resides in a territory which remains very much unchartered land even to modern man; I think the problem starts in our hearts and consciousness, in the eternal battle between good and evil, love and hate.
We have designed, invented theories, instruments and a whole civilisation designed to appear sophisticated and ethereal superficially… yet the core our humanity and spiritual understanding remains just as unexplored and mythical to us now as it was back then… Daunting even, to some of us, so much so that we prefer to discard it as an inconvenient, trivial and irrelevant aspect of our existence…
Nonetheless, that is not to say that across the ages the preoccupation with pursuing and cultivating other types of riches has also been latent even if only within the minorities…
Thus, the endurance of these minorities, the preservation and fostering of ancient theories and practices of some form of, spirituality, religiosity (for lack of a better word) to account for the philosophies and rituals of some sort of transcendence of the human spirit is proof that this aspect of our being is a very real one which cannot be outdated or outgrown and therefore should not the neglected but embraced, and now more than ever explored.
What would happen if instead of spending all our efforts pursuing material treasures and forging earthly empires which will sooner or later devalue and collapse, we concentrated our abilities in educating and polishing our values, our character, our essence, our souls…
When will we not only realise but also do something about the glitzy financial shackles which keep us oppressed under the dictatorship of a faceless yet relentless master we call money…

So in light of this conundrum, what are we to do…?

As the seemingly feeble dependent individuals that we are, when faced with the reality of this economic monstrosity that is our current financial system or should I say enslaving scheme?..

I believe that as individuals, although insignificant and irrelevant at first sight, we all possess the agency and therefore have the potential and capacity to slowly break free of the wrath of this savage Wall Street monster.

I believe that even if realistically we might not be able to altogether escape the whole net of systematic abuse, we certainly can make conscious choices which will allow us to live our lives prudently and thriftily, with ingenious and independents spirit, while at the same time developing a true community of compassionate giving and taking, of sharing without interest or prejudice but rather one that’s based on the common greater good of honouring our souls, our God-given talents and intrinsic worth as precious humans which no amount of earthly riches can match.

So even though I don’t think this an uphill or easy road but rather maybe the epic quest of our lifetimes, and even though I don’t I think I will live to see utopia realised in our planet… I think this is something we can all aspire to regardless of wether we achieve it or how far we fall short from the ideal. I think that as the sapient and sentient beings that we are, we are all called to uphold and honor the responsibility of making this planet a welcoming home not just for ourselves but our fellow man and all living creatures as well.
So for me, personally, this means that I will make mindful decisions of how I choose my occupations, regardless of how many pennies I receive in exchange. The way I spend my time and talents will not be dictated by the market or economic forecast, I will not be priced and tagged like cattle but rather I will choose to make bold, but determined, courageous decisions to spend my time and talents in ways which honour my soul and feed my spirit, trusting that my body too will be fed and clothed. Trusting that He will provide, trusting that I am, that we all are and have enough.

 

To be human(e)

“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.” Anne Frank
It has come to my attention… This is simply an observation…
That I wonder… at what stage in the timeline of our existence did we become so self-centered, so self-righteous, (both individually and as a species), to the extent that we act as if we’ve seemingly forgotten or never recognised our common humanity; and instead treat each other as commodities and menacing strangers to be overcome, instead of as brother and sister, all parts of the same puzzle?
Is it simply our human nature? Are each and everyone of us naturally born with inbred egos, consumed by fears concerning our sole survival which therefore lead us to be constantly seeking to advance ourselves above the rest, looking out for own best interest in both conscious and overt ways as well more subtle manners?

Should I then be resigned and abide by my selfish nature?

However, isn’t it also the attribute of having an innate leaning and propensity towards benign feelings and acts of love and kindness, even trough times of hardship, the flagship standard and one we take great pride on, which differentiates us humans from other animals? Isn’t it implied in the definition of our species the capacity to be benevolent and, redundancy notwithstanding, to be humane?
So then I wonder, does it all come down to which wolf we decide to feed?

Sadly, I see people all around me trading each other as utilities, as things with limited and depreciative value and a very latent expiration date rather than as mirrors of ourselves.
Sadly, it appears the modern society that we live in has programmed us to go around our business like egotistical robots, only working towards mechanically building our own impenetrable steel empires, in constant competition with the neighboring nation. Why? At what point did we forget our true nature, where we came from and where we are going? Man and woman, all human, all finite, all coming into this world incredibly scared and alone without the slightest idea of what we are doing or where we are going… All spectators and performers in this grand mystery that is life. So I wonder, why not take heart on this conundrum and embrace our collective confusion and incompetency instead of trying to undo each other?

Truth is, I’m tired of living in eternal competition, to win, to thrive… Survival of the fittest? That’s not my style, and I believe that’s certainly no human kind.

Sadly, I can’t help but notice that as a species we have succeeded in inventing more ways to categorize and divide ourselves instead of spending our efforts in manufacturing bridges of communion and harmony, in drafting up philosophies and strategies to bring union and closer relations neighbour to neighbour.

I find this bamboozling given our self-imposed status as sapient beings, supposedly “evolved” in understanding and “science”, yet from the crib to our day and age, we still haven’t figured out how to simply get along…

Perhaps it is because we are so caught up with our figures and our numbers that we are too quick to judge and condemn. Too caught up in our mortal and materialistic understanding of the physical world that we limit ourselves to live a shallow experience and dangerously neglect other important aspects of our humanity, that beyond which our senses can perceive?

It seems to me we live in a one dimensional world ruled by our narrow minds and flesh desires that sadly we forget or choose to overlook the dimension of the divine, the spiritual, the emotional, that which we intuit yet struggle to decipher and be in tune with…
The unknown and foreign territory to our logic and reason yet that which our hearts and souls long to be in touch with and get back to …
Truth is we share all share same beating hearts, the same life giving blood running through our veins, and basically the same hundreds of billions of neurons firing in our skulls creating our perception of the world as we know it… Truth is, we all came into this world alone, naked and helpless, multitudes of us, at first glance insignificant, without much to offer other than the infinite potential lying dormant within us, for better or for worse…

So then, this is my pray and plea…

To see past the facade and pantomime, past the many walls and fences we have built up, past the confinement of our armours and shells which keep us “safe” yet alienated, past the many credos and doctrines we choose to subscribe to, past all the differences we use as barriers and instead look at the same eyes, at the soul all we keep inside, with openness, with love, as my own.

Because I believe there’s no age, no race, religion, status or other virtual boundaries which can keep us alienated when we connect with open hearts.

I refuse to give into this “dog eat dog” idea of the world.

I refuse to be just another pawn waiting to be used and rapidly discarded and I refuse to treat my fellow humans that same way.

I refuse to treat my fellow humans as disposable utilities liable to external fluctuations of character and social standing, always in impeding danger be exchanged or traded up at any time.

I refuse to have to subject my fellow humans to purposeful tasks and rituals in order to prove their worth and standing in the world.

I refuse to let my acquaintances have to jump through hoops to be granted my attention and affection

My intention is for each and every person in my life to rest assured they are loved, well truly. Not because of anything they’ve said or done or because of any possible expectation I may have of them, but simply because that’s the nature and law of the universe, of harmony, of love.

My aim is for each and every person I come in contact with to know that they matter as much as the next.

I choose to live my life free of prejudice, preconceptions and stigmas. I refuse to sign the book of conduct society imposes upon us.

Why am I to reserve to love and affection to only a preselected few?
My aim is to let each and every person I come in contact with to know there’s a reason that they are walking in this earth… And even though that reason may not be as grandiose as our egos would like them to be, I’d like them to rest assured that we are all perfectly positioned in the universe as we are right here, right now.

With this, although I know I might not be able to change the world I known I can certainly change mine, and hopefully someone else’s too.
And I know I’m not alone, so please help me Lord:
“For my ego to dissolve each day more and more.
To surrender into the universe, to become one with the heavens and ocean, the wind and the starts. To live in communion with the laws of your Divine Providence and abide in the wisdom of things as they are. To learn to love the mysteries each day more and more. To give up my own agenda and petty ego games. And instead to be an instrument of your power, of your superhuman, incomprehensible love.”

Amen
Sent from Outlook

My heart

My heart: 

My heart is a well; a never-ending well out of which thick rich infinite emotion gushingly pours…

Out comes pain,  out comes sorrow, sometimes showers of joy and gaiety, sometimes stillness, quiet waters reflecting back at me.

I was both blessed and cursed with having this instrument of crisp raw flesh made to feel and perceive everything so deeply, so vividly.

When I’m sad, I feel it in my bones; when I’m glad my eyes smile.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tame this wild beast that is my heart, but maybe hearts are not meant to be tamed but embraced.

So then my task is to befriend the most potent force in my being, that which gives life to my existence.

But sometimes when it hurts I wish I could just stop its flow. I see the crimson red gushing out, tainting my skin and dripping bloody tears all over my life… “Are you OK heart?” asks my concerned mind. “You are hurting, you are in pain and there’s nothing I can do to stop it” it exclaims in desperation.

But in fact heart, you are quite happy to be host to a myriad of emotions, all shades of pain, all shades of joy. “Let me roam free” you tell me as I see you prolifically be in your element.

Maybe heart you are stronger than I am. You were made to withstand all that I can’t.

Heartbreak is your friend, you know disappointment too well, you are acquainted with anger, jealousy and fear. You long for awe and love and patiently wait for joy and serenity to come to play.

Maybe heart you are wiser than I am, you don’t discriminate, you know you’ll be alright, so you tell me “let me feel, let me be free, let me be me”.

So who am I to hold you back and suppress your talent, censor your true nature? Try as I may, your beats will go on…

And maybe your streams will water something beautiful, maybe your springs are the birthplace of a whirlwind of adventures coloring an otherwise monochrome life.

So although it isn’t always easy to carry you in my chest, I want you to be safe.

I want to honor you, respect you and give you your place.

Be free heart in all glory, feel heart.

My proclamation:

Who am I? What is this life I’m living? What do I want my testament to the world be? I would like to be remembered not as a figure, not as just another walking beating heart trying to survive and make sense of this world the best way they knew how.
At the end I would like my true nature to be remembered, the way I touched people’s hearts, maybe not with grandiose actions, but perhaps just a simple smile or a kind word or touch. I would like to make an impact perhaps not in world history but in the history of each person I know. I would like to leave an imprint not in the material world but a loving impression in the internal universe of each person I meet.
I would like my life to be love. And for this I have to start with myself, loving myself unconditionally and to no return. I would like this love in my being to overflow and spread to each person I come in contact with.

And this is no easy task I’ve set myself for the world is full of hatred. I stand against opposition wherever I turn. Starting from myself. Loving myself for everything that I am and am not is one of the hardest things I’ll ever have to do. How easy it is to turn on myself and be my worst critic and chastiser. How hard it is not to let other people’s opinions of me deplete my love, how easy it is to agree and follow along the hate parade. The fear… I’d like my life to be a testament of freedom and love. Freedom to live to the best of my ability, freedom to love with my full heart no matter what the world may say.

I am quite aware that this may mean I stand alone sometimes, that many times I may be misunderstood or rejected, but that does not matter for I’ll be standing in love, which can withstand it all. Ever suffering love, yet love is magic, sometimes the more it suffers the stronger it grows, for its in the suffering where it is tested and proved and having valiantly battled comes out stronger from the strife.

Sometimes our world is so shallow, so one dimensional. We seek the quick, the fast and easy. The instant joy, the immediate constant gratification. We are always hungry for more, always looking for the next best thing, our being never satisfied. Short-sightedly, we think we know how to fill this empty hollow; more fun (whatever that may mean), more food, more booze, more sex, more money, more pleasure, more power… More and more of the new best thing. Until we become confused of what is it we are actually looking for, who we are and where we are going we don’t even know anymore, we just got lost in the trance of trying to satiate our human hungers.
Yet the possibility is always there, to turn inside and look for love. At any given time at any given moment we all have the chance to stop our constant, tiresome, futile seeking and find the greatest treasure within us. The only substance which can quench our thirst, settle our hunger and restore our breath, love. Love for oneself, love for our neighbour, love for our dear life, for each minute and every hour. As messed up as we think our life’s might be, as far away from our goals as we think we might be, as flawed as we perceive ourselves, as odious as we find our neighbour, love, above all, unconditionally.

Love is the answer for all the questions we don’t even know yet. Love is the essence of life.
But just what is this love I claim cures all? I know many before me have tried to define, pin point and study this phenomenon called love and it has proven not to be a simple task… Yet love really is so simple, maybe because of its simplicity it escapes our comprehension used to intricate and complex formulations. Simple but congruent, that is love.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails… ” 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

I find the bible spells out beautifully what love is. And not just in this one passage but in its entirety, perhaps the bible is the greatest love letter ever written, the love of God towards creation.
But love is not a matter of religion, love is a basic human need and intrinsic element. We are all capable of experiencing and walking in love, not just with or because of one person, but with life.
Love is an all encompassing concept which harbours compassion, kindness, humility, equanimity, forgiveness, gentleness, joy, hope, courage… Love is a concept which escapes the human vocabulary.
Love is not the sensations of lust or romantic infatuation, although I can’t deny that at times these may open the way for real love; but love is something stronger, something more powerful we shouldn’t just leave for fairy tales and happily ever afters.

Love is something we should take a hold of and make our swords, our shields, our armours with, if we are to survive and thrive in the battleground of life.
The reality is that just like love is a very latent, constant, powerful force; so is hate. And that’s the conundrum we find ourselves in. Caught in this constant fight between good and evil, for which team are we batting, sadly at times we don’t even know?
So with this, I’d like to proclaim a revolution, of love.

Let’s not just keep love locked up in the shelf gathering dust, waiting for a certain special someone, if you like her, if she likes you. Let’s not just keep love for the affection you feel for your mum, for your dad, for your dog, let’s not just keep love for certain pre-selected precious beings. Let’s begin by making love of our lives. Let’s begin by pleading eternal love to our souls, let’s begin by forgiving, befriending and enamouring the person that’s disappointed us the most, ourselves.
Let’s begin by loving our lives, each second, each breath. Let’s look at life through the eyes of love. Take off the shades that have kept us “cool” for so many years and finally begin to really admire what you’ve been missing so many years, this divine precious life and all of its infinite magical possibilities. If you look properly, you will see that really love is and always will be all, around you, whether you choose to acknowledge and honour it or not. It’s there. So why keep on hurting? I know myself, I have been a vagabond in life for long enough. But just like each one of us I was blessed with finding the greatest treasure this life can offer, I have found my found my home, I have found my calling, my path and compass. I have found love.

Love and live; fearless and fiercely

I’d like to live a full life, I know I have no time to waste for  I have wasted enough.

“You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply — though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire… How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end! How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived!” – Seneca

I’d like to fill my life with adventures, with breathtaking moments, with beauty, with love.

I have no time to waste on haters, on naysayers.

Life is too short not to live life with a full open heart. To breath in and exhale love all around me.

And what is love? Please don’t think I mean, roses and chocolates, the erotic, romantic deformed version of love the media tries to sells us . What I mean is the most potent force in the universe; loving, nurturing, accepting, understanding others as my own flesh and blood, for they are. How often we forget we are all in this together!

How many of us walk around in darkness, fooled by our egos, striving to put ourselves above of the rest. What value is there is being superior to your fellow man? I see more virtue, more courage in building up my brother than in spending all my efforts on “getting ahead”. Of what? What warmth and comfort will my heart find in feeling “superior” to the rest. Only alienation and hate can come from this ethos. And I’m choosing the loving way. Where I’m not superior or separate to the rest. We are all just as valuable and precious human lives. We all struggle with the same monsters, with the same insecurities, with the same scary voices trying to deny and defy our worth. And maybe that’s why it’s sometimes so much easier to hide behind egos…

Yet that’s not our true nature but an illusion, a safety armor we have developed to get by…

So today I’m choosing to come out of under my heavy shell, let go off my vain safeguards and plunge fully into the odyssey of life. There might’ve been a day when I once needed those crutches, an immature helpless babe against the magnificence of life and its wonders but time and experience have dutifully taken care of transforming me into what I am now,  I am stronger; I am now ready.  Ready to open my heart and extend my hand to life and all it may bring . To dance with fear, for it can’t hurt me. Fear, an old  friend will always be there attentively trying to warn me of impeding dangers. But now I say “hush those sweet lips now dear friend, there’s really no foes around…”

“It’s going to be ok, I’m here”, answers my courageous hear, now packed and powered with the most potent power of all, love.

Love will always overcome, love will always endure.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails…”  1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.

Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Of the business of human relations…

“To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

When it comes to matters of the heart, mine and that of others, I don’t plan to discriminate, manipulate or engage in any other sort of petty games, which sadly society promotes and we have come to expect as the norm…
Who’s worthy, who’s not, who comes first and who can wait…
In my eyes we are all the same.
The idea of reserving a special someone to love and to hold sounds appealing to the selfish little child in me who is crying for attention. However, when I let go off my egocentric tendencies and fears and lean into my true nature of expansive love, then there is space in my heart for not just the one single being but for every person I come in contact with, for every soul.
When I am aware of my true nature then the need to have someone love me privately and exclusively disappears, because I’m already filled with everlasting love.
The trick is tuning into our true nature instead of walking around like soldier zombies, hypnotised charging against each other.
As a 27 year old female, I write this perhaps disillusioned by our current dating culture and philosophy.
The idea of finding one perennial life partner by hastily sifting through a narrow strainer an endless pile of potential candidates is an impractical and cold hearted mechanism which in my view diminishes our worth and undervalues our dynamic capacity as complex and multidimensional human beings, and so is a system which just doesn’t cater for properly exploring and getting to know the multiple layers of what makes each person truly unique.

Put simply, in my view, this modern commercialised society we live in has managed to turn even our “love lives” into an industrialised, profit-driven enterprise in which we are encouraged to quickly judge a book by its cover, and as with every other aspect of our life’s, when it comes to relationships as well we are encouraged to want it “easy and fast” and always more or “better”. We peruse this human library so quickly and mindlessly that most of the time we don’t even get a chance to even read even the title, look at the year of publication or much less, inquire about the author or literary background.
Approaching relationships, and with this I mean human interactions in general, in this way we are not only ripping ourselves off but also doing a disservice to the our fellow humans in general.
Perhaps it is because we, as individuals hold a superficial and critical view of ourselves that we apply that same judgemental iron fist and prejudiced “selective” standards when assessing our possible suitors.
But yet at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done and we are lying in bed alone, assessing our humanity, our successes and shortcomings, we wishfully intuit that there’s got to be more to us than just what our current resume outlines and what our Facebook profile indicates, regardless of our current circumstances, regardless of what we did and didn’t do, beyond our human efforts for productivity… We sense that as humans, sapient and sensitive beings that we are, there’s got to be more to us, beyond our physical realities….
So why persevere in treating ourselves and others as machines or soulless objects I wonder? Have we depersonalised ourselves so much that we find ourselves living out the virtual realities we created. Where a profile on a flat screen can attempt to represent a complex and multifaceted human and so be “added” or “deleted” with just a click.

I refuse to treat others as merely objects who I can use and abuse to merely enhance my own self, and pump up my ego. I guess the phrase “arm candy” sadly sums up the way how we often approach our social life… Our directory of “contacts” is a wardrobe we often peruse and ponder as to who do we feel like “wearing” today…

I know it’s simply our human nature, but why is it that even when we are well aware of our selfish egocentric nature, when approaching others we still, automatically more often than not only think about what they can give us? How we can benefit from our interactions from them? Why not start thinking about the impact we can have upon others and strive to be a positive, kind and compassionate influence, maybe they never had? When did we forget that it is priceless, precious human lives we are dealing with?
So when it comes to “dating” or “romantic” relations,  I think I will stick to romancing myself first….

Not because I can’t find a date, ironically many will appear with just the simple flick of a finger, but because I refuse join in this derogatory charade of human interaction…

When did we forget to apply the “golden rule” to dating as to every other aspect of our lives..

When did we forget that when interacting with others we are given a truly sacred opportunity to influence a whole another world? I guess maybe because engaging with others in some way or another is a such common everyday practice that other people often become just part of the furniture… And so we’ve become de-synthesised to the importance and privilege of the experience and of all the underlying impending potential we are granted towards  making a positive difference in someone’s world…

So for me, especially when it comes to “dating” or any sort of courting ritual, the idea of toying around with another soul’s feelings and notions is a highly sensitive and critical yet empowering almost magical practice I will uphold with the care and responsibility it deserves. Having the opportunity to intimately engage with another being is a honour I don’t take lightly, but rather it’s a task I will embrace with all the love and awareness it deserves, treating others as I would treat myself, handling another persons heart with clean, loving hands.

I am done swiping people left or right, marketing myself and shopping around for others. I’m done treating others and being treated in an undignified way, reducing our humanity to less than what we deserve…

Having read “Dating for Dummies” I’ve decided to put it aside and not take any of its advice but rather regard it as unhelpful, antiquated, truly outdated (pun intended) information for pursuing human relations. One perhaps relevant in the romantic era when it was fashionable to walk around flaunting extravagant, awkward costumes, hiding their real, humble selves behind different masks, in more than just one sense, following absurd protocols and upholding a punitive hierarchy, but certainly not sound advice for our modern 21st century. We have advanced technology so much, how about updating and advancing the way we pursue human relations in a way which reflects the freedom and diversity of thought, equanimity, equality, justice we supposedly value?

So even if I can’t revamp the whole current dating market, which sooner or later is bound to crash, as a consumer myself I can begin by writing my own alternative handbook, or maybe start by just discarding all the limiting, archaic, pre imposed conventions of human relations. …

Life being so simple and us humans managing to make everything so hard… Love, so pure, so true, so readily available to and for all of us yet we’ve constructed a million and one obstructions preventing us from attaining and relishing in it, but rather making our life’s  a quest for the unnatainable “holy grail” of an ethereal concept we call “love”.

How can we possibly expect to make real connections with people, much less give love a chance to blossom if we approach the whole dating ritual as a sham? Whatever happened to showing a genuine interest in our fellow man? Embracing each other, instead of trying to outsmart one another?

So I’m getting back to basics, in my books honesty will always be the best policy. I’m done holding back my feelings and emotions, “playing hard to get” and keeping a “poker face” instead of being authentic, being real, being raw, putting my cards on the table and making real lasting connections. Sharing myself, my gifts and talents and anything else I can offer wholeheartedly without any ulterior motive or hidden agenda other than connecting, sharing in this wonderful life and hopefully being of some service and enhancing another’s experience…

Dating as a weekend sport is not my idea of fun. Making poor souls jump through hoops to obtain my attention doesn’t interest me, what’s the use in withholding my affection?

Since when did we have to rely on our dating itinerary to feel worthy, or be deemed as eligible bachelor/bachelorettes?

Seeking some sort of companionship out of boredom or need for stimulation are no longer options. I personally see no need to have another person take me out and spend time and money on me to simply inflate my self esteem, much less go out to dinners and movies or any other social engagement just so I am not alone or because I have nothing better to do.

“Benching” people, “ghosting” , “zombie-ing”, or “stringing” someone along are terms I have recently learned about for common yet toxic practices in our dating culture people engage in consciously or unconsciously, practices I am however, choosing to no longer take any part of. Spending precious mutual time and energy but most importantly manoeuvring with another’s existence just so I can feel “popular”, “keep my options open”, “play the field” or simply expand my social circle and keep my agenda full, are in my view vain and detrimental pastimes. I see no value in going through “dates” quicker than I change my underwear.

So for now the status is happily single and ready to consciously, lovingly, mingle.

And while I do hope and trust that one day a noble man will organically find his way and take his rightful place as my accomplice and copilot and together navigate though life, for now, I gaze at that vacant seat with dreamy, bright eyes… Happily relishing in my momentary liberating solitude…

Because I’ve realized there is a big difference between being alone and being lonely and the truth of is—I rather like it my own company.
I enjoy long evenings with myself, penning away my thoughts, romancing with my favourite authors or roaming through the markets, delighting my senses in the sights and sounds of the city, taking a bite of a juicy ripe plum, planning meals to entice my friends, taking mental notes for upcoming late night drunken philosophical conversations… About the world and our insanity…

I love unceremoniously signing out the top of my lungs to my favourite “feel good” lyrics, and licking from the spoon the delicious spices of my concoctions while I cook, and until a man comes along who will be content to watch me goofily dance barefoot in the kitchen while I cook for us, I’m alright with flying solo and table for one.

I don’t think it’s self-centered or self-absorbed saying this, but healthy. Because if we haven’t practiced loving ourselves first —then how can we ever properly love someone else?

There isn’t loneliness in dating myself—there’s peace because I am content in living and building the life of my dreams until someone else comes along who wants to stake a claim in it for good.

Someone who won’t think twice and will be proud to claim me as his woman—a man who will think my heart is my greatest feature and his heart will be his greatest feature too. A warrior, a golden hearted king among men, who will be regarded because of his intentions and loyalty, his morals, his courage and vulnerability.
And while my long hair may be soft against his bare chest, and my eyes may burn into his, it won’t be my physical features that we are attracted to but the dark corners of each other’s minds and souls —even the darkest corners we used to be scared to show.

A man with whom reciprocally, we will know and love our strengths and assets as well as our flaws and defects, especially our flaws and defects. A man who’s not just with me to pass the time or for obligation, or waiting around to see what I can offer him, but rather a man who’s made the conscious decision to be with me because he who knows the only thing I can guarantee him is a love with a wide and depth like he has never known before.

And so we’ll call each other lucky, not because we think we’ve “struck gold” and found a “perfect partner” or our “other half” but because we know choosing a partner is much like choosing your favourite pair of shoes; there will always be times when after we’ve made our purchase we see other pairs who may appear “better”, shinier, new models, Italian leather, ergonomic soles… and so we may second guess ourselves and wonder what it’s like to wear those other shoes, we may even be tempted to greedily purchase them as well, the possibility of “upgrading” is always there… yet we’ve already made the decision to buy a pair we like and fits just fine, so well wear them until well, they die….

And we’ll both be well aware that it won’t be “perfect”, we know it’ll be a bumpy ride but also the most thrilling and fulfilling ride of our lives, one we are both committed to enjoying by each other’s side through the ups and downs, twists and turns, holding each other’s hand and smiling for the camera as we go through the tunnel and into the final plunge.

So because it’s tough we’ll both keep going, pursuing our own different paths but coming home to each other at the end of the end day, a safe haven were we are not afraid to be unapologetically ourselves in all our glory. Accompanying each other, not out of need or momentary inclination dependant on variable fluctuating feelings or any other immature interest but because we’ve both made the conscious choice to share our sweet solitudes and offer our whole, messy wonderful selves to one another, in love.

But, until that happens—I have made the choice to stay true to my heart.

And just date myself.

“There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love.” – Erich Fromm