Self Image

Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.

Maxwell Maltz

I Love You More Today

I love you more today, if possible.

Yes, I do love you more. Now I know why my love for you is so profound, I just discovered why, do you want to know why? Is it even important? To me it is.

It’s so simple; I know myself better when I am with you, when I talk to you I understand myself better. I get a glimpse of my inner most self when I discuss me with you, a part that rarely reveals itself, I guess that part feels more comfortable with you than with me. When we are together I feel that I have gone deeper into myself and discovered this person that sometimes is foreign to me. This is why. This is the inexplicable explained.

Did I need an explanation? I don’t know, maybe not. Your love has become a fact of life that does not need to be rationalized nor explained, it is my gravity, it keeps me grounded, but sometimes I cannot help it, it just feels better when you understand why things happen. You know me, I can’t take things for granted I can’t take things as is, I have to understand why and how they happen. I am not as spontaneous as you are. But, now that I know how I love you, I know what people mean when they say “your other half”. Once I made fun of such a notion, but I stand to be corrected. Maybe people use the word half for lack of a better word, maybe they mean the other self rather than other half. Now I know that there is such a thing as your other self, the self that comes together with your self and helps it make sense of this world, make sense of your self. With this other self you get to have acute senses things come more into focus and you get to solve the puzzle much faster and easier. The puzzle of being.

I do love you more today if possible.

Skype-ing

Yes, finally. A late bloomer, yes, but now I Skype with the one and solitary friend that my Skype account was created for.

She lives abroad and she insisted on me creating this account so that we can talk longer and more often, so I did. I have a NEED to speak to her. She is the one that feeds my soul when it is hungry as I always tell her.

After reading my post, Stupid Cemetery this is what she said :

“so you have liberated yourself of one social boundary that normally suffocate us with guilt and fear

bravo ..Congrats

the next big step is how to liberate ourselves from the fear of the living not just the dead

or rather fear of living and not fear of death

don't you think it is strange that we fear to live as we worry and fear death”

Isn’t that so true.

Judgment

Some people are all mouth and no trousers. All bark, no bite. All promise, no delivery. Others, are the other way round. All substance, no style. All wisdom, no wit. All sincerity, no charm. As with people, so with situations. We should always be very careful before we make a superficial judgment.

Jonathan Cainer

Candles

I used to light a lot of candles when alone, that is, before I met you. Now I can only light them when we are together.

Mastery

“…mastery is not measured by the number of terrible things you eliminate from your life, but by the number of times you eliminate calling them terrible.”

Neale Donald Walsch

Stupid Cemetery

It’s been five years.

I have visited the cemetery a very few times. Very few.

At first I guess I was afraid of the sorrow that might overwhelm my soul, then it was apprehension, then it was denial and now I have no idea what it is. I just do not visit as much as I thought I would if and when such an eventuality occurred.

A few days ago I did. I just found myself there.

In good Middle Eastern graveyard tradition, there are always little boys begging, taking advantage of your sorrow, thinking that maybe you would give money away if they said some nice things about the deceased, the same things they say to everyone that is caught in a moment of grieving. Not me however, I would not fall into that trap, the boy will not catch me in my low moment, as low as it is, it will not be there broadcast for public viewing.

We exchanged angry looks, from my side at least, me trying to show him through eye contact that I am angry (low, depressed and about to collapse inside) but angry and strong on the outside, you know, a silly self defense mechanism that maybe even the little boy could easily uncover. He, on the other hand tried to look sad and poor and needy. Both our techniques did not work, I did not feel sad for him, nor did he respect my sorrow or feel threatened by my anger. I thought to myself if this did not work maybe shouting would, so I shouted. Told him to run away and respect my moment of grief, my moment of trying to “connect” with my loved one lying there. Of course he has heard this a million and one times and it really had no effect on him, to him shouting maybe translates to “beg more maybe you will get me exasperated enough to give you money to get rid of you”. Maybe if I spoke beggar I would have known that this is asking for more of what I don’t want. So being the nice person I am, especially in such low levels of depression unknown to me prior to that day, I looked around and located my nearest weapon, the biggest stone I could find, and believe me there are many in this cemetery. I held it, raised my hand with a gesture of pure animosity and prepared to throw. He moved back, did not run as expected, but merely moved back, as if getting himself out of range. Maybe he saw how weak I was and that I would only manage a meter or two of trajectory force.

He chose a nearby grave and went to sit on it, as if it is his living room sofa. I turned back to face the grave but could still see him out of the corner of my eye. I hated him, he was ruining my experience, whatever that experience was supposed to be. He was killing the moment that I thought I would be having when I found myself driving there, whatever that moment was supposed to be. I tried to concentrate to dismiss him out of my mind, I could not and I suddenly turned to him and said, “you know, you could wait until you lie next to these guys here and you wont see a penny from me”, the moment the words left my mouth I felt how lame they sounded. Bad, very bad script writing. As if by magic my lame statement got him moving, he started walking away but not without mumbling something along the way.

Now, I turned back towards the grave and looked and said “now” with a little smile, “now we are all by ourselves” just like two lovers whom almost had their romantic moment killed we were all alone now. So I looked at the grave, and waited for that feeling to come. Of course not knowing what you should feel makes it a bit tough, but I knew I should feel something. Don’t they in movies always go to cemeteries, have a great shot of them crying, talking about their lives and what happened to them and how they are getting along and then they have this great “aha” moment when everything is crystal clear and they have all the solutions for all their problems? Where is that God damn moment? We were alone, no begging boy, no one in sight, all alone me and dad, so where is that moment of clairvoyance I was waiting for? I smiled; the way we used to smile when something silly happened in front of us and only we both got it, and told him:

“You know, this is not working, I talk to you better at home, late at night when you normally come and visit. Now I understand why you hated cemeteries, they are merely a resting place just as they are called, nothing more, nothing less, a body warehouse so to speak, you are not here, nothing is here, even your name on the tombstone is not the reference to you anymore, your name stopped being a reference to you the moment you moved on, now you are just you, now you do not need silly labels like names, now you are you, just you, the pure essence we are meant to be, no restraining names, no crippling bodies, no choking voices, just you, and this is whom I now know. When you come to see me at home I know you the way I never did before, I feel you the way I never felt you before, I love you like I never did before.”

You hated cemeteries? You were right, now I know why, they are meaningless places. I don’t think I will visit you again the way people think they are supposed to visit, I will let you visit me the way you should visit, the real true visit, deep in my heart and soul.”

I love you

Good Bye stupid cemetery.

Why We Blog

I thought I had an answer, but I don't, so do not expect one.

A lot has been said about why we do, starting with professional marketing people ending with stay at home mothers that do blog. I guess we all have an innate need to talk, communicate and vent out our frustrations, gloat about our victories and seek the consolation of others who might be in the same boat. We blog hoping to find a person that would sympathize and either find therapy in what we say, or offer it because of what we say.

I started this blog wanting it to be incognito, and aiming to keep it that way, but discovered that it is lonely to write to yourself, isn't it enough that we talk to ourselves all day long? It becomes a bit like keeping a diary and I am not a diary person, at all. I do need to share, but what I need more is feedback and discussion. I discovered that the aftermath of a story is much more interesting sometimes than the story itself.

So maybe I want to be a better blogger over here and visit more blogs and comment and make my voice louder and better heard. I started by telling a few trusted friends about this link, still fearing that they might ridicule what I say. But, so what, even if they do, it will not change the fact that I am still here and talking, maybe to myself for the time being but still talking.

Gallant Givers

He said he was very hurt. He gave so much and loved even more and was there to support, to console and to lend a hand, which sometimes even contained some cash, but people almost never returned the favor when he was on the other side of the fence. I told him it’s ok I felt the same, but I am in rehab hoping to change. I wanted to change in a way were I would not become a coldhearted S.O.B, but a loving S.O.B if there is one. His face showed that he was not entirely clear on what I was saying.

Ok, I explained lovingly, let me elaborate. You can still lend a hand regardless of the filling, and be there and be good and kind, but do it with love and with absolutely no expectations what so ever, only then would you be the person you think you are. With the fear of appearing like a motivational speaker, which I am not, I explained that I believed that perhaps beneath each one of us (the grand givers we perceive ourselves to be) there is this giant pleaser that wants recognition, and needs to be thanked and loved for what he does, or perhaps even worse there is this big control freak that seeks control and a need to emerge as the super hero. If we get the reactions we want, then the beneficiaries of our gallant gestures are great wonderful people, if not then the receivers are selfish bastards.

I discovered that it does not work that way. You either give unconditionally or you end up hurting yourself and others when you expect them to be like you in your time of need. I stopped expecting that a long time ago (lets say a few months ago, but it sounds more mature when you say a long time ago) I stopped expecting people to be my clones and act exactly how I want them to act. There might be a possibility that they can show their own love in different ways, maybe even more profound love, better in many ways than mine, if only I give them a chance. If they do not, then I should be resigned to the idea that this is my lesson to learn to become an unconditional giver, full stop.