Our body exchanges atoms with the environment with every breath, every touch, every meal. The proteins in our entire body are renewed at least once a year on average. Pretty much nothing in our body is the same as it was a year ago, safe perhaps the pattern, the shape. Our psyche has also changed.…
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There is something in the act of writing. A something one hopes to reach, yet it is already here, floating in front of me. A something in opposition to a nothingness. A writer’s longing. A sphere of whitish smoke in front of my eyes. It is not enough for me to contemplate it, I need…
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Back in Easter I attended a conference in which the speaker cited some quotes from books his father had wrote. The ideas resonated with me, so I looked for the books. After a few days, I realised they were nowhere to be found. All that effort, those ideas, those thoughts… erased by a soft wave…
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A few years ago, I decided to write a letter to my younger self, the child I was. I explained the difficulties he would face, encouraged him, gave advice… as if I actually had something to teach. Then, one day, with a very vivid image in my mind that I will remember for life, I…
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I was reading an earlier post in my blog that felt as it had been written by somebody else. A ‘past me’ that exists no more, not because I no longer subscribe my own opinions, but because the language and reasoning sound… distant. I look at my hands typing. Are they mine? They belong to…
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I feel I sometimes don’t write because I lack enough words, because my vocabulary is so short, so restricted. If I had more words in my medieval chest, what else would I say with them? Would I be able to describe the beauty that I see, that I hear, that I smell? Would I be…
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We humans love placing limits on everything. It helps us define reality, contain it, assimilate it. It gives us a minimum sense of control in an ever-changing world. Placing limits is our way of clinging to a rock in the middle of a sea storm. It’s the same reason why we build houses, to find…
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There is always something that is not right. If only it was a little bit cooler, if only that plastic bag was not spoiling this perfect view, if only that noisy chatterbox would shut up in the table behind us. We have an eye for imperfections, a capacity to identify that which is amiss and…
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I am fascinated by idealisation, the way the mind changes reality to suit its needs. We have limited senses and a limited capacity to interpret the inputs we receive, with which our mind must draw a picture of our surrounding reality. Our mental representation is our only reality. Things are as they are, but not…
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Last week I came across a brilliant line in one of the major social networks*. Sometimes, when one of these messages resonates with me and I see so many people sharing, circling a common place in this search that is not a search, it feels that it is not an individual quest, but that it…
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Am I to die, then? – asked the ego. I, the ego, the intelligent mind who carried myself around, walking the unfulfilled path. Am I the only source of suffering? I can see my own spiral thoughts. The categorisation of the classification… Every thought is analysed, conceptualised, labelled and stored. And that is who I…
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(continues from here; begins here) To come here in the mornings to sit before this Rothkian void. A filled void that contains everything. The narrator wonders, do I care? But there is nothing to care about or not, there is nothing to feel. That seems to belong to another reality. Here is everything that is.…
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I think about those writers today. Not about their characters, but as the voice-over, the narrator recounting the inexorable succession of events. I wonder if the narrator suffers more anguish than the characters. If he knows what is going to happen, if he feels he cannot feel as his characters do. If deep down he…
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Our knowledge is stored in memory, classified, at least partially interpreted and ready to be used to predict future outcomes. But how do we know that there is something we don’t know, that something is missing? I know the basics of how a car engine works, but I ignore the details. I am aware of…
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Sometimes we fantasise how it would feel to live in a world full of elves, trolls, fairies, giants, hobbits, unicorns and, of course, dragons. We see ourselves drifting towards that realm of fantasy, which we idealise as a much better world than our own. More suited for our spirit. But if we had been living…
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And when I will get there, will I still be me, always me? Carrying the cross, the burden, the occasional light… is it me? If we always carry ourselves with us, why do we like travelling so much? We like the change of scenery, the change of reality. Even if the inner reality remains the…
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I have often wondered about Odysseus’ last words to Penelope before he left for Troy. How would the ultimate hero say farewell, how to explain the necessity to leave? It may be easier to use the excuse of duty than to explain the powerful attraction of the other side of the world, calling his name.…
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I love routine because it makes me feel safe. Life should be in order, so that I can predict what is going to happen at any time. Yet, an admonitory voice inside warned me: “Stop presuming you know what life should be like, just not to be in fear.” Fear of the unknown, I guessed.…
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I am looking at old pictures. I see the child I was. I look at him in the picture and I perceive him as a separate person, i.e., not me. However, when I evoke the emotions and sensations that I felt back then, stored on one of those shelves in my memory, it feels immediate,…
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Prompted by this excellent post by Andrew (thank you!), I read Virginia Woolf’s The Waves. The book navigates a succession of inner thoughts, feelings, states of mind in six disparate characters described with empathic but also stark accuracy, sometimes using mental images that may seem unrelated to a situation, but which provide such a precise…
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The Introverted Tree 