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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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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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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There was a moment a few years ago when I stopped defending from the world. When I understood my aim was not to look for a more appropriate place, different from this one, but to fuse myself with this world to which I belong. To be one with it, accepting life as a permanently changing…
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(Spoiler alert: do not continue reading if you plan to read the book) In my youth, after reading Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf, Demian and Siddhartha, which I loved, I enthusiastically started The Glass Bead Game. I found it incredibly slow and boring. I made two new attempts later, still boring. After re-reading those three books again…
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In the old days we didn’t have so much information at hand. It was easier to have an opinion that was not necessarily supported by facts. It was the opinion we wanted to have, or rather the one we needed to have at the time. Now, with everything there is to know in our cell…
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Reading Hesse’s Siddhartha again, I realised that I read books as I look at a river. I read and read until I find a sentence, a paragraph that resonates with me. Then I stop. I wonder why my mind focused my intention on that idea. I immediately discard it… ‘No, that cannot be me’. But…
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I remember the mixtapes (actual 20th century tapes) that we crafted for that special someone. They were full of thought, of effort, of emotion, of anticipation, of love. A compilation is a sort of creation. It is not a list, it is more than that. It is a language. A pile of words placed in…
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Nothing represents the lightness of being as well as music. If you focus on ‘now’ while listening to music, you only hear one or a few notes, disconnected from the rest. Disconnected from everything else, except for the other sensations experienced during that very second. Music comes and goes, it cannot stop. It only makes…
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It’s interesting that the word universe, which integrates all the diversity that exists, etymologically means to pour/transform into one. Humans, at least in the West, have chosen a word that means ‘one’ to define that which contains everything. Poetic and powerful. Who am I? I remember asking myself this question so often. Maybe it is…
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The Introverted Tree 