hoy me duele
más que el cuerpo
el movimiento
quiero,
paz
la paz que se alcanza
sólo cuando se es presente
necesito,
volver a poner atención
recordatorios de presencia
a lo largo de los días
un sonido
un helado
un tipo sonriendo en la calle
un chamaco con un balón de futbol
estoy enamorado
de los días
las horas
los minutos
pero no de los conceptos del tiempo
o de las etiquetas de las mentes
estoy enamorado
de estar enamorado
es decir
de dar amor
sólo por que sí
sin transacción
pendiente
sin pagaré
al año
de estar agradecido
dejar fluir
las cosas que necesiten ser
y dejar ir
las cosas que necesiten partir
más difícil es alcanzar la ligereza
de la aceptación
que enfrascarse en la pesadez
del control
dejar ir,
es una medicina
una cura
un músculo de la vida
ver el río
transformarse en uno mismo
saborearse los olores
las respiraciones
dejar ir
es dejar ser
y todo eso
que soy yo
quiero dejar ser
y dejar ir
conocerme
más allá
de las ideas
que hay de mí
en mí
Above where
there is movement
rests peace
Peace is not
stillness of life
Peace is not
the denial of movement
to remain motionless
Movement is
regardless
there’s never stillness
in matter
the electron moves
the galaxy moves
the universe too
yet peace is
contemplation
admiration
of the movement
that is.
lo que se tiene que dar,
se va a dar,
y no necesariamente por que esté
destinado a ser
si no simplemente
porque es mejor confiar
en la inherente presencia y abundancia
de lo que actualmente es
todo lo bueno
no nace
todo lo bueno
es
y siempre ha sido
A wish
a desire
The wanting
a potentiality for a moment of bliss
but what does the wanting really wants?
besides escaping from what we already got, but wanted before
but what does the wanting really wants?
besides complaining of what we already got, but somehow isn’t enough?
does the wanting wants,
balance?
what if balance already is
does the wanting wants,
chaos?
what if chaos, already is?
does the wanting wants,
wanting?
maybe, all what the wanting wants
its the wanting itself
maybe, all what the wanting wants
is itself
a fixation
an ego trip
of an emotional level
maybe, all what the wanting wants
is perpetrating itself
in our bodies
in our minds
maybe the wanting
is afraid
maybe it is in existential crisis
maybe it is afraid to die
maybe its is trying to leave a legacy
in our bodies
in our minds
The wanting is everywhere
behind every emotion
behind every thought
you’re sad, you want a different state
you’re mad, you want a different state
you’re here, you want to be there
you’re bliss, you want more
the wanting is
everywhere
here, now, in this very words.
so, yeah, what does the wanting really wants?
I really don’t know…
typing a word
with no goal
no expectation
of filling a space
the cloud
that rains the mornings
and the sun
that burns to exhaustion
the mind
that tires a tired soul
and when those mornings come
when you feel like there’s no control
when those evenings go
and the flow is gone
when its all the same
and the feeling is plain
then stop.
don’t run
just stop
everything
everyone
every time
stop
there’s so much noise
in your song
stop
silence is brave
Words don’t really do much
when I try
words don’t really do much
when you try
I know it baby
and I feel it too
When a thought
gets in the way
to try make sense
to try take control
to try describe
what’s going on
Yes, I see
words will never be enough...
and yet I can’t help,
but write,
and keep writing…
and yet I can’t help,
but feel,
and keep feeling…
I can’t help,
but fall,
and keep falling…
I can’t help,
but dance,
and keep dancing…
and yet I can’t help
but love
and keep loving…
Tantas cosas hay
en este mundo
tantos libros
tantas historias
tantos medios
tanta información
tanto ruido
tanto silencio
tantas conexiones
tantas apps
tantos humanos
tantos trenes
tantos retrasos
tantos errores
tantos rubores
tanta música
tantas sonrisas
tantos amigos
tantas maletas extraviadas en Bali
tantas tesis incompletas
tantas recetas de tacos
tantas ardillas espías
tantos gatos gordos
tantos perros con los ojos cerrados
tantas fotos en insta
tantos retratos sin enmarcar
tantos acordes simples
tantas guitarras con 3 cuerdas
tanto sexo sin condones
tantos condones sin sexo
tantos volcanes dormidos
tantas montañas sin ruido
tantas palabras sin papel
tantos genios sin un lienzo
tantos cerebros confundidos
tantos corazones llenos de paciencia
tantas cosas para sentir
tantos libros sin escribir
tantos recuerdos olvidados
tantos momentos valorados
tanta música para bailar
tantos pies descalzos
tantos celulares olvidados en cajones
tantos calcetines sin amores
y entre tanto de tantas cosas…
cómo fue que nos encontramos!
tantos otros los caminos alternos
que tantas otras voluntades han evitado
y entre tantas distracciones
y entre tantas decisiones
nos apuntamos un tanto
y así, cuando nos pregunten
¿cómo fue que nos encontramos?
tendremos,
tanto por contar…
y mirándonos por el rabillo del ojo
podremos decir
por lo tanto,
que entre tanto de tantas cosas
y tantas cosas de tanto
tanta fue también nuestra suerte
de tener un día
tanto por cantar
There’s a particularity of ourselves, and the human mind, to navigate the world through an ongoing glass of judgement.
We have, like a pair of glasses that we can’t take off, the tendency to classify and organise whatever information that comes to our senses.
We read something, we feel something, we see something.
then we put a label to it.
A mind label.
We can’t separate ourselves from our nature to understand things, to predict things.
We need that label, we need that control.
Yet, those boxes created by the mind, those imaginary boundaries are itself a form of box to ourselves. A confined prison that limits our movement and expression.
We ignore that by labeling things we become then objects and slaves of the things we label.
We become a label ourselves. A simplistic label. A personality.
The problem with labels is that they only communicate one meaning, they are overly simplistic, overly naive. They ignore the immense natural complexity and shades of experience that are part of things.
There’s one big trap with labels, and it is the false notion of knowledge that comes after we use them. After using a label, we are done with our experience with something, we feel we understand it, therefore there’s no experiential use in looking deeper.
and by doing so we lose our innocence, our sense of wonder.
We become knowledge chasers, a big pile of minds that think they know, but at the same time, aren’t really free from knowing,
aren’t really free to be.
La religion dice:
Dios es amor.
Pero, ¿qué Dios?
¿Tu Dios o mi Dios?
¿No lo ves? Vuelven al amor el objeto, el sustantivo.
Dios no es amor.
El Amor es Dios.
Hemos tratado por siglos en coincidir en un Dios.
1,000 guerras se han sangrado.
en el nombre de Dios.
Pero ninguna.
en el nombre del Amor.
“Estoy en guerra en el nombre del amor”
¿Ves lo ridículo que suena?
Es por que el Amor no tiene nombre.
Y todos lo sabemos.
El Amor eres tú,
tanto como yo.
y está en ti
tanto como en mí.
Puedes negar a Dios.
Pero no puedes negar al Amor.
Y no puedes negarlo,
simplemente por que tu ser, tu mente y tu espíritu.
nacieron de Él.
Dios no te creo.
fue el Amor.
El amor de tus padres.
El amor de tus hermanos.
El amor de tus amigos.
El amor de tus amantes.
El amor de la naturaleza.
El amor de tu ser.
Y el Amor continua creándote
El Amor te hace seguir.
Llena tu corazón.
Calma tu mente.
El Amor es la verdadera espiritualidad.
No hincarse,
No rezar,
Amar.
El Amor es la espiritualidad más real.
Tal vez la única.
¿Por qué pediríamos por más?
Me fui a acostar en la tienda
mientras tanto
se escuchaban
en el techo de mi frente
en sonido agotador
Mil golpes por segundo
y yo no sabía
si era lluvia
o fuego
Mil quinientos golpes por segundo
y yo no sabía
si ardía algo
o si se estaba mojando
Tres mil golpes por segundo
Y seguía sin saber
si eran las nubes
o las llamas
o los pensamientos
o tal vez todo junto
al mismo tiempo y en asincronía
bailando
como los árboles
cuando los lleva el viento
y en medio de
una confusión total
me quede dormido
con la esperanza
que sólo fuera una lluvia fuerte
que vino a apagar
un fuego que nunca tuvo un dueño.
We are fortunate
to be alive
the same much
as we are fortunate
to know
we eventually won't be anymore
We are free
because freedom
begins
when there is a choice
to be made
a lesson
to be learned
limited choice.
Would freedom exist
in a time
and a life
with no end?
In a life
where there are infinite mistakes
there are therefore
infinite lessons to be learned
Everybody
will eventually make the exact
same
mistake
and learn
the exact
same
lesson
In a life with no end
everyone will eventually do
the same action
in the same context.
We'll make love
to then part
then you'll make love with
all my exes
and I with all of yours
you'll have the same music taste
that I had twice
to then go hate music
and forget to dance
In a life with
no end
I will become you
then you will become her
her will become me
and we will be all
forever changing
our identity
without never
really feeling
wholes
Without never
really feeling
passionate
about something
in a life with no end
there are no constrains
no boundaries
In a life with no end
there are no mistakes
and so
end the freedom
of making them
Truth is a communication tool between humans that helps them to deal and organise the realm of reality into manageable pieces of understanding to the mind.
As it can’t be separated from the intrinsic human's nature to seek predictability. Therefore the main goal of truth, for the human experience, is to ultimately bring peace to our consciousness.
Yet, the problem with truth is that, the very quest for it, brings restlessness to the mind.
Truth is a paradox...
Can you look at fear,
without fear?
like a sound
that wants to be
like a cold breeze
with a low and a peak
and when it knocks on your door
to fetch memories and thoughts
it arrives
and then it’s gone
it comes
and then it goes
don’t try
I remind myself
don’t try
like a sound
that wants to be
like a cold breeze
with a low and a peak
can you look at fear
without asking yourself
to be brave?
the word with no search
will naturally find an ear
in which to rest
ask not
for whom the word means
the thought
unspoken
will naturally find a paper
in which to breathe
ask not
for the sentence’s purpose
for the seed
and the ground
and the love they make
don’t dance before the human eye
for the sun
and the mirasol
are thousand miles apart
yet belong to the same spin
ask not
if this is a good time
ask not
who’s on the other side
the tree will grow
on its own fate
the wave will merge
on its own stream
the emotion will calm
and the thought will fade
on it’s own age
ask not
be.
Thousand times
I asked myself
what it is, to feel
Thousand times
I asked myself
what it is, to love
plenty of those
unanswered thoughts
and plenty of those
times
I didn’t really wanted to know
and plenty of those
times
I couldn’t really grow
Until
well,
you.
it is the body that quietly pains your missing weight
it is the soul that yet misses your deeper sight
it is the heart,
that to date
vibrates
and shakes
obstinate
and unmanageable
like a fire with no owner
trapped in between time
a fire that burns with no purpose
just for the sake of heat and warmth
I have,
created
a painting
of my heart
that hangs at my wall
a celebration
to feeling
a celebration
to being alive
and right now
at this very moment,
It can’t feel anybody else
It’s yours.
Plenty are the locks
fastening my soul
plenty are the chains
imprisoning my heart
Locks made of past
chains made of future
Plenty are the codes
puzzling my mind
plenty are the laws
binding my spirit
limiting my failures
Codes made of logic
Laws made of fear
And so I went
to the world
trying to open
Somebody else’s doors
trying to pick
somebody else’s locks
Yet the locks I forced
and the chains I tore
were nothing
but another chain of my own
plenty are the locks
fastening our souls
plenty are the chains
imprisoning our hearts
The locks are many
but the key is one.
The locks are
many
but the key is
one.
Can the eye see,
all there is to be seen?
can the ear hear,
all there is to be heard?
can the hand feel,
all there is to be felt?
can the mind know,
all there is to be known?
is all there is
to be seen
to be heard
to be felt
and to be known
nothing,
but a short dance
with the truth
is truth an end?
Only a conclusion with no motion
Only a definition with no change
Only an abstract conception
Only a human creation
can the mind really know
all there is to be known?
can the heart really feel
all there is to be felt?
step back
the question changes
what shall I think
when the thought isn’t anymore
enough?
step back
the question changes
what shall I do
when the logic isn’t anymore,
enough?
Step back
Step back
Step back
Stop
and the leap is taken
from the known to the unknown
from the logical to the mystic
from the finite to the infinite
from the felt to the unfelt
from control to the letting go
Step back
and the leap is taken
when the question is
dropped
Freedom from the known
Truth is no more a dead state
When the question is dropped
Truth is no more thought
when the question is dropped
when the leap is taken
and the question is dropped
Truth is no more,
humanly made
Truth becomes a living being.
God,
when the question is dropped.
If there’s one thing, one fundamental assertion I concluded after reading years and years, authors and authors of both western and eastern philosophy is: All philosophy, no matter what school, no matter what chain of thought, starts with faith.
The argument is simple, after asking all the big questions, and trying hard to come to fixated conclusions we can follow and debate upon about the nature of life, truth and being, all philosophical schools and the building blocks in which they are built upon are one way or the other, built in a leap of faith.
The basic problem of philosophy is that although it searches for truth, the methods used by it: the brain, thought, logic (all human creations) are inherently insufficient to understand truth’s very nature.
So no matter the chain of logic you follow, the building block of the very first assertion in which your whole philosophy takes base, will have to be a faith block, not a logical one.
Let's put it with an example.
If you are to arrive at conclusions about anything in this world, to say what is true and what is not. You clearly need to take some time to define first, what truth is.
And there are only two ways of defining truth and the nature of truth.
Truth is a fixated thing. (A human concept)
Truth is an end, an end of argumentation, a definitive conclusion, a definition, a fixated state, an abstract concept with an unalterable state, there's no motion in it anymore, there's no change. It cannot go somewhere, it has an end, it is an end.
Truth is a living thing. (A being)
Truth’s own very nature is evolving. It has no end, it is one thing at one time and one other completely different thing at another point in time. In this sense, truth is not a concept, not a human creation, but a living thing which means it has no fixated state and it is therefore infinite.
The basic limit of philosophy
Humanly, there is simply no way we can know or define with pure logic, thought, and language what the nature of truth is. If it is A or B. A living being or a fixed thing.
So at this step, at this very moment where we arrive at this natural limitation of our human nature, if we’d like to start building our own path, our own working philosophy, we need to switch gears.
So the question changes from What is the nature of truth? which cannot be answered, to What do you believe the nature of truth is?
This is the question, the main first basic question that starts all philosophy.
What do you believe the nature of truth is?
If you are to believe truth is a fixated thing. An end in itself. Then you’re most likely to value and believe in things like fixed destiny, control, identity, security, certainty, prediction (past and future and its relationship) rationalism. Logic is your best ally in trying to cope with this world.
If you are to believe truth is a living thing. Then you’re most likely to value and believe in things like openness, evolution, possibilities, change, flow, adventure, the present moment, spirituality. For you, there are no limits but also no security, all it is both possible and impossible. Intuition is your best ally to cope with this world.
What do I believe the nature of truth is?
I’d like to believe there’s something magical and beyond fixation around our human experience. That there’re endless possibilities and mysteries in this life. Change is our natural state, and we are in an endless chain of transformation.
Truth to me is a living being. Where mystery and magic are therefore also possible.
Truth to me is a living being.
You can call it God.
Religion says God is love
But which God? My God or your God?
See, they make Love the object, the noun
God isn't love
Love is God
We've been trying ages to agree on one God
1000 wars been fought on God's name
Yet not a single one
On Love's name
"I'm fighting a war on Love's name"
See how ridiculously stupid that sounds?
It is because Love has no name
And we all know this
It is as you
as It is me
And within you
As within me
You can deny God
but you can't deny Love
and you can't deny it
simply because your very being, your very mind and your very soul
emerged from it
God didn't create you
Love did
The love of your parents
The love of your siblings
The love of your friends
The love of your lovers
The love of nature
The love of your being
and Love keeps creating you
and Love keeps you moving
Fills your heart
Calms your mind
Love is the real spiritual experience
Not going to church...
Not praying...
Loving
Love is the most conceivable spiritual experience
We have, had and we will ever have
The realest spiritual experience
If not, the only one
Why would we ask for more?
Humans are the only species that understand the concept of time. Time is an abstraction made by humans to organise events in a line.
Time, and the criteria of time: past and future, before and after do not exist in the realm of nature.
Animals do not keep track of time.
Plants do not keep track of time.
Yet they exist, in a complete different sensorial experience. They experience a world without time, a world without past, a world without future. A world where only what is, exist. A world of pure lasting presence.
Timekeeping belongs only of the human experience.
Time is the abstraction, the concept where all other human created concepts lie upon: past, future, math, physics, history, biology.
Time is the structure and backbone of the human mind.
Without it, there's no mind at all.
When was the last time you sat alone quietly without any distractions?
Just you, your mind and your body.
Nothing else.
We give away so much time for all sorts of things but the moment we stop and realise we aren't doing anything to entertain our minds or bodies, then we feel anxious, bored.
Boredom is a term we use to refer to our inability to be completely at peace with ourselves and our mind. We seek for constant input, the constant dopamine kick. We look at our phones when we are queuing, we tap our feet constantly to the floor when the queue isn't flowing as fast as we want to.
All of these are just signs of resistance to be with ourselves and thoughts.
It is sad that, nowadays, we are spending so much time trying to connect superficially with so many people through social media, but we resist spending time working on the most meaningful connection we have, the relationship with our mind and body.
Boredom is an opportunity to observe. Boredom is an invitation to be present.
This is a reminder
Will I remember this in 5 years?
Will I remember this in 10 years?
Nobody is really paying lots of attention to what we do
Everybody is very busy with their own storylines, with their own struggles, nobody really cares big deal if you write A, or write B. Post A or post B.
We ALL gonna be dead in 100 years from now.
If you sing badly, nobody cares, do it anyway.
If you want to put a show on the street, but are afraid people will judge you. Nobody cares, do it anyway.
Knowing lots of things makes you smart, but really nobody cares how smart you think you are.
It's not about knowing things. It's not about having the answers to everything that happens. It is not about having a rational conclusion or connecting the dots
It's about the day we are in. It is ALL about the process and not the outcome. The living, not the conclusions of it.
The moment when we over rationalize things. The moment we put our identities to play, when we build our own stories. Stories that blind us from seeing life with freshness and curiosity.
The process is more important than the result.
So, yesterday was a day of distractions. The day in Berlin was weird, a combination between heat, sun and heavy rain. I was hanging out with friends in a park, and it seemed like all of us were in a state of "now what? Where do we go from here? Is something happening?”
I observed in myself a state of resistance to that moment, to that day. As if part of me was seeking something different from the day, something extraordinary, a new feeling, a new finding, a new story to tell, a new skill. Yet the day was, just like that, a day.
I went home, and lay down in bed for a few minutes. Heavy rain was outside of the window. I still had the feeling of resistance present in me.
I was thinking about the reasons for my feelings of resistance while hearing the heavy rain.
yeah, hearing the rain...
Rain, heavy rain.
-it's raining!!!-
I stood up, went to the window, sat down and watched the rain fall.
Rain flowing on the trees, on the cars, saw people running away, trying to hide from it.
-Why do they hide?, it's just rain-
Then I realised I was also hiding, hiding from the rain, from that moment, from the reality of that day.
After that realisation, I took my shoes off, ran downstairs, opened the door, and I let myself be 10 years old again.
I was running, barefoot, in the rain, on the streets of Berlin.
My neighbour watched me within the safety of his window, he smiled.
A random taxi honked warmly at me while I was playing with the puddles.
A motorcyclist waved and smiled at me while I was running.
So many things, happening.
So many things.
I came back home, and the feeling of resistance was completely gone.
Rain brought presence to my day.
or even better,
Presence welcomed rain into my day.
Fear is grounded in the future. It's one form of denial of the present moment. Fear flows when our desire to control the outcomes, the next moment, a feeling, a thought, manifests in our being.
Fear is the insecurities of the past, formed as an abstraction of our identity, telling us that we should do something to regain security over the future state of things.
Fear takes many shapes and forms. It hides behind anxiety, planning, control, pleasure, validation, stability. It is hard to detect, but we act very often as a reaction to fear, fear of not being loved, fear of not being accepted, fear of losing control, fear of losing security, fear of repeating the pain from the past, fear of losing the pleasures of today.
Can you look at fear without trying to resolve it?
Can you look at fear without asking yourself to be brave?
Can you look at fear without the image or history you've created around it?
Can you look at fear, without trying to control it?
It is only when we look at it, as it is, that we are able to be at peace with it. When we look at fear not as a separate part of us that needs resolution, but when we observe that WE ARE fear. That is when fear, as the thought that lives in our heads, comes to an end.
Humans have been trying to understand the concept of truth since the beginning. Our desire to arrive at absolute conclusions is part of our human condition. The concept of truth gives us security, fixation, certainty, prediction.
We also think about truth as an end, an end of argumentation, a conclusion, a definition, a fixated state, an unalterable state...a dead thing.
Truth is anything but a dead state. A dead state has a path, a path you can follow. It does not move because there's no motion in it anymore, there's no change, it does not affect the world nor is affected by the world.
Truth is a living thing, truth is a being we would never be able to grasp fully because its very nature, like our very nature, is also evolving.
You can only see yourself through your own eyes.
There's no one fits all philosophy.
You can only get to know who you are, by observing, not judging.
The idea that arises.
The feeling that emerges.
That's your being manifesting.
The moment when you label it, as good or evil. That is the moment when you build this barrier, this invisible thought barrier between you and your spiritual being.
The moment when you deny or resent the present state of your being, when you seek a different state, a different reaction, a different thought, that's the moment when you build your insecurities, when fear takes over your presence.
There's no psychological concept that can deal with the totality of being.
Anything created by men that tries to understand the concept of being, is just a mere explanation of the brain.
The being is not a concept meant to be rationalised. There's no real being in abstraction. There's no real being in thought.
The being that exists in thought is just another thought.
The being is not meant to be understood, rationalised, the being is meant to be.
"Are you living a life of service and adventure?"
This is the question that I ask to myself every time that my compass seems to be lost in confusion and overthinking.
Through my process of self reflection, I've encountered that there are two main values that have been driving many of the actions and decisions through my time on this earth. These two values have been taking me along many different learning paths, facing me with the right amount of challenges while at the same time, giving me the opportunity to create meaningful connections to other people.
Daring to be adventurous
It's terrifying to go somewhere or do something where we are not in control of the outcomes. To go somewhere where we don't feel like ourselves. To do something in which we are complete beginners.
I have a saying for that, if you're in a place where you feel a level of discomfort that is not greater than your will to discover what's on the other side, you're in the golden spot. It's all about a mix between curiosity, discomfort and will. Curiosity inspires will, will overcomes any discomfort.
The result?
Learning and transformation.
We could even say
Transformation = Curiosity + Will - Discomfort
Daring to be adventurous and bold is the part of my personal philosophy that takes care that I'm in a process of constant individual challenge and learning.
Daring to live a life of service.
I use the word dare here even with greater emphasis. Daring to live a life of service has a greater mindset. We can dare to live in adventure. Adventure is fun, exciting, but not everybody can really dare to live a life of service. A life of unconditional giving, a creative life.
I've met in my life, a lot of humans that were adventurous by nature, traveling to the most random places, experiencing lots of new crazy things, getting to know many people from all corners of the world.
This is great, sounds perfect on paper. Yet, nothing of this becomes really fulfilling at the end, if all of it comes only from a place of individualism, from a place of ego. It is not about, (and it was never about) what the world can give to us.
It is about what we can bring to the world.
Connection is about sharing, giving, creating.
If we take out the community of the equation, we have only ourselves.
If we take out the giving of the equation we have only the taking.
If we take the creative part out of the equation we have only consumption.
There's no real meaning, no real connection in seeing the world only as means to fill our desires and our expectations.
Your biological heart is all about motion, about pumping blood, about making sure all other body parts have the amount of blood they need to function. Your heart is all about giving, about effort, about self sacrifice and service.
The moment when it stops giving, that is the moment when we slowly start to die.
Desire is fuel that never burns
Desire is fire that never fades
Desire feeds from negating the present.
Desire lives in the future.
Desire is insecurity taking control.
Desire is a loop.
Desire emerges from ego
Desire strengthens our ego
Desire is a tool for action
We can be slaves to our desires
Desire charges its fee in unhappy present moments
Desire feeds from insecurity
More desires = more insecurity
More desires = more ego
Humans are desire machines
Desire can't be fully avoided
Desire can't be fully skipped
Desire can't be repressed
Desire must be observed
Desire must be catered
Choose only a few things you're willing to be fuelled by desire
Let go the rest.
All conversations are an improvised music jam between people.
A good musician knows that the first most important principle for improvisation is the ability to listen to the music that's being formed in the instant. Perception is the key. The non-verbal communication, the hints, cues, when a melody starts or ends, the invitation to add something in between.
Music is not only guitar solos. With the same principle, good conversation isn't only about one instrument, or one person's story. Nobody enjoys a song that's only about a drum solo. It's about the momentary connection between the instruments, the tone, the unique timbre of each other's voice and stories.
We all jam in different genres, jazz, blues, rock, indie, glam, techno, reggae, classic, you name it.
We all chat about different topic themes.
Not all are able to jam in the same genres.
Not everybody is able to chat about the same things.
Being a good improv musician means knowing how to follow the flows and structures of the genre in turn, or even better, adding another topic, another genre, another perspective to the mix.
I'm trying to be more transparent with the things that i'm creating.
I'd like to believe there is value in putting all these thoughts and writings somewhere for people to see, shipping work that is incomplete, to tell a story, an ongoing story.
Everything that we create is part of something bigger, part of the collective knowledge. Hiding our creations means hiding our story, hiding our process, hiding our very soul. I believe we all have a duty to creatively express our beings in the world in whatever shape or form. I believe we have a duty to bring our own story to the choir, to put together the pieces of our identity manifesting themselves at a specific point of time, and to document that unique interplay in a creative expression.
I'd really like this writings to be inspiring, to bring great value and great insight to whoever is reading. Yet, I can't really count on it. I shouldn't count on it. I don't want to put the expectation on the written sentences. I don't want to identify with the outcome, the text, the praise, the social validation.
That's not the point!
The real value of this creative exercise is the process that it needs, the struggle, the doubt, the lack of inspiration, the countless typing. The amount of hours that i'm sitting in my kitchen making my brain light up with just one goal in mind: create something that didn't exist before.
This is the hidden element that matters, the sweat & the reps. This is the element that compounds with time and it is ultimately the thing that brings peace of mind.
Just sitting here, in the flow, in my unique flow.
Away from overthinking.
Away from overfeeling.
Sometimes we tend to be our worst boss. Putting expectations on our shoulders, timelines to our healing processes, demands to our identity. The line between healthy personal growth and unrealistic toxic expectations can be very thin.
We just can't put too much expectations on ourselves without balancing that out with understanding, kindness and patience. I mean, we are human beings. We have, craved in our nature, an integrated relationship to both the good and the evil, the black and white, the joy and the pain.
Sometimes erratic, sometimes accurate, sometimes brave, sometimes unstable, sometimes stupid, sometimes smart, sometimes evil, sometimes kind.
We can't experience one without the other.
I guess what I'm trying to say is we can't, regardless of the situation, force ourselves to lean towards one side of the coin. It does not work that way.
"You shouldn't be feeling this"
"You shouldn't be thinking about this"
Yet, you are.
Yet, you are the being that feels that feeling.
Yet, you are the being that thinks that thought.
Denying it changes nothing.
Judging it just makes it worse.
That part of our brains, that puts the expectation, the desire on our identity to feel something different, or to think something different, that's the part that needs to slow down.
Reality is what it is. Our beings are what they are. We can't open up if we first don't have an accepting and kind attitude towards the present state of our beings.
You are what you are, and that's perfectly fine.
Now, what is in your control to do the things you want to do?
The things that you pay attention to, are the things that will define your inner state.
As human beings, attention is one of the most important things we have. Attention is a gift, we use our limited time on this earth to give our awareness to something or someone.
The things that we pay attention to are also the things that will influence our actions and understanding of the world.
Attention is ever-present. Our brains are always paying attention to something happening in the world or in our minds. Regardless of us knowing about it.
There are two different kinds of attention:
Unconscious attention and awareness
A state of unconsciousness is the state of paying attention to something without really noticing that we are paying attention to it. It's a state where we let the world and/or our brains drive our mental state and our existence. Lots of common modern problems come from this state of unawareness: overthinking, anxiety, obsession. It's like driving in automatic pilot, like surfing Instagram endlessly without really noticing or being intentional about what's the thing we'd like to find.
Awareness is the opposite pole. Awareness is the positive state of reflective and intentional attention. By practicing awareness we bring another being into the equation, our reflective being, the observer, the spiritual being, our true selves.
Awareness is a state when we detach ourselves from the things that we pay attention to, our emotions, our thoughts, the world around us. We become observers of our actions and environments. When we become observers, we are no longer objects to the things that happen to us, but we become subjects. We take control. We add the verb to the sentence, the meaning to the event.
A state of awareness is a state of full presence, of living the now as it manifests, without judging but observing, observing how it manifest and the reactions of our body and mind as it manifest.
Give your full awareness to everything you do
Our ability to create new knowledge
Not only are we able to solve problems by inquiry, action and feedback. We are able to document that process in our brains. We are able to store it using another layer of abstraction outside of the action itself. Consequently we are able to retrieve that information for later use when we encounter similar problems to the ones we already solved.
This enables us to communicate that individual sensory information about a problem to other humans. Then, they can apply that same information to their own individual experience, which saves time, and creates a network of validated shared experiences.
Let's call that knowledge.
Our ability to adapt to our environment
Earth's biosphere is not entirely a suitable place for all human life to thrive. Let's take Iceland as an example. The extreme winter conditions and seasonal changes makes it harder for humans, especially early humans, to survive in such environments. Yet, with knowledge we were able to create the necessary conditions and tools for our species to adapt to this environment.
Humans by using knowledge are able to predict and create. Creation is the manifestation of some type of knowledge in the physical world. Humans' creative nature allows us to restructure earth's biosphere and elements into things and tools we can use. Tools extend our capabilities beyond our biological limits and empower us to change our environments into something that fits our nature.
Our ability to connect to other humans or species
We can't work alone. Simply because it's not efficient to do so.
If we would have only worked individually, that would mean that a contemporary human would have to solve the same problems early humans had, inventing the wheel, dealing with fire, etc. If a human had to solve the same problems that our ancestors had, there would be no progress at all and we would be exactly at the same place. Solving the first primitive problems we had when our species first emerged.
The communication of knowledge to other beings allows knowledge to be compounded. Knowledge when compounded evolves into more complex theories, which then can solve more complex problems.
To allow the communication of knowledge to flourish efficiently, similarly to a neural network we have to be able to create the necessary channels of connection and communication between humans. Connection with other human beings is created not only by providing channels where language and culture can be freely manifested. More importantly, connection with other human beings is created by mutual understanding and shared feelings of our fragile human condition.
Let's call that empathy
Humans are biological machines, the most complex and sophisticated system ever created by evolution and nature. We are the byproduct of trillions of tiny changes, compounded through time and space. Complexity is made out of single structures. We share the same basic elements as a stone, but configured in an unimaginable complex way.
What makes us different from other complex beings?
What are the main combination of human natural traits that do not exist somewhere else in this earth?
What makes us so unique?
Our ability to solve problems
We are problem solvers by nature. We inquire the present state of things. We are able to recognise non functioning patters in a present state and then envision a desired, better state of that same pattern. We create then action to change the state into our envisioned state, then we collect feedback from the environment, then inquire again.
By doing this we are able to redefine and change our realities and all the systems, structures, environments where we happen to be in.
Things when they are real and raw, become authentic, sincere. They manifest their present nature as it is, without wanting, without judging, without expectations.
Realness is one of the things that I appreciate the most in my life. I don't believe that true things and growth can be derived from our imagination, our desires, or our expectations. Our brains are wired for fantasy, for the desire for a better present moment, desire is a tool we can use to fuel our actions to reach a goal.
Yet living in imagination, fantasy, or expectations coming from our brains is making us blind. It stops us from living and accepting the present moment as it is. With all the things it has to teach us.
Realness is not built on expectations. Realness kills expectations. It slaughters our deepest dreams, our ideologies, our understanding of the world. It's a painful thing, it's chaos for the mind.
At the same time, realness challenges us like nothing else. It forces us to face our true selves and the real world. It forces us to deconstruct ourselves, to build a more accurate version of ourselves and the world that surrounds us.
It makes us braver, stronger, bolder beings.
There's conceptually different kind of yous
Mind self
The self that you think you are (your idea of yourself, your identity)
Manifested self
The self that you manifest in the world (your actions, your experiences, your decisions)
Perceived self
The self that is perceived from you by the world (the sensory information you give that is processed by other beings)
You can control the first two, entirely. The more honest you navigate the first two realms, the more peaceful you will be with yourself, and the more transparent your perceived self will be to people.
The perceived self is not entirely in your control. You can't switch, change, evolve or improve the way people perceive you because their senses and selves are biased by the way they conduct their own mind self and manifested self. Yet, it's not a good idea to ignore entirely the feedback mechanism you get from the world.
Let's put it this way.
The mind-self is the idea you have about you, about who you are, your identity. The mind-self evolves and is shaped by your manifested-self. Your manifested-self, which means your actions, your decisions, your courage, changes your identity and the idea you have about yourself. The mind-self and the manifested-self are in constant evolution, changing each other.
Your perceived self is the feedback you get from the world around you. You shouldn't ignore this feedback, and you can make use of it to explore and maybe detect some blind spots. Nonetheless, you should not base your mind self on it, because it's simply not accurate.
It's tricky to navigate the three realms, yet it is absolutely necessary to do it, creating this awareness of who we are is the best investment we can do with our time. It will naturally bring the best versions of ourselves.
The things that you pay attention to, are the things that will define your inner mental, and emotional state.
Attention is an investment, we use our limited time on this earth to give our awareness to something or someone.
One example of unaware attention is the habit of watching the news.
The news posses naturally a negative, energy-draining aura: "something bad happened at place x to person y". A loop that repeats itself until the end of time. The worse thing about that, it's that there's , in most cases, absolutely nothing we can do about it, besides feeling bad about the fact that it happened.
Negative events will always make it to the news because they are easy emotional triggers for people. It's easier to talk about negative things since they fire our human sympathy. Yet, the emotional burden that they bring to people's life is harmful.
People don't need to be distracted by the evil that exist in the world.
What humans really need, is to be reminded of the beauty and uniqueness of their existence.
For every horrible thing happening, there are 1000's of splendid, beautiful things happening too, events that would never make it to the news:
Millions of new humans being born.
People facing their fears and succeding.
New science breakthroughs.
New knowledge being created.
People finding themselves.
Music creating human connections and dance.
The sun moving in its orbit in the galaxy.
The technology in the device you're using to read this.
Like Facundo Cabral used to say:
"A bomb makes more noise than a caress, but for every bomb that destroys, there are millions of caress creating life"
So the bomb? or the millions of caress creating life?
You decide where you put your attention to.
We are here to connect, with ourselves, with people, with nature, with things around us. The feeling of connection is a spiritual experience. It brings peace and meaning to our time on this earth.
Judgment is a tool. It is useful to navigate reality and to let us have the feeling of control. It helps us to make decisions. Nonetheless, when adopted as life's motto, judgment breaks little by little, our ability to connect to the world. It separates us from things, humans, and concepts in it.
Connection means let go ourselves and our stories.
Connection means believing in something greater than ourselves.
Connection means loving something or someone more than we love ourselves.
Connection is about offering our existence to the collective realm.
This is our journey,
But a journey that emerged from the collective landscape
We are a consequence of connection
We are a byproduct of collaboration
Let's offer ourselves back to the collective being.
Let's add our own stories, our ideas, our creations.
Creating is connecting.
To this very instant I've lived in this earth for:
32 years
392 months
11,946 days
282,240 hours
16,934,400 minutes
sounds like much, yet, it's all gone and living only in my memory.
I'm grateful,
I'm conscious,
I'm here now.
yet I won't be, that's for sure
who knows when,
who knows how.
I am here, now.
I'm grateful that I am.
I am now.
Let's do things! ♥️
We see the world not as it is, but as we are.
Our own collection of experiences, thoughts and emotions create the glasses with which we see the world. Our own logic is molded by the myriad of experiences we had, the sensorial experiences we felt and the thoughts we entertain in our minds.
This means, that the things we regularly do, all the habits that we run, the actions that we take, are ultimately the things that create our bubble of understanding of the world.
We shape our own view of the world by doing.
We shape our own self by doing.
Sometimes it is so easy to get caught up in our own stories and keep doing what we always did. We tell ourselves that doing something differently would mean "failing to be me". We put lots of reasons, thoughts, ideas, and crazy complicated logic behind it. When reality is much simpler:
We do then we become.
Nobody has ever become something different by pure thought, or by magical transformation of the self. Planning is not doing, thinking is not doing, feeling is not doing.
Becoming means" beginning to be" there's an action necessary, a beginning, a vulnerable effort.
Doing shapes our self.
Doing shapes our understanding of the world.
Doing transforms us into what we want to be.
Music is a conversation.
Music comes from the heart first.
Music is emotion
Music cures
Music embraces
Music brings you back to the present moment
Music lifts up the soul
there's wisdom in music
there's pain in music
there's joy in music
there's peace in music
there's love in music
creating music is creating connection
creating music is getting to know yourself
creating music is self love
creating music is liberating
creating music is therapy
creating music is brave
good music is vulnerable
good music is raw
good music speaks from the soul
good music is not rational
good music is not an equation
music is not a competition
music speaks differently to different people
more complex music isn't necessary better music
music is a language in a cultural context
music is therefore subjective
music is there to create connection between humans
more human connection means less ego.
less ego means more peace.
(this is a reminder)
Ok, so the main reason why I decided to do this is mainly that I'd like to be a better communicator.
Communicating is a tricky thing. Choosing the right words is hard. Committing to an idea is hard. Trying to make yourself be understood is hard. I've discovered that writing helps to organise the brain. It's like cleaning your room. Like putting things in a drawer so when you're looking for them you take less time in finding them because you know already where they are.
Organising the words, sentences, and ideas into places in my brain helps me to find them later when I need them.
Writing is also liberating and therapeutic, like any creative action. I enjoy the process of putting something together that didn't exist before with that unique shape. Whenever we embrace a creative action, we create a recording, a documentation of ourselves and our stories and we bring it to the world. We add our own voice to the human collective choir. We bring our own self to the records of human expression.
Even better, internally. Writing is bringing transparency, rawness, and realness to my life. It's so easy to be caught up in ideologies of the mind. Concepts about ourselves and the way we see the world that live only as thoughts in our heads, incomplete thoughts. I used to identify with them and used to follow them blindly, yet they weren't 100% real.
Writing forced me to bring realness to my thoughts. Manifesting an idea in writing makes the idea real. It gives the idea sensory attributes. Like giving it a shape, a shape that other people can see. Like giving it skin, skin that other people can feel.
My whole life has been a process of learning to embrace vulnerability. As men, we are socially wired to value strength over weakness. Control over chaos. Rationality over emotions.
My body was so used to run away from public crying, so used to shut off subconsciously any sign of emotional overwhelm. "You're behaving like a robot", "you're giving me nothing", "it sounds like as if you were talking about the weather" was a common response I got during hard breakups.
In emotional situations. My brain would just take full control over my body and like a fucking dictator, he would subconsciously bury all signs of emotion deep down. A protection mechanism.
Yet, a protection mechanism that was flawed from the start. All that emotion under the carpet always emerged, sooner or later, one way or the other, in uglier, trickier, and harder ways.
It was so frustrating, to not be able to really feel at the moment what I knew deep down my heart wanted to say. To rationalize an emotional problem as if it was an algorithm, as something you can solve by pure thought. To let my brain take control over my heart.
Emotions are not rational problems. They can't be solved by thinking. Their DNA isn't logic but the senses. Emotions are sensory experiences. It's your body teaching you, your body talking to you in its very own unique language.
Listen to what he has to say about you.
Emotions need to be recognised, not denied or repressed
Feeling is not the same as being
All emotions evolve into something
Emotions have three states, a beginning, a peak and an end.
All emotions eventually fade.
Love is not an emotion.
Love is an action.
Emotions lead to learning about one self
Emotions are raw
Emotions are a natural reaction of your body
Emotions are healthy
Emotions need to be appreciated
Emotions are like a kid
Emotions are a tool
We are not what we feel
Emotions are a not a representation of who we really are
It's not useful to rationalise emotions
Emotions are there, regardless of you
Emotions shouldn’t be resisted, but observed
Emotions spice up our human experience
Emotions bright up our humanity
Emotions are, but won't be
Emotions can become dangerous loops
An emotion is amplified when it isn't observed
An emotion can become a maze
Feeling isn't being
Thinking isn't being
being is awareness
Humans have a need to control and predict things. Through our brief time on this earth, we have evolved to use our brains as tools to control and predict the world. We became the best at this. Controlled environments give us safety, comfort, they allow us to be safe.
To nurture our ability to control things, we had to pay a price. We became more anxious, more impatient, more fearful, especially to the things we can’t yet understand fully. It is so freaking terrifying to do, feel or go somewhere we won't be fully in control of the outcomes: The wild.
The wild, in any shape or form. It's what brings us back to our internal journey. The wild is there, to push ourselves to our individual limits, to bring the focus back to the process, and not the results. The wild is there to teach us who we are, and what we are meaning to be, do, feel.
The Wild, could be anything you want. It could be a place, a feeling, a thought, an action. Somewhere or something where you are not in control of the outcomes. It's a place of exploration, discovery, explosion.
The wild is there to teach, to raise our bar, to make us more human.
Building resistance towards what is, can bring lots of unhappy moments. Learning to recognize that the world just is, regardless of our perceptions, opinions and existence takes lots of effort, patience, and constant training.
A wise person has trained himself to be aware of the things he has control over and the ones that need to be accepted as they manifest.
We all think our space of influence in the world is greater than it actually is. Consequently, we fail to recognize that there are things, closer things to us, reality, that we can't change or influence.
Surfing the wave, becomes at this point a better thought about life.
Surfing the wave means, accepting the nature of things as they are. With its ups and downs, calm and noise, pain and joy.
Surfing the wave is practicing our resilience, building our presence, crafting our humanity.
Nature is wisdom
Nature takes you out of you
Nature grounds you to the now
Nature is both wild and tame
Nature flows
Nature cures
Nature allows you to be you
Nature is like meditation
Nature brings you peace from mind
Nature breathes
Nature is fair
Nature embraces
Nature is NOT a concept in our minds
Nature is realness
Nature is everywhere
Nature is you
Nature is.
"You suck LeBron James" Yields a guy in front of the tv when the professional basketball player drops the ball by mistake. The guy, visibly overweight and possibly depressed feels a small dose of comfort after yelling at a random dude who doesn't even know he exists.
There's a brief moment of pleasure when we judge something. When we point out the flaws of a person's journey. We feel better about ourselves. We feel we understand more about life, about politics, about sports, you name it. We feel like we rise above the things we judge.
It is easier to judge, it has always been. But there's nothing virtuous about it.
Nobody has ever changed the world only by criticism.
And the harder truth, nobody has been able to change himself positively by criticising others.
Criticism is harmful to our willpower. It releases us from any responsibility. It separates us from the thing we judge. It stops our creativity, our empathy. It makes us lazier human beings.
It's an ego boost, a hack, a cheap trick to feel better with ourselves.
We all fall for it from time to time, yet criticism is poisonous to the soul. Hundred times more harmful for us than it is to the object of our critic.
It's like self inflected cancer.
Insecurity is the feeling of not being whole.
Insecurity is the feeling of not being complete.
Insecurity is rejecting the present moment as it is.
Insecurity is living in the future.
Insecurity is looking for comfort in the outside world.
Insecurity is looking for validation.
Validation comes from within not from without.
Insecurity is never enough.
Insecurity is holding on to a feeling of perfection.
Insecurity is expecting a perfect state out of a natural state.
Insecurity strives for perfection.
Perfection doesn't exist.
Perfection lives only in a future imaginative state.
The present moment is as it is, not as it ought to be.
For the human condition, the present moment will always be naturally imperfect.
Insecure people expect things to be different, but take no action.
Insecure people reject responsibility.
Insecure people cast their needs into others.
Insecure people demand.
Insecure people feel entitled to be loved.
Insecurity can't love, truly love.
Insecurity finds no meaning in giving love.
Insecure people's love is built on attachment and validation.
Insecure people are not fully aware.
Insecure people live in outer realities.
Insecure people live in the past.
Insecure people live in the future.
Insecurity is built by desire.
Insecurity feeds from desire.
Desire is living in the future, not in the present.
Desire is a distraction from the present.
Insecurity is needing.
Needing is being distracted from what currently is
Patience is the frame, action is the paint.
Stop waiting for things to happen. Stop waiting for things to get better.
Things or situations aren't subjects, they don't "do" stuff for you. Things, whatever that means to you, are objects. Things don't get better just because we want them to, we MAKE them better. With action, with courage, with reflection, with awareness.
Our actions are the only paint we have to give color and meaning to our life. When we decide not to use it, we leave the frame unchanged. We leave our composition, our life's painting, unclear, unfinished, sometimes even blank.
It is foolish to expect that the canvas will paint itself. It's stupid to give the paint to someone else and let them paint our canvas for us, and then expect to be happy with the result. It doesn't work that way.
There's no universe telling us what to do. There's no destiny putting the pieces together for us. I hate to break this romantic dream, but it's nonsense and dangerous to think that things will work for us just because we are, you know... us.
We have a wonderful life's canvas, we have been painting it with our life's actions, decisions, and courage.
If you feel your canvas, your painting, it's not what you'd like it to be. Take some blue, some green, magenta, Mexican pink, some disruptive red, and paint something better.
The tricky part about the learning process is not the time we invest to get better at something, the true breakthrough, that needs to happen first, is the realization of our own ignorance, of our own blindness.
How can we get better at something we don't know we are bad at, in the first place?
Exactly, we are blind to our blindness. Meaning, we don't know that we don't know.
The learning experience emerges from reflected ignorance, from the confrontation with ourselves. It's full of tension and very uncomfortable. The awareness that we are not as special as we thought we were, and that we don't understand certain things as good as we thought we did.
It's a kick in the nuts for the ego.
Developing this detachment from ourselves and our ego allows us to become naturally more curious. Being humble and accepting our blindness is the first part of the learning process. Therefore, knowledge should be defined first, as an act of humility. Since it is in the acceptance of our own ignorance when we first realize there is something to be known.
In a world, so diverse, so vast, with a number of infinite choices to choose from, limits play a vital role. Generally, we think the more choices we have, the more opportunities there are to make a better call, to choose something more "complete", more "fitting", more "adequate" to us.
The reality is, too many choices hinder our decision making.
Limits are a natural thing to have.
Our cells have a membrane, that delimits the space a cell takes in our body. It controls what comes in and what comes out of the cell. You might think, well, the membrane is just another part of the cell. But when you think closer about it, the membrane IS the cell. It is the concept that binds all the elements together. The membrane is what gives meaning to the cell. Without it, there would be no cell, just a couple of elements floating around without purpose.
The boundaries we set for our projects are our membrane. Embracing restrictions in our process forces us to solve problems with creativity, to work with our internal tooling. It helps us to bring our own selves to the process. It gives authenticity to our creations.
People think authenticity comes from our strengths, from what we do best. But more often authenticity comes from the boundaries we embrace, from our intentional limits, from the things we said no to. That's what really gives space to build our strengths, our focus, our unique flow.
Our wisdom to say no to the wrong things and yes to the right ones.
To what you can't yet understand, give it time.
To what you can't yet imagine, give it time.
To what you can't heal, give it time.
To what you yet don't feel, give it time.
To what you are hurting, give it time.
To what you can't let go, give it time.
To what you can't yet know, give it time.
To what you can't yet be good at, give it time.
To what you can't yet have, give it time.
To what you can't yet be, give it time.
Patience is the mindset
Action is the motion
Patience is the frame
Action is the paint
Life is like a video game. Game full of levels, badges, unlocked challenges, and lessons. Lessons that get harder with the time, and each lesson after the other teach us something new we didn't know about ourselves.
One thing is for sure, life, like in a Videogame, the longer you play the harder and trickier it gets. Every level is there to make your gameplay better, to make your will stronger. The lessons are trickier, the bosses are harder, and there will be moments where you will be stuck in a level for quite a while, trying to figure out how to get out of it, trying the right combination of moves, again and again. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it won't and that's ok. It's designed to be that way.
Life is a single-player game, it is the hardest you will ever play, yet the most rewarding and entertaining too. It is the only one of its kind we will ever play. Unique.
And it has amazing graphics too
Why is it that whenever we experience a state of full focus in something we are doing, we feel content, at peace?
Immersing ourselves in an activity grounds us to the present moment. It is comparable to a walk in nature or doing meditation.
The state of flow shuts down the monkey mind. It teaches it how to behave. It stops the chaos for a moment and brings presence into our lives.
Human beings are tired of dealing with the monkey mind. It brings all sorts of negative backfiring like anxiety, insecurities, overthinking, regrets. That's why we seek ways to shut it down: alcohol, drugs, sex, meditation are all things that in some way bring you peace from mind. Some better than others.
The state of flow is one of them. It's a powerful tool to train our monkey mind. It is like teach it how to fetch.
Curiosity triggers learning
Curiosity is creative
Curiosity grounds you to the present moment
Curiosity is constructive
Curiosity brings flow
Curiosity is a skill you build
I love the process of learning. Trying something the first time, sucking at doing the thing, then trying it again, sucking at it again, and so on until eventually, you suck .5% less. Then repeat until that .5% becomes 1% and so on.
I don't believe in this romantic idea that if you're meant to do something, you have to be good at it naturally. This is complete bullshit. Nobody is good at something out of pure biology. It's all a combination of different skill sets, trained through time.
Curiosity is a skill you learn.
How do you learn to be more curious about stuff?
Less judgement
When you judge something or someone, you separate yourself from what you are judging. You eliminate all chances of remaining open to what something or someone has to offer to your life experience. You close your receptors and strengthen your identity.
Detaching yourself from your identity
Our identity is the illusion we create about ourselves. We tend to think about ourselves like fixed beings. "This is who I'm" and "I've always been this way" ", the problem with this is that we are putting ourselves in self-created cages that are made of the stories we tell ourselves over and over. These stories are a curiosity killer.
Enjoy the process not the outcome
We are here for the ride, and the ride means the process. Learning to enjoy the time we spend trying to be better at something is the whole point of life. Focusing on the outcome is a mindset that's built on pure desire, and we should be careful about the things we desire. Desire charges its fee in " unhappy present moments".
We only have one life. This means we only have a very limited amount of time in the universe's vast time scale. How do we make our time here count? Not for the universe, not for others, but for us.
To me, is by adopting a curious mind, and feeding it constantly. Enjoying the road, not the destination.
Ideology is a noble concept. We all have ideas about how the world should be, ideas about equality, justice, politics, democracy, technology. We would like the world to be a fair place, one that gives equal opportunity to all human beings.
The downside of ideologies is that most of them ignore the complexity of implementation. Most of them are outcome-based, seeking a state of perfection. It’s easy to believe in an inspiring idea that would make society strive, or move towards a more honest purpose. What is actually hard, is to come up with the dynamics and engineering of how an ideology could actually work. Decide on the exact gear size and interplay between all the parts.
Everybody knows how to draw a car, we all have the idea of a car pretty much well defined in our heads. We know what it should do, we know how it should work. Yet, the majority of us, can't build a car from scratch. We don't possess enough knowledge to figure out the interplay between the parts and the systems behind.
If that's the case with a car, which it’s a relatively defined functional system. What makes us believe we understand fully the interplay of more complex systems like socio-economical ones?
The truth is, most of the topics we think we know about, we don't really know whats going on. We are biological machines, with biological limits, and tricky senses. We can't assimilate all the variables that compose a complex problem because we don't have enough bandwidth.
The best we can do is to come up with frameworks, to build, test, fail and learn. The smaller the problem we try to solve, the highest the chance we can understand it and actually do something about it.
One of my dreams as a young adult was the desire to leave a mark on this world. To do something so good that I would be remembered for generations for this amazing contribution I did to the world.
What a naive way to see things.
I had a dream so big, like the ego that created it. I didn't realize that my goal of leaving a mark on the world wasn't related to the world at all. It was all about me. I wanted to give meaning to my actions and time on this earth by looking at how people would remember me after I'm gone.
I was looking for meaning outwards not inwards.
It takes a great amount of courage to go to the world with a big dream of making a difference and trying hard to reach it. But you know what? It takes an act of greater courage to look inwards instead. To make a difference indoors. To fight your inner wars. To leave a mark on yourself, every day.
The good news about this is, that is easier too, because we have full control over it. Nobody can prevent us from doing it.
The bravest revolution is the one that happens walls in.
The job of a teacher is not to educate.
The job of a teacher is to aspire to inspire.
There are many paths to learning. Every student is a unique human being, with his own journey, own experiences, and own approach to learning. Nobody likes to be told what to do, nobody likes imposed "aha" moments.
"Aha" moments. That event where it seems like there's a revelation about a concept, that shines in front of us. The moment where we connect the dots, where knowledge is built. Aha, moments are unique individual experiences. They are highly personal and they arise differently for every human being because they depend highly on the student's previous context, knowledge, and own senses. Curiosity plays a huge role in the creation of "aha" moments.
Therefore, the teacher's role is not to impose his own subjective worldview and frameworks on the students he teaches but to inspire them, to aspire to inspire. Their job is to feed their curiosity so that they could find their own path to learning.
We all had that one teacher that made a difference in our lives and really made us love and naturally enjoy the process of learning and discovery.
Be that teacher.
Aspire to inspire.
If there's one responsibility, that I would have to select as the most important one for all human beings. It'd be the obligation to know who you are.
By this, I don't mean to create a story about yourself, make it your identity and then go to the world with a fixed view, justifying your actions with the story you conceived about you.
Knowing who you are is not a story you adopt about yourself about something that happened in the past. It is not an expectation you put on yourself about something that is supposed to happen in the future.
Knowing who you are is in nature, not judgemental. It is a process. A road of reflection. A road of constant awareness. It can only come from a place of presence and it simply means that you are aware of how your emotional being and your rational being respond to your surroundings.
We are changing, evolving. How can we really get to know something that is constantly transforming itself?
It's simple, by observing it.
The creative practice is not a prescripted practice. There are no rules or steps. Every journey, your journey is in itself unique. That is its biggest strength.
The uniqueness of one's creative journey is what ultimately brings authenticity to our practice. The number of experiences, failures, frustrations, "aha" moments, are the myriad spices we add to our dish. Unique in itself, things you can't buy in the supermarket
I used to believe that my art was meant to be perfect, an outcome, a trophy. Something I can place somewhere that brings people to admiration. To unspoken joy. I was, to my own damage, identifying myself too much with what I created. The object itself, the result.
I guess that's why I couldn't identify myself as a creative person, my ego was just too attached to the objective of the process, to the result of it. And since I was not, of course, able to produce something that I myself thought was perfect. I never really produced something, all the efforts of creation were merely an effort to compare one work to the other and say, this is yet not good enough.
Of course it was not, and it would never be perfect. I was unaware that I was taking out the failures from the process, failures are the most important thing in a creative process.
From now on, I don't identify myself with the object of my creation, a song, a text a lyric, a drawing. I'm no musician, nor a designer nor a writer. I'm none and all those things at the same time. Putting a label to it meant to me, to identify again with the object of my creation, to bring perfectionism back to the equation. To never ship work.
Creative people, create. Their identity as creators lies in their creative process. In showing up to do the work, in failing to do the perfect work, but succeeding to show up for the process. That's the fuel to their identity, the process, not the outcome. The journey, your journey.
We've all been there. This constant flow of information in our heads. Questions on one side, sloppy answers on the other, memories, regrets, plans, lists, thoughts about thoughts, thoughts about why are you having that thought. Anxiety, exhaustion.
The monkey mind is wild, unorganized, and sloppy. We identify with it and make it part of our identities. I used to believe my way out of problems was by thinking about them. Whenever I encountered a too big of a problem to tackle, I would go into an endless loop of constant thinking. Trying to find the last key to the puzzle, the missing piece. I felt part of an endless maze. Trying one line of thought, then moving to the other.
I didn't realize I was looking at reality with my head down. I didn't know the maze was just a drawing on the ground and that I could always just walk away from, whenever I wanted to.
It is a tricky thing to do, to disconnect from our monkey mind. Because our identities are a big part of it.
Remember the saying "you are what you think"
This is complete bullshit.
You're not what you think.
You are what you do.
You are what you manifest in the real world.
The mind emerges from the brain and the brain it is just another organ, another part of our body and it is an autocratic one. Don't let it rule your body, your existence, your time on this earth.
Every moment is an opportunity to walk away from this drawn maze.
To come back to the now.
Good relationships are grounded in reality, not in expectations or fantasy.
Good relationships come from a place of genuine acceptance of the other.
Good relationships are honest.
Good relationships embrace conflict and won't avoid it.
Good relationships are built on awareness.
Good relationships are built on independence not interdependence.
Good relationships are supportive.
Good relationships accept change.
Good relationships are action biased. Not passive.
Good relationships are creative.
Good relationships construct.
Good relationships live in the present moment.
Good relationships aren't built only on emotion.
Good relationships aren't built only on reason.
Good relationships use reason and emotion as tools.
Good relationships embrace boundary setting.
Good relationships aren't built on desire, expectations or tension.
Happy relationships have a natural state of peace.
Healthy love is not attachment.
Healthy love is not desire.
Healthy love comes from acceptance.
Healthy love is unconditional for both the giver and the receiver.
Healthy love fills.
Healthy love creates.
Our identity is the illusion we create about ourselves.
We tend to think about ourselves like "this is me" "this is who I'm" and "I've always been this way" and there we are, putting ourselves in self-created cages that are made of the stories we tell ourselves over and over.
The reality is, you're not the same, nor will you ever be.
Your body is changing, the whole time, every day, every second. Every few years we become essentially new people because, in that time, every cell in your body has been replaced by a new cell. So biologically, we are made of completely new stuff.
Our identity lives only in our minds, and it is not static as lake. It is more like a river, constantly flowing, never the same.
Judging separates your being from the object of the judgement
Judging draws a line
Judging breaks genuine connection with other human beings
Is easier to express something negative than to see the bright side of things
Judgement triggers detachment
Detachment triggers solitude
Solitude triggers the feeling of disconnection from the world
Disconnection from the world in the long term triggers unhappiness
Unhappiness triggers more judgement
A negative being, isn't a smarter being, he is a distracted being
A negative being, emerges from ego.
A negative being, takes himself too seriously
A negative being, isn't really aware he's only got one life
A negative being, lives in the past
A negative being, lives in the future
A negative being, doesn't realise that nothing really matters too much
A negative being, in his distraction , takes things for granted:
Nature
Food
Shelter
Friends
Laughing
Today
Health
The sound of birds
The uniqueness of a tree
His breath
Ameba
DNA
Science
30 trillion cells running in his body
Technology running in his phone
Bacteria
The orbit of the moon
A black hole
A negative being is an over-thinker
A negative being needs peace FROM mind, not peace of mind.
A negative being, is just distracted.
A negative being is just distracted.
Happiness is not joy or bliss, it is peace.
All experiences are learning opportunities
The situations that we remember the most and where we learned the most, are also the situations that brought us the most amount of tension. Comfort zones are great and all, they bring us peace, feeling of control. They allow us to predict things too. Yet, comfort is no good place for learning. Comfort with time becomes tensionless, and learning can't naturally flourish in this environment.
With that in mind, I wanted to try, since already quite some time, a routine call "idiotic actions". In which I would try to do idiotic things on a regular basis to purposefully bring tension to my life.
Yelling out loud in the tram
Lay down in a restaurant full of people for 20 seconds
Run like Phoebe from friends in the park
I wanted to create a system with the only purpose of making me feel uncomfortable. I know this sounds like nuts. Who'd want to feel that way? I certainly don't. I'm still struggling with it. But it is precisely because I'm struggling with it that the system becomes key to my process.
Building a system with the purpose of creating that tension, to then be aware of how bad/good the tension is to me. Seems like a helpful exercise. Maybe I find out, after all, that fear is in our heads.
What is it to lose? We all gonna be dead in 100 years.
There are more bacteria in 1cm of your colon that there has been people in the world. So we might as well be bacteria in somebody's cosmic colon.
What if we are indeed ameba leaving in somebody’s cosmic butt?
The absurdity of ego, compared to the insignificance of existing. What's the purpose then of our life and our identity? would there be a purpose? or is it all an endless thread of coincidences and reactions?
I'd say the meaning is within, it was never meant to be found externally.
There's no point to the world, the world just is, and it will continue to be with or without us. Therefore the main important thing for us to give some sort of meaning to our existence is to look within ourselves. It has to be.
Seek truths, everybody was born, and everybody has individual perception, experiences, existence. With this comes a healthy duty of understanding who one is, this is the only path to give meaning to life. The path outside of social perceptions, social pressure, and expectations.
Be who you are. Reflect on what you are and your position in the world. Don't let your ego blind your actions. You will be gone, and so your words, thoughts, and all the memories that you will leave in other people's brains, because they and their children, will also be gone.
Don't take yourself so seriously and enjoy the search, the process.
We might be bacteria in somebody's cosmic colon.