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NMV

No More Violence.

This is my decree for life: I refuse to pronounce words that may offend people and offend me. I refuse to let out of my lips words that may denigrate or create a negative impact on someone's mind even if it's for a simple joke. I refuse to joke with words and I refuse to accept jokes from people that use words that may put me in a context I do not belong. I refuse to harm someone's else unconciouss by using violent words.

And let me make it clear, I'm not talking only about hard or bad words, I'm talking about even of our day to day jargons. I refuse to tell someone or tell me "silly", "stupid", "useless", even if it sounds as a joke or even if it's said with a laugh/smile on my face. I refuse to pronounce these words and I refuse to accept them from other people.

Also, I refuse to accept violence in the way of orders like "you have to...". Read me people, I don't have to... anything. I do what I want and what pleases me, that's it. I refuse to take orders from friends, family members and any given person, your advices are very well received but that doesn't mean I will action on them.

I refuse not to give a smile to strangers, I refuse to be stingy with my emotions and I refuse not to face my fears.

Having said that, let me tell you briefly why I've made this decision. It's no news that this year has been of self-discovery for me and of learned lessons. Due these two factors, my way of reacting towards life, of living life and my interaction with people have changed for the better. I've felt peace and calm in the last months and any -even for little that it may seem- sign of violence pisses me off.

It's me who has changed, and now I don't share some attitudes from my close friends. I don't share the way they deal with life and people, including me. I may sound embittered but this is who I am now.

I had two events that made me reflect on this.

First one, a very close friend of mine, a warm-hearted and lovely girl by some reason told me that it was time for me to buy a cellphone, to what I replied that I was not buying one in Argentina because it was too expensive. I will do it maybe in Ecuador or when I go to the US next year, I've no rush on getting a new cellphone now-a-days, I feel so good and relaxed without it and I have a right to feel that way. To what she said that I was stingy. Believe it or not, that's violence and that's what I was talking about lines above. Even if it's a friend that is telling me that, even if it's a joke or just a jargon, come on, that is violence and I got it on the run, in the same instance I read it I knew I couldn't accept it, so I replied to her: lastly, it is my decision.

Second event, a close friend of mine was telling me that some of his relatives were coming to Buenos Aires and asked me about the temperature and basic stuff, all was good but then at the end he said literally: "you have to tell me nice places where they can have dinner". I read "YOU HAVE TO..." and I immediately thought "I don't have to... nothing", that's violence also, that's an order and I'm not taking orders from anyone here. I didn't reply to him anymore that day but there again I was facing verbal violence. I reflected on it and started preparing my decree of refusing to use words in these ways, because "simple", "meaningless" words get stamped in our heads and minds and that's not good. If we're going to impact someone in his/her mind, let's impact them positively and not with words that unconsciously hit them.

Simply I got tired of hearing people talking in ways we shouldn't do. I know I cannot change people but I can change myself, the vocabulary I use and the thoughts in my mind, I can change them from negative to positive, from reactive to proactive, and I'm determined to do so.

There's no need to attack people in this beautiful world, let's live in peace. That's my piece of advice for you. Peace.

Jan. 11, 2019, 12:02 a.m. 0 Report Embed 0
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Excess Baggage

So lately with my roomate we've been thinking about how would it be the day when we have to say goodbye to Buenos Aires?, which by the way it's very close! I'm already making my last purchases and rushing with the places that are in my to-eat list.

We've got sad even before this happens and we've reviewed all what we've lived in this AMAZING city, all the stories we've gone through and all the learned lessons. We've recapitulated 5-7 months of our lives in just one night.

There are many things we will want to leave here in Buenos Aires, and I'm not talking about material things, but experiences/moments/persons/etc. as they're useless and do not allow us to grow as persons. But, on the other hand, we, of course have another bunch of things that we would like to pack and take with us when going back "home".

Yes, we've got sad but also excited because we have plans for 2017, maybe we will do them together, maybe we will do them separately, we don't know, we don't know where life will take us yet, but the main point here is that there are plans for both of us in 2017 and that excitement and adventurous spirit opaques any sadness we may feel.

Continuing with the packing thing and baggages, this week I finished seeing a drawings book by Uruguayan cartoonist Troche, called "Equipaje" ("Baggage") and the last sequence of this book made me drop some tears in a cab. It's just very touching what I can see in this sequence.

I wish I could have posted this sequence as the picture from this post but I've no cellphone to do it, so, sorry about that. I will, however, describe a little bit what is it about: a man with a bag in his hand, a ladder plane, the man putting down the bag, the man opening his bag and a woman is inside the bag, the woman goes out of the bag, the woman walks towards the man, they hug (you gotta look at their faces for God's sake!), the man walks towards the bag, the man gets into the bag, the woman closes the bag, the woman carries the bag, the woman walks with the bag in her hand, the woman goes up the ladder plane, the woman gets to the top of the ladder, the woman flies with her arms open and with the bag in her hand. All I can think about when seeing it is packing my memories and all the people I would like to take with me wherever I am. I'm pretty sure we all have those special persons that we carry in our hearts wherever we go (I've just remembered the poem from E.E. Cummings I shared with you in a previous blog).

In these drawings, the baggage for me is of course a representation of our hearts and if I focus exactly on Troche's sequence, we're talking about a special someone, once again, it's all about LOVE.

Troche not only invites me to pack (not to leave behind) a special someone, but to fly and be free. So, yes, that's exactly what I'm doing, that's exactly what I'll do. I'm free, I'm young and I'm beautiful. I embrace my life's changes and I live the moment at its fullest. I accept Troche's invitation to fly and because I'm strong and brave, I'm flying with my blue American bag and will take it with me wherever I'll go in the following months/year, because you know what? Even when it may represent an excess baggage at the moment, for me, it's worth the cost and the weight and that's all that matters. Make it count, people.

Jan. 4, 2019, 12:02 a.m. 0 Report Embed 0
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Life Teachers

Jorge Luis Borges says that “every person that crosses our life is unique and always leaves something of them in us and takes something of us with them. There will be ones that will take a lot from us but there will be none that will not leave anything from them. This is the main responsibility of our lives and the clear evidence that two souls do not meet by coincidence”.

It happens that I've met several people that I wouldn't imagined I would meet in my life and that I wouldn't have met if I wouldn't have come to Buenos Aires (and if a bunch of fortuities wouldn't have been in between). I totally agree with Jorge Luis Borges, some of these people we meet will pass unnoticed but there will be the ones that will leave a deep mark in our lives, those are the ones that hit us so hard that transform us and create a change in us, a before and an after. Aaand I've been through this here.

I'm really grateful for the fortuities that were in our paths and to the very different actions that created a chain reaction in our lives. This reminds me to "The Butterfly Effect" movie, in which one simple action alters the whole life/fate of a person. So, since I experienced the impact of a certain someone five months ago, I started analyzing how I got to meet this person and I started going back in my steps and thinking "If I wouldn't have come here", "If I wouldn't have been here exactly in this month", "If I wouldn't have spoken with someone last year", "If I wouldn't have downloaded this song", "If I wouldn't have had that job back in 2010", "If I wouldn't have passed through these X, Y, Z events", then maybe, there would have been a chance that I wouldn't have met this person.

But, yet again, people never appear in our lives before or after God's time, they appear just in the precise moment we need to meet them regardless of time, space or circumstances. There's always a purpose of why we cross paths with someone at a certain time of our lives, and this applies also for the departure of people from our lives, they disappear because we need them to leave, even if we don't believe it so, even if we feel devastated bacause of it, it is the perfect time for their departure, believe me. I've been through this also here.

Carl G. Jung said "the meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed". I couldn't agree any more with this comparison, because it's exactly like that! We, as human beings, have the ability to experience (with the right person) the same impact as two chemical substances when joining. We get transformed and our lives are never the same anymore.

Now, the question is, how can a person impact you so much? In one of my many sessions with Orlando, he made it clear to me that we cannot control how a person’s presence will affect us. We have no control over it, period. We just have to live the hit and let it happen and analyze what of us is that we see in that other person. He literally said it's like a mirror, a reflection of ourselves in that person. This is the key and what we should understand and evaluate to overcome the impact.

The very next day of that chat, by chance I remembered a quote from "Eat, Pray and Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert and looked up for the entire paragraph of that quote. I will share it completely at the end of this post, but it was incredible that it said something very similar to what I have reflected with my psychoanalyst the day before. It talks about mirrors, reflections and soul mates.

Soul mates. What are soul mates anyway? Maybe to talk about them is a little trite and surreal. Maybe the meaning of soul mates is too deep and complex, so I will not get into details about them but on the souls we encounter in life, the souls that impact us, the souls that I like to call "Life Teachers".

Why "Life Teachers"? Simply because they teach us a lesson in life. This lesson may not be noticed at once, it may take days, weeks, months or even years to know which was it, in other words, this lesson is also known as the purpose of our encounter. What is it that you're leaving to me after meeting you? And yet again, Jorge Luis Borges quote applies to this. What I would like to add is that "Life Teachers" sometimes (most of the time) don't know they're leaving a lesson in us and if they do, they don't know exactly which lesson is that, because that's our homework, to figure the lesson out and to make the proper changes when figured out. This applies when we turn out to be the "Life Teachers" also, we rarely will know how we impact the life of someone else and what is the lesson we are leaving to them and of course, the lesson is always different from person to person, what I learn from you is not the same as another person will learn from you, and what you learn from me is not the same as another person will learn from me. It all depends on our personal circumstances and personalities, and yet again Carl G. Jung can be applied here, let's say, one chemical substance won't react in the same way if mixed with A, B or C. It will react differently each time.

Luckily, it seems to me, I've figured out the lesson I needed to learn from my counterpart. It wasn't easy, it wasn't fast, because life lessons are like that, they're so important puzzles that we have to put together with patience, love and time. Life lessons are so important that life alone will guide our steps to the right place, in the right time and with the right "Life Teacher" so we can learn it. This means also that I've figured out the purpose of me coming here to Buenos Aires and that... that's quite an achievement!

I lived my self-learning with a lot of crossed-emotions and my "problem" is that I'm a very passionate person and I live my emotions at their fullest, with so much passion that I could easily explode. So yes, I suffered in my learning path, because that's how paths are, especially the ones of self-discovery, psychoanalysis and love, but guess what? I was also healed and re-borned. Talking about emotions, these include love of course and talking about love, I just remembered that some days ago a friend told me that I have a misconception of love and that I live like if love is madness. Well, let me tell you something Josel, I feel flattered by your words, wouldn’t it be beautiful to go crazy because of love?

In this very moment, all I can ask to life is to let me "set the fire to the third bar" (quoting Snow Patrol). I do not want to point out anyone in this post but I now know the purpose of my trip to Buenos Aires, the purpose of me meeting you and the purpose of our distance. Lessons.

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“I’m not laughing.” I was actually crying. “And please don’t laugh at me now, but I think the reason it’s so hard for me to get over this guy is because I seriously believed David was my soul mate. ”He probably was. Your problem is you don’t understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. Your problem is, you just can’t let this one go. It’s over, Groceries. David’s purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of your marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he did great, but now it’s over. Problem is, you can’t accept that his relationship had a real short shelf life. You’re like a dog at the dump, baby – you’re just lickin’ at the empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you’re not careful, that can’s gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it.“But I love him.”

“So love him.” “But I miss him.” “So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it. You’re just afraid to let go of the last bits of David because then you’ll be really alone, and Liz Gilbert is scared to death of what will happen if she’s really alone. But here’s what you gotta understand, Groceries. If you clear out all that space in your mind that you’re using right now to obsess about this guy, you’ll have a vacuum there, an open spot – a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with the doorway? It will rush in – God will rush in – and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using David to block that door. Let it go.”

― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Dec. 28, 2018, 12:05 a.m. 0 Report Embed 0
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Buenos Aires Cycle

It's been six months since I arrived to Buenos Aires. Never thought I'd be staying here longer than what I planned, because as well as I know myself (sometimes), I tend to follow my plans and itineraries strictly. This tendency to perfection is the one I'm trying to fade out. I'm allowing myself to be more flexible, to let plans be broken and to err, and by the way, this new style of painting outside the borders is pretty awesome.

When I first came here this year, I really thought I was going back home within three months and a half, and suddenly I found myself making the decision of staying for ten months. Some people say there are different factors to analyze when deciding this kind of things, but in reality, to me, there was only one: weather conditions. Other than that, I had already made up my mind.

While deciding if to stay or not, if to run away from cold or face it, some new and quite exciting ideas came to me and I started, without even looking for it, to build my 2017 schedule, which by the way has nothing to do with what I imagined by the beginning of 2016. But here I am, looking forward for another year away from home and away from Buenos Aires of course.

So, this is happening, since some weeks ago I'm finding myself stuck here and I now know for sure that my cycle in Buenos Aires is done and as free as I currently am, I'll go somewhere else in 2017. Plans are on the table but as I said, they may be broken and I'll let them to be broken if that's the event.

I'm ready to leave but for housing contract, I'm stuck until the end of the year and no, those are not bad news, because I enjoy this city at its fullest, I've nothing against it, I find this city amazing and I could easily live here (as many of you could too), I've had enormous experiences and I've marked a valuable path of self-discovery, and last but never least, it was here where I crossed paths with the most fascinating person I've ever met. But everything has a cycle and as much as I like beginnings, I like endings, and I like to give endings where there must be closures.

I would not like to end this post without taking the opportunity to emphasize the importance of facing fears. As I mentioned above, I almost left because of my fear to cold. Once again I was going to run away from my fears, luckily I was wise enough to stay and face it and guess what? I didn't die and I learned to live with it.

Today, I can say that I don't know where my home is. There's a quote that says "home is where the heart is", and my heart is with me, so, as long as I have me, I'll be home and I'll be safe. I'll give life the chance to surprise me and break my fix plans and structure and take me wherever I have to be and surround me by whomever I need to be surrounded of. I'm in for it. I fear no fate. Fear no fate.

Having said that, I'd like to share with you my favorite poem, which is from E.E. Cummings.

[I carry your heart with me (I carry it in)]

by E.E. Cummings

 

 

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in

my heart) I am never without it (anywhere

I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want

no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

 

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

 

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

Dec. 21, 2018, midnight 0 Report Embed 0
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