My tenet

How could I forget it ...

Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.
© Max Ehrmann 1927

Be the Universe at my side ... please ...

[An Escape of Emotion] One more try to understand this World ....

I used to think that to be happy in life you needed to be good to others. It might be the way I was educated,  the way I suppose to direct myself through, in this World, it was by doing good to others and by trying to remain humble.... so far so good, my mother's teachings work perfectly 'enough', specially here in Japan, but only that ... 'enough'.

For moments (speaking sensibly) everything point towards one direction, that by doing good to others you can open yourself doors, it would ease you way through in life among men and women and therefore, in the long run self-fulfillment and, who knows, success and happiness would come ... despite my thoughts are not that far from those of the foremost World's peace makers and philosophers,  the more I look around the more puzzled I feel and … disappointed and exhausted of trying to understand your World.

It appears to me that the World belongs to the evil, and not to the good; if one wants to do more than 'enough', if ones wants to be a bit better for you or your family for other, then, rather than to be a good person simply, one needs to be a bit evil, or worst ... being evil pretending being good ... :( the World appears to be of those who cheat and take away in the first opportunity, forgetful of others and oblivious of their careless actions towards people around them, even if they had helped them in their way through. Being humble in many cultures can be seen as a sign of weakness perhaps some even would see in those humble persons an opportunity to profit, an opportunity to take away ...  

Yes indeed, wherever I see, as he says, true intentions are ulterior in all kind of human relationships. Nobody gives away thinking in what they can have back. Gifts are not gifts but decoys of caring, a tit for tat practice, a strategy, a way to ally to stay alive in the game of life. 

If every people have a dream and the the World itself is built of dreams, why is that there are people who cannot see that the worst they can do is to take away other people's dreams, damaging their heart and their good within?



-ec

Image taken from [Life is a Game We Play by Scott Carruthers]

[Taming Emotion] Of Thresholds ...

* When your favorite music is not longer your favorite, or even worst nor your favorite, nor the worst, but simply empty...

The other day, tired from my everyday activities, of my reality, ...  I went out for a walk, as in the stepping out of  my usual space/place where I live and work, I would have stpped into a new world ...

While walking, escaping ... I found myself switching from song to song, going throughout the various types of music I got from jazz, to pop and rock passing through mexican traditional music. I tried to increase the volume, but nothing good came out from doing that, I had a feeling of despair, a need for salvation from my every-day suffocation ... None of my trials made me feel satisfied, neither good nor peaceful, none... I screamed out inside myself with such despair, but no-one could hear, no-one. Then, I looked up to the sky and I pray for salvation.

*The wish ...

I wished my whole life has not turned out like that. Although, I manage to keep my self clinging from this my reality, I sometimes, I should say lately most of the times, I feel exhausted, and I think there is absolutely no need for me to stay in here.

*The lie ...

I am an artifice of  happiness ... it is how I have managed the last year an a half,  I craft happiness out of diets, exercise and even friends ... I play with my thresholds of hunger/satisfaction, tiredness/energy, solitude/friends, I am a sort of epicurean ... I live in austerity so that the day I I eat cheese, drink wine and gather with friends is the best day ever ...

Yes, ...  swallows of light to make my life alive or...  to keep the lie alive...

*What Maslow would say ...

This is only because I have listen that music just ... too much, so that, I had crossed over that thin line that makes something goes from pleasant to boring ... that I am indeed a needing-need being... looking up for something else different, to make it my new need and to place it over the top of my always tall pyramid of needs, or what Maslow would call hierarchy of needs.


*  Bound to reach out the top ... or  to cirlce ?

We always want more, but in the want more,  what I think ... is tthat we definitely loose ground of what and more importantly how much of that good can gives us pleasure. We all know the popular saying "It is not quantity but the quality what it matters", I would say that both definitely matter, even the finest chocolate cake can be unpleasant after 10 plates of it. Or the other way around, even the smallest and more horrible pizza can taste like heaven after a long diet of veggies.

Ten years ago after reading the alchemist I decided to enterprise my self in the looking of my treasure, not even knowing what my treasure was ... is, I undertook an adventure that had lasted nearly 10 years. First Canada then Japan

I look back then and now, and I cannot avoid thinking whether this is what I really want. I guess at some point I really wanted it, because I had it all, my family, a good job, good friends, what to eat, where to sleep, the love of a man  ... I had it all, but I wanted "more", so I parted ...

Ten years down the line, I realized that back then I never knew of thresholds, scarcity or excess ... I never knew of loneliness or solitude (how I like to call it in my best days); I never knew of what was to be a foreigner in a place where I cannot speak the language, and although I have learned so many things of that beautiful way of the traditional Japanese unspoken language, there are some things that I do not understand and I think I never will, but what is worst, it is the feeling of not belonging ... and make me feel unhappy. I came to discover than in life what  really matters is people around me, my experience left me to recognize that I need people  at least to say hello, good morning, give a smile and feel reciprocated. People is what it matters ..., and if I had to live this to understand it, then it was worth.


-ec

Taken from [here]