Fast or slow?

"Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace."
- May Sarton -

We are living in a century proclaiming speed as a modern god. Fast food, fast cars, fast choice, but speeding through life will not make us to lose some of its quality? I remember when Bruce lee was training with a friend, and seems to be ten times faster then him, and he told him, what you need is not to be faster than me, but slower. Slow your rhythm until you are comfortable with it and you will improve. We need to cultivate the contrary, to have the right attitude, to act like we have all the time in the world. And to do this while we are aware that we are not immortals, we have only one life and we can leave this place in any moment. What a contradiction to solve! Good luck with that.


"The good man is the friend of all living things."
 -Gandhi-

Being kind have numerous benefits, and changing your time perception is one on them. When you are kind, when you think about others instead of only yourself, then all that rush will disappear, and the silence will prevail. Under the waves of the dangerous sea of thoughts, there is a place where is quiet enough, but you need to reach that place. Try it! At least once. (Any mindfulness technique aim to take you there.).

Sleeping enough to be awake, creating enough to be alive

"To be an artist is to believe in life."
- Henry Moore -

Because as an artist you are creative, and a creative person is closer to being a God, closer to the secret of life, fresh and sparkling ideas, bringing beauty from the mind to our reality. In the end, it is all about being authentic, being true to your Self.


"Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."
- William Shakespeare -

We live in a sleep deprived society. One simple test to prove it, if you are using an alarm to wake up, you are not sleeping enough. For some people, sleep is a way to learn how to dream lucidly, to gain control over another dimension of your life. Tip: if you want to lucid dream, learn how to fly in your dream first.

Inspiration, respiration and preparation

"You think you are alive because you breathe air?
Shame on you, that you are alive in such a limited way.
Don't be without Love, so you won't feel dead.
Die in Love, and stay alive forever."
(Rumi)

He said it 800 years ago, but today it is still more actual than ever. We breathe to our daily schedules, but we don't live. Our eyes are mesmerized but thousands non-magical hooks, online and offline, on the bus, on the street's sideways, on the radio or TV. In only one day we are exposed to 490 adds, and daily media consumption for a typical adult is measured as 9.8 hours. We watch screens instead of living, our focus is directed in one endless loop, day after day. So, I will ask you one more time: do you think you are alive because you breathe air?

Random quotes about life

"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web." - Pablo Picasso -

You can see beauty everywhere, if you are looking for it. If you set for beauty, it will surround and enchant you. But you all your thoughts are negative, dark, stressful, then the color will fade, and the magic will disappear from your life. Think about that. If you think that this world is hell, it is. If you think that this world is paradise, it is. Either way you are right. Then, why not to make the right choices?

Transforming idea of the week: "Make new friends by attending a class or event at a community center in a different neighborhood from your own." - Maya Angelou -

Do something new, outside your comfort zone. If you are white, go to a non-white predominant club. If you are black, go to an Asian predominant club. You get the idea. Learn about other country, or about other profession. Spend time with some bikers. As long as you are not in danger, reaching other circles than your usual ones will make you grow, adapt and challenge your beliefs. It is an useful exercise.

"There comes a day when you realize turning a page is the best feeling in the world, because you realize there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on." - Zayn Malik -

The metaphor is good, coming from Zayn, and it is making us thinking about our routines, about what are we doing in the same way every day, without trying to find if it is a better alternative. Do not become a person of habit. Challenge yourself and your little automatic gestures. The brain will rewire and your experience will make you a better person in any given direction. You will even start to learn faster, to change when needed and to find a teacher in everyone.

"There are three truths: my truth, your truth and the truth." - Chinese proverb -

Everything we see in understood through our life experience, and no one can see the same big picture in the same way. No, not even the twins. Can be close of our reality or far away, but it is not the same. We, people, are islands, surrounded by the entire world as an impersonal ocean. If we keep this in mind, sometime we can have a glimpse into another person life, and this is a big thing. The more often we can do this, the more wiser we will become.

Life is a joke

A Buddhist monk at the hot-dog stand:
- Make me one with everything!
He gave a 20 to the vendor and he was waiting. The vendor pocketed the money.
- The change come from within! he reply.

Death of a dream

Motto: Dreams, by their nature, are living beings. They are born, live and die. Some time they grow in us, like a plant, watered by a blue hope, other time they dry because the lack of it.

*

He was waiting in the bus station, when she came, looks at him with her big blue eyes and said:

- In life, sometimes we are defeated. Often this is a bitter lesson, but we need to endure, in order to mature and continue to grow. Sometimes we need the defeat, to remind us that here every moment counts, and that we are not immortals, but we behave as if we were.

And then she turned and continued to walk, and he watched her going away, the wind moving playful her blonde pigtails.

**

She saw him, and she felt a strange need to do something to ease his pain. Accessing the archives, she watched everything like in a movie,  the sequence of events that marked him so strongly,  she felt all his suffering,  how he met that girl, first kiss (that didn't count), first break up, how they met again, the perfect evening they spend together, the distress of their separation,  their plans, the feeble attempt to be lovers, the quarrels, the back and forth that was at the order of the day, in a word, all that turmoil that lasted no less than one year and few days.  The moment when he understood that he lost her forever, that between them cannot be anything, how he felt that something broke inside, how his heart suddenly froze, although was not so cold outside. They can’t be together anymore, and even if he will try to, it will be nothing like in the past, when he wanted her to love him, to feel for him what he felt for her. Now it’s much more complicated, because he will never be able to know if he could rekindle that feelings that once so beautifully colored her soul, he would not know if he could feel for her what he felt before.  It’s all over, a dream fell apart, and he could never revive it.

Then she went to him, and felt the need to say those words:

- In life, sometimes we are defeated. Often this is a bitter lesson, but we need to endure, in order to mature and continue to grow. Sometimes we need the defeats, to remind us that here every moment count, and that we are not immortals, but we behave as if we were.

And then she went on, feeling how his gaze followed her, almost burning like fire.