Two Selfs

I believe everyone has two selfs, a higher self and a lower self. The higher self represents your work ethic, your fortitude and persistence on following higher means. The lower self represents your lowly desires, greed, hate, lust, passion, ego, selfishness.

As you noticed, the lower self has much more ‘content’ than the higher one. The lower self is cluttered, confused, always at war, restless and without discipline. The higher self is the regulation of the lower one. It represents the settlement of desire and anguish. It represents acceptance and perseverance. It represents all that is good about you. Your lower self, too, may communicate positives.

For this reason, it is my goal to embody the higher self, while accepting the lower self, admitting it but not letting it be who I am. I am higher than my desires, wants, needs. I am higher than violence, hatred, passion. I am ‘more’. That is the definition of my enlightenment. I love who I am, all of me; but I know that ‘I’ is my higher self, it is me.

Saving my summers

I’ve been drenched in this notion of saving my love for The One. That I will get to do the things I want with her. That we would get to laugh together in a certain way. That I can talk in a certain way with her, and just her. I’m sure that’ll be true. However it is the notion that I can’t do that before her.

In all honesty, I can’t but gasp at the foolishness of it. Not loving wholly because I haven’t met my love yet. I plan to do the exact opposite. Every person who deserves it, I will share myself with wholeheartedly. I will love every woman, wholeheartedly. I will savor every friendship wholeheartedly. It is in this way that I will meet my love. Yes, some things I would have already done with someone else. Yes, some laughs I would have had with someone else. Some places, I would’ve already been to with someone else. But that’s the entire purpose of our love!

With my love we will create our own memories, true and unique. It will not be the fantasies of mine, and that will make them even better because they will be a surprise to me as they are to her. I’ve adopted this notion of “Shattering my dreams” earlier; I recognized that those dreams are like shackles that keep me from acknowledging and enjoying the moment, if it differs from the fantasies in my mind. Those dreams keep me on a track of attempting to make them come true, regardless of what life says; thus locked I stay in an endless cycle, like a hamster on a wheel.

I won’t save my summers, I will make new ones, every year.

Sadness

This is the source of the sadness. It is that I have been searching for ‘happiness’ my whole life. That feeling of being whole, of being complete and lacking nothing. Not literally, because perfection is unattainable. By lacking nothing I mean to express that feeling that I’m missing something, that I need to do more of something because the present is ‘not working’, i.e. not good enough, and it is up to me to change that.

Once I feel that something is working, that life is turning to be good, that I’m on a lead, this is when I get sad about leaving. I’m referring to the way I feel after a vacation, or a good time. It is supposed to leave me invigorated, to lift my spirits up and to help me keep going in my normal life. It shouldn’t be an escape to it. Yet when I leave I get enmeshed in this sulky sadness. It leaves such a bitter taste in my heart. That I was on to something and that ‘thing’ is gone.

If I realize that it is only a part of life. That these moments, days are but a fraction in the continuum of life, perhaps then I will relax after leaving a vacation or a loved one. It is not merely a realization and then ‘aha’, I need to believe this. I need to believe that this is my whole life. With its ups and downs, losses and gains and that I need, I must, make the best out of every living moment. Life doesn’t feel sorry for you when you mess up. It will present opportunities for pleasure and it is up to me to milk that. Throw away sadness for if I get encompassed in it, Life wouldn’t care. Life is only so generous to give me these moments.

Finally, I am working on being grateful towards those whom I share my best moments with. And more importantly, towards Life for giving me these moments. Even if they last not, as they are meant to, they define and refine who I am. They enrich my soul, my consciousness and my existence. I become a better person not only through them but through outliving them, embracing their finality and moving on to create new ones. That is a life of accumulation. It is a rich life. It’s the life I seek.

No sadness, no worries. Just patience and being determined to live in the present moment and to make the most of it.

Stillness

I’ve lived my entire life in chaos. Not the kind of chaos as in, say, a war-zone. Nor is it the kind that excessive partying and irresponsibility would cause. It is a chaos of mind. My mind is always trotting here and there, seeking, searching, examining. That in of itself perhaps isn’t such a terrible thing. It is, however, the mental state it leaves me in, the state of tension, high-energy and alertness, that is the terrible thing.
Recently, I’ve taken up reading, and by recently I mean in the last two years. I love it and it brings me a sense of peace and stillness. However, that doesn’t last. It too soon fades and I’m left in a high-energy alert mental state again. Another thing that I’ve known to get me to that peaceful place is studying. Strangely enough, when I open a book or do work that’s related to my studies, my mind is calm. I am calm.
It is the oddest thing in the world.
Noticing people around me, the ones I really like, are calmer than myself. Or so it seems. In either case, that’s irrelevant, presumably, because it is me that’s important. What I mean by that is if I’m in a serene state-of-mind I can ‘be there’ for anyone, friend or not. If I’m panicky or restless, I can’t be there, even for myself.
It seems to me like a chronic state of mind and I need to change that. Taking up role model seems to help quit a bit. My favorite character from a novel that I finished recently is the epitome of calmness and rationale, Dr. Susan Calvin.
In this year, I hope to realize my objective of living in a calm, composed and still state of mind.

The show must go on.

I’m deeply hurt. I’m wounded. Expressing my pain won’t make it fade, or perhaps it will. I’m licking my wounds. Healing and moving on. Sailing on.

For the longest time, I rested my ship at a dock. It was the most beautiful one I’ve seen yet. Beautiful with all its sadness, terrors and cruelty. I realize now, I’ve been on that island for so long, I became to love it. I convinced myself, there’s no hope of ever sailing from that island, so I better suck it up, roll my sleeves and make myself at home.

As I’m sailing away I look back, I see the shore on which the tiger bit me and I see the scar it left on my skin. I see the hole I fell into when I was unfamiliar with the island, and I recall how my feet hurt from the fall. I recall how a little girl saved me. But then she went away. I recall the lonely nights in the cold, I recall the hunger I felt with every passing moment, till I almost starved and perhaps literally, too, I did. Yet food always came one way or another, scarce as it may be.

I can also recall the good times and the joy but they are far too near, I dare not think of them lest I turn my ship and set straight back to my island. Such a lonely place. On the ship, it’s a lonely place, too but because it’s *my* ship, it’s okay.

I sail into the West. I sail by day and night. For no sleep or food can stir me away from my cause. I will know not what lies ahead. But if the past is any indication, I know the future is not bland. My future is eventful. Hopefully, not too much though. I yearn for peace in a place I call my own. A place which I want to be at, with someone or some people whom I love and whom love me back.

The wind carries me now, and I will see, what this wooden ship with white sails, will bear me to.

Alone

When nothingness is all there is, complaints are the only answer.

Everyday I wake up and then I realize, that’s another day to live my life. Surely, out there people would only pray so hard and dream of living the life of me. But I want to move on. This boring, unsatisfying, unfulfilling life. Yet, it is not life, it is me.

You see, in God’s image humans are created, with the capacity of creation. We create our lives. I am creating my dissatisfaction, boredom, unfulfilled-ness. I also, alone, hold the key to the door of my choice. You see, alone, again, it is my choice, up to me, to be, who I want to be.

But even God took time and tiny effort to create the heavens and earth. It did not happen instantly. Similarly, to create a new life, it will require time and effort on my part. Giving up is refused. And it is that exact part, accepting that time-effort investment, where the struggle begins. Much like being at the shore, and needing to swim to get to that place you want to reach. It is a different activity than what is current, in the example given it would be the difference of being on land and swimming; the state of dryness and the state of being wet.

It is a different kind of struggle because also keeping this current sort of life is a struggle on its own, though a familiar unfrightening prospect. The decision has been made, to depart these lands. Though, the journey is yet to commence.

Prayer fails me, my heart is not in that state of humility and submission to pray. It is weary of the immeasurable laid expectations on its weak body. It wants to rage and rebel on the current state, and it has. Though, like a wild animal kept in a cage, it has been living bitterly since its ailments and calling fell on my deaf ears.

There are no further questions and no further answers, only action. Simply, as said before, to be or not to be. Only the future will tell, what the outcome of this chapter is.