“Being Is Enough

We are not always clear about what we are experiencing, or why.

In the midst of grief, transition, transformation, learning, healing, or discipline – it’s difficult to have perspective.

That’s because we have not learned the lesson yet. We are in the midst of it. The gift of clarity has not yet arrived.

Our need to control can manifest itself as a need to know exactly what’s going on. We cannot always know. Sometimes, we need to let ourselves be and trust that clarity will come later, in retrospect.

If we are confused, that is what we are supposed to be. The confusion is temporary. We shall see. The lesson, the purpose, shall reveal itself – in time, in its own time.

It will all make perfect sense – later.

Today, I will stop straining to know what I don’t know, to see what I can’t see, to understand what I don’t yet understand. I will trust that being is sufficient, and let go of my need to figure things out.“

I won’t be posting for some time, I’m sorry. I will let you know how it turns out.

Thanks for your time.

Somewhere along these trillions of building blocks, thought processes, memory, conciousness and unconciousness, emotion and imagination arise as different cells in the body, and perhaps entirely independent living beings, connect and comunicate. And we willingly give up control of our life to the chatter that goes on within us.

There are a lot of different philosophical, religious and scientific explanations of where the “mind” comes from and whether it is separated (dualism) or one with the body (monism), but this isn’t really what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about regaining control of your mind.

When you think too much you lose contact with reality. Fear, anguish, anger, passion are real feelings, but in our (usually vain) attempt to control them, to shape them, we get lost in our minds. We think about the “problem” until our mind becomes the problem. We think so much that it physically damages us and our heads and bodies ache.

I find that when I reach the point of no return I have to shut down. Find a quiet place and forget about everything else. For me this usually means being alone. No computer, no TV, no cell phones, no tarot cards, no books even. Give up control of my life for some time and just be… breathe and let the emotions flow through. It’s unconfortable in the beginning, because we are not used to it. Gradually my heartbeat settles down and time flows once again at a leasurely pace. Fear, anguish and anger disappear, as do any plans and expectations for the future. They’re not real, only the moment is real.

People around tend to think I’m depressed, sad, isolated, when in fact I feel overflowing joy once the mind begins to quiet down. I feel the sun on my face as it rises, the light which fills the room, that magical hour when the birds sing louder than the cars. And I feel love, everyday I feel love.

This is how I move on.

- From Love me, love my fool: Thoughts from a psychoanalyst’s notebook by Theodore Isaac Rubin

Discovered while surfing Contrarywise.

“I know what she is, because she is still the way I was. She loves me until it no longer serves her to love me. She adores me, until the time not to adore me arrives. So it is my business to make sure that time is long in coming. Because I do not love her in that way. The love I have for her knows that the well-being of the beloved matters more than that of the lover, because love is selflessness. She does not know that, I think. I would die for her, but she would not die for me.”
[...]
“He did not use the word ‘love’. For the last time in his life he wondered if he had wasted his love on a woman who only gave her love until it was time to take it back. He set the thought aside. He had given his heart this once in his life and counted himself blessed to have had the chance to do so. The question of whether she was worthy of his love had no meaning. His heart had answered that question long ago.”

Thanks for your time.

I could riddle you what all these cities have in common, but then I’d have to wait for the answer to write the rest of this entry… These are all cities where I walked. I did other things there, but that’s not important today. I walked. I walked till I dropped. I walked for hours on end, until I had no idea where I was anymore, and didn’t care. Different cities, same walk.

Though I had memorable conversations with family and friends during some of these, most of the time I walked alone. I can’t really say whether that was the reason for walking. I’m sure sometimes it was. Sometimes I walked to shut out the thoughts racing through my mind, a kind of fast-paced tai chi meditation. Other times though, there was such an emptiness inside of me that my legs took up the challenge to get the hell out of there. And sometimes I just walked to see the sights. Maybe I did get a calling to go “walkabout”, and the truth is, whatever the reason, I knew myself a little better every time I came back.

It had been a very long time since I walked around in Lisbon like I did that day. Same walk, different city, it seemed. Nothing changes and yet nothing is the same. Graffitis are recycled from one politician to the next. Groceries, stationers, restaurants and banks have different names and different advertising, but their insides look the same. The people on the street look the same. It reminds me of the quote from the Benjamin Button film. It makes you realize how much you’ve changed.

I got home that day feeling better, or at least, not as disconnected from the world. I cooked a vegetable soup and baked some bread. Home is where you’re at, even if it does feel incomplete at times.

Thanks for your time.

“A natureza de tudo o que me é querido e todos que eu amo é a impermanência. Não existe forma de evitar ser separado deles.”

Seguem-se as únicas fotos que ficaram dos meus 30 anos… e algumas horas. Peço desculpa pela qualidade, mas ao fim de trinta anos não se pode exigir muito mais

Bidjibah.

“It’s not offensive, is it?” asked a friend in a previous comment. No it’s not, but it doesn’t mean anything either. It’s not my name, though I have used it as a nickname and pseudonym on and off for, almost twenty years! In fact, if you google it, you’ll find my profile on Last.fm and Deviantart.

So, what is in a name?

I remember being around 10 years old, when our parents bought us our first personal computer worthy of that name: an Apple Macintosh LC. After a couple of months exploring all the software which had come with it, I was ready for more. These were different times and the internet wasn’t readily available, well, to anyone I knew. Instead, I just bought a few packs of floppy disks and got in touch with the shop owner who’d sold us the Mac in the first place. He cordially filled all the floppys with all the software he’d got from… other people, I guess. Different times, heh?

Amidst all  that abundance of freeware, shareware, and… other software was a copy of Adobe Photoshop. No serial number, no online activation, just a registration form to print-out and send by snail-mail. I wasn’t going to print it out anyway, but some moral dilemma inside me forced me to make up the name you see on the top of this webpage. Now, I have been the author of a few works of art (subjective definition), but this is one of the earliest memories I have of actually creating something out of nothing.

Even after so many years, it was my first choice when I started looking for a domain to register. I’m glad I did. It keeps growing on me.

Thanks for your time.

No entanto, depois de chegar a casa, bastou a minha irmã perguntar se estava bem, se se passava alguma coisa, para os meus olhos se encherem de lágrimas. Acho que até aí nem me tinha apercebido o que sentia. Nem consigo identificar uma razão específica para isso… Não tenho remédio para estas alturas. Geralmente acabo por procurar um lugar para estar sossegado, respirar fundo e deixar os pensamentos chegarem e partirem. Passam por ali medos, desejos, ciúmes, fantasias e nada é real. Na realidade estou apenas sentado a respirar, e às vezes a tentar que o coração não me salte pela boca!

Serviu para encontrar um grupo no flickr dedicado aos “Finger peolple” enquanto procurava fotos para acompanhar este desabafo e espero que sirva para mostrar que não existe direito ou torto num blog pessoal… Os desabafos são para serem feitos da maneira como melhor entendermos. Eu sempre escrevi muito mais para mim do que para qualquer outra pessoa. Quer dizer, qualquer outra pessoa para além de ti.

For those who haven’t read the About page, which I’ll be sure to post between this week and the next, here’s the summary:

My name is Ricardo, born in Brazil and raised in Portugal, though I consider myself to be somewhat “nationless”. The reason I’m writing this in English is one third because I can, two thirds because I want to.

I can because I started learning English at the age of eight and have since become a certified EFL teacher. The reason I want to is a bit more complex and I’m afraid I don’t know how to explain it entirely. On the one hand, writing in English gives these entries, news items and short stories a very different reach than they would have had in Portuguese. On the other hand there are quite a few situations where I simply find myself more comfortable writing in English.

With that in mind, I do intend to use both languages, depending on the situation, the audience, or just pure whim. At the moment I’ve only got a vague idea of what this website will turn into and the feeling that it’ll be worth reading!

Thanks for your time.