Living alone and Brussels [on compassion]

A couple of months ago, a story began. Many stories begin at any given point in time but we rarely know how the story goes on - like the 1001 nights stories - never ending escape and imprisonment. There are stories you would tell in loud voice, in front of people, without fear of rejection, without being laughed at but with a laugh, stories of mystery and mysticism, stories of complicated plots and characters, stories of linear plots and simple characters ...

I was travelling in Amsterdam when a story began. It had been incubating for a while as all stories do - they are collection of light rays scattered randomly, waiting for that perfect glass element that will focus them at the right time, on the right plain. They are just the continuation of past stories - stories scattered when they reached an end of a path, a wall, a mirror. 

Today, walking the streets of Brussels, the story comes to a next chapter. Today, living alone is not something to avoid - one must get out of one's own imaginary shell - a shell that does not even exist - and walk into the guarded garden of common-hood.

Living alone is not about confusion or loneliness or isolation. Living alone is about enlightenment and freedom. I still do not know where the boundaries of my "self" are, I still look to others with uncertainty, I still define my "self" by the environment and by the boundaries of the "other". I still look for the microphone pointed at me (rather than at the important person in the middle of the square), and I still exchange a smile with the chocolate-drugged teenagers, and I know that the colourful clothing is just a scream "this is me, here! stay back and go find YOUR color!". 

I removed the headphones - I wanted to hear the city and the people; I walked the streets, slowly; I looked like a tourist with a camera hanging on my neck (and on Sunday, that's all that Brussels is about); I used the camera as an eyelid - to wink, to show the others that I am one of them smirking shyly at the peeing boy. And that's not loneliness, nor isolation, nor confusion. 

This is empathy and compassion. This is the power to feel anyone, to be anyone, to define your "self" as someone you admire, to shy away from the world when you want, and to help the shy away from shyness, to morph and be morphed, to adapt and be adaptable. In today's culture, we are lead to believe that knowing who you are, and being yourself is a good thing. And yet, we are criticsed for "having changed", for no longer "understanding", for "being stubborn". I do want to change and to adapt, and to mend, and meld and mold. And living alone helps me expand like water and air - filling the voids in between the others whenever necessary, wherever left.

Rebirth

Has it ever happened to you? To feel that your life is a like a movie-script? The bad kind of a movie? With a shallow dialogue about the choice of the tomato, the monotony of the routined waking-up-before-the-alarm-clock, the “plan” for the day step by step down to the toilet-breaks, the surrender under the exhaustion of the unprecedented and so annoying hole in the sock, or the social pressure (from Facebook, for example) to wish “happy birthday” to someone whose friend request you accepted out of courtesy or to someone who is so dear to you that wishing “happy birthday” on Facebook will be taken as an insult. While this bad script goes through the mind, one observes passively the *things* in Japan – the things we see on TV and read about are just like … well, things that we read about and watch on the TV – distant, unrelatable, realistically fictitious (and fictitiously realistic?). Life becomes mere existence – just like the pen continues to write if there is ink and gravity, just like the glass lets all light through as long as it is not shattered, just like one can’t walk without standing up – life goes on until the muscles in the heart exhaust the last smidgeon of their DNA inspiration.

But this isn’t how the movie ends.

It is about that time of the day when you’ll surprise yourself and would break the rhythm. You’ll listen to new music, you’ll take that left turn that you always avoided, you’ll take off all burdon and leave it behind, you’ll sit and stare at those things you always took for granted, you’ll say “thank you” to everyone – one by one – in your mind (not to them – they don’t have to know it), you’ll merge with your primal instincts, you’ll remember where that DNA inspiration was hiding (hint: it’s all around us), you’ll absorb the sun through your skin better than the lizard can, you’ll protect what needs protection and you’ll succumb to what offers temptation.

Today, I listened to a bird. Today, I ran (away). Today, I took off my clothes. Today, I looked up from the edge. Today, I bathed in a mountain spring. Today, I merged with it. Today, I thanked the sun (for warming me up afterwards). Today, I felt my DNA. Today, I was reborn.