Just a thought...

Sometimes your head is just so full of thoughts and images and memories that you can´t think anymore. You feel the urge to write something down, to think something through and it´s just not working. It´s like your thoughts are always one step ahead of your brain and all that stays palpable is their color. That´s where it really helps to read good books. Because if you´re lucky, you find thoughts in them you can hold on to.
I recently discovered such a book that was recommended to me by a dear friend (which actually means I didn´t discover it myself after all).
One sentence really stuck in this chaos and haze of adult life: "Every free minute is a short story with a happy ending" (Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts)
What would it be like to really stick to that thought? And to celebrate every minute as a short story. Wouldn´t that elevate our experiences to celebrations of complete awareness and make us live our lives really to the fullest? Even if it were short stories without a happy ending - they are valuable, too. I find myself sometimes rushing through life so much that I start having déjà-vus. I guess that is because I have not processed the moments with awareness and indulgence.
I admit, celebrating every minute might get a bit exhausting. But at least, it makes a difference to think about it. And to try to cherish our time. And the people we spend it with.

The Circus of Life

Chimpanzee, KP

When I look at the chimpanzee I drew in a creative minute last night, I imagine him in a zoo or in an arena, watching and imagining things he could do outside of it. And it strikes me that I sometimes feel exactly like this chimpanzee. Isn´t life a circus? We practice our show from childhood on. Some get very good at it and believe themselves that their show is their life. But sometimes it´s really about finding a tree to climb on and enjoy to misbehave and be wild.

Time flies

There is this one thing that is bothering me recently. I begin to perceive three months as a really short time before a deadline or some other event. Earlier in my life it was like "Oh, that´s in November, that´s so far away. It´s only August." Now it´s more sounding like "Oh gosh, November, that´s really close."

I´ve started to realize that I can´t live without my planner anymore. Appointments are made on the long run and my friends are usually booked out three months ahead. 

I don´t want to live like that. I don´t want my life to be a series of appointments. How should I know in August if I want to go out for dinner with friends on the 16th of November? Isn´t it a pity that spending time with your friends becomes an obligation in your planner? I tried to make my appointments spontaneously - and there is very few people whom that works with. So you get to decide - either enter the appointment mill or see only very few of your friends. Entering the mill with only one leg works for now. We will see how it goes later in life, when we all have a family with children, pets and a garden. I believe, it is important to stay spontaneous in every stage of life. And I´m pretty sure that this is possible - at least I will try to resist the planner for my private life a bit more. 

But let´s get back to the title of this post. I was shocked how fast weeks flew by the past few months, just because they were unbelievably packed with obligations and events. It was certainly exciting, but I wondered when I will every get the time to stand still for a moment again. To just sit and listen to my own thoughts. I know I need that, but there´s always something to do and somewhere to go and as I´m a curious person, I can´t resist the temptation. As Oscar Wilde says "Temptation is the one thing I cannot resist." How to find the balance between the exciting life and an inner peace?

Mind in chaos on a summer night

What is wrong with us humans? Why do we understand when it´s too late. We work, work and work. We work until we collapse. And we are said to be smarter than ants. I am not so sure about that. Some are, yes. They end up being crushed by the others.
Why does it take tragedies to make us understand what happiness is? To remember what life is. No one will remember the things he bought on his deathbed. A life consisting of shopping and business is sad and empty. In the end there will be nothing left worth remembering and being happy about. Nothing making you think "Yes, my life was fulfilling and I can let go. And I have given the people I leave behind enough love to let them remember me with a warm feeling." And that is the real tragedy. And the greatest misfortune.

Sometimes, just sometimes, we encounter people, who inspire us to live life as we should - to the fullest. These people are rare. And sometimes they are so far from people who are, or pretend to be, flawless. Who have the highest recommendations of society. Hardly anyone would trust a homeless person. But maybe that homeless person would give his life for someone. Do we know what led to his situation? No. But we judge. We judge as soon as we lay an eye on him. "Look at the man over there, honey, who never did anything valuable in his life. Never end up like him." But maybe he was betrayed. Maybe he lost everything.
We see a disabled person and feel compassion right away. Not noticing that this disabled person does not need our compassion, he needs to be treated like everyone else, to joke around and to live. And we do not realise that maybe this homeless person looks at a sunbeam and feels more joy than we did the whole last week. And the disabled person has a strength we will never gain.

There is so much more than what we can see with our eyes. And what is invisible to our eye is mostly what it´s worth living for. As the little prince says - what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Hugo...the Boss

No, I didn´t plan to invite my dog into my bed. Yes, I know that it is scientifically proven that dog owner´s sleep quality drastically wanes if they are woken up by a devoted face-licking session every morning. And a few times during the night. But who could resist those cute little button eyes. Well, I admit, accompanied by a bad breath that would never be forgiven in a lover.

One year has gone by since my little Tibetan Spaniel/Pekinese Hugo came into my life. Since then we are inseparable. He was found on the street, covered in dirt and fleas. I fell in love with him as soon as I saw his image on the internet. Seems as if we were destined to go through life together. It turned out, he had been found by my neighbours and a few hours later he was my new companion. I was happy and scared at the same time. Owning a dog and living alone is not always an easy task. But the reward of a dog´s love is priceless. 

My neighbour asked me not long ago if I love Hugo because he´s so well-behaved. People seem to forget that any misbehaviour of our dog is our own mistake. I feel Hugo getting nervous everytime I am not in a good mood. Your behaviour and condition is mirrored in your dog. And it needs a lot of dedication, patience and a bit of knowledge about dog training to make a dog a well-educated dog. No, when the dog enters your door, he needs to be well-behaved. If he´s not, he will be abandoned. End of story. There are no words to describe my disappointment in humans every time I see an abandoned dog on the street looking at me with sad eyes. Why? Because he was sad you were at work leaving him alone all day and destroyed your pillow out of boredom or dispair? Because you again walked him only ten minutes even if he´s a hunting dog that needs to be running a few hours a day in order to be satisfied? 

If you pay just a little attention to your dog every day and walk him a bit longer, you will be rewarded with ever-lasting, unconditional love. More than humans can give you in the most cases, isn´t it? Well, ok, they could learn our language to be perfect. But maybe they are so perfect just because they don´t speak it. 

I remember losing a lot of nerves with Hugo. He was not one of the easy-going ones, I had to fight for every tiniest piece of authority with a lot of patience and sometimes a small portion of despair. But he is my true companion, every day, in whatever shape I may be. I don´t know how my day would look like if he wouldn´t do his see-I´m-standing-on-only-two-legs-and-waving-to-you-I´ve-deserved-my-meal-earlier-dance. Or if I would enter the door and he wouldn´t come running with his guilty face in front of almost the whole content of my clothes basket. Or finding the furniture always in a perfect position. My, would that be a boring life.

Live. Experience.

I saw a commercial yesterday. It was advertising an HD programme and it was full of bursting colours and mind-blowing sounds, and of course a happy couple watching the huge flatscreen taking them to another world. I neither possess a huge flatscreen, nor am I a happy couple watching, nor am I delighted by watching explosions I could lose my eyesight from. But nevertheless, watching that scene you cannot escape the thought that an HD programme is the one thing missing in your life. 

What was really striking, was the slogan. "See more. Experience more." Have we reached the point today that we need to sit in front of the TV to experience things? Isn´t experiencing an activity? I watch other people sing in casting shows. Am I experiencing singing? No. There are enough karaoke parties, where I could experience it. I am watching a clumsy detective buying a magazine at a store. Am I experiencing it? No, I have a store downstairs myself, but at the moment I am watching TV, I am far too lazy to go for it.

Where does the idea come from, then, that we experience by watching TV? I believe that it has become especially hard nowadays to have the feeling we are really experiencing something interesting, exciting, or simply beautiful. We are flooded with sensations through television shows and movies every day, and nothing in our everyday lives could possibly be only half as terrific in comparison to the scenes that are boosted with special effects and too-good-to-be-true-sceneries. 

It has become very hard to recognize a ladybug that lands on your hand as a beautiful experience. Or just enjoying a beautiful panorama as an enriching moment. All of that is just not sensational enough. 

Ph.: K.P.

Thinking about the degradation of experience, I realised that the concept of experience differs significantly in English, German and Serbian. In English, experience is gained, it is a goal to be reached and you collect it like you collect photos in an album. There is an equivalent for experience in German, "Erfahrung", which is treated in the same way as the English "experience", but in this text experience is used in another sense. In German, there is the concept of "Erleben", stemming from "leben" - "live". In Serbian the concept functions in the same way "doziveti": "ziveti" - "live". In German and in Serbian fulfilling moments we "experience" are seen as the moments we live for, something that enriches us without having any further use for us. 

It is just the moments that make life really worth living. And they certainly cannot be found inside a box with moving pictures called television, no matter how flat the screen is and how huge the dimensions of the screen.

Dreams

How is it that we all start our lives full of dreams and destroy them one by one. When we are children, we imagine a splendid future. We are certain to be come superheroes, popstars, famous artists or, of course, princesses. Every approaching day seems sunny, colorful, exciting. Then we start going to school. Slowly a massive amount of numbers and letters flood us, leaving no freedom in the way we can combine them. We start to think about how to become a successful and admired personality. A lawyer, doctor or professor. Some of us will achieve it, some of us won´t. At the time we go to university, we start to call the quest for success and earnings our dream and we forget that our profession is not who we are, it is only what we do. After all, what do dreaming and considering law cases or cutting open human bodies in order to heal them have in common? Dreams should let us feel light and invincible. And our life would seem a lot brighter, if we wouldn´t stop to create them as soon as we reach puberty. Often, former dreams become nightmares, when we reach them. The ambitious fifth-grader who wanted to become the best lawyer in the district has achieved what she wanted now. She dreams about loosing her cases every night and wakes up feeling her heart racing and sweating. Dreams turn to goals, we dream of going to the seaside, of buying a wonderful house above the sea, having children, driving the car we like and similar. Why don´t we dare to dream the impossible anymore? Is it because we are too grown-up and are afraid of coming down to earth with a bang after all that dreaming? I think the opposite would happen. The more we dare to dream, the more is possible. And maybe we would be surprised what can be if we would stop to follow the given and "realistic" paths...