daring to share what's on my mind, combining the drawings and dreams from my notebook with what I write on screen. constantly under construction!
contents so far:
If I can call myself a teacher, I believe the job works like this: a teacher doesn't really teach the student anything but pushes them to discover it for themselves, and moreover, teachers don't think of themselves as a teacher, since a teacher is simply a teacher whenever there is a student; it's a relationship in which one creates the other. When I observe myself in the act of teaching English, I never believe I can teach anything; students will never learn if they don't want to, and I don't like to force them. It's like the story of the beggar who has been sitting on a box on the street for thirty years asking for money. One day a stranger passes by and, when the beggar asks for money, the stranger refuses. However, the stranger asks what's in the box. The beggar says he doesn't know, that he's never looked inside the box, and the stranger encourages him to look. Inside there's a treasure. The teacher is not the one who gives answers, but the one who helps you look inside, to find the answer for yourself.
What is in my hands is to spread the love I have for knowing, for learning, for reading and writing, for listening to people talk about what they are passionate about, for curiosity, for knowing and understanding, at least minimally, the complexity of this world. It is in my hands to push them to feel love for what they want, to know that they can achieve it. Education also involves fostering disobedience and creativity. I can't teach creativity, I can't teach dissent, but what I can do is undo everything that systematic education has done and show the infinity and beauty of creativity and the power to question and transform. I don't care what the subject is; it could be English or chemistry. It's about conveying a fascination for life and for all sentient beings, so they appreciate life—the greatest gift we have—and can continue to transform and accept the world. That's why I don't want results; I want to create a space where they are happy and feel safe in the world and within themselves. I can't teach anything other than my own truth.
You meditate, recite a mantra, drink green tea, try the Pentecostals, breathe fire. You center yourself, learn NLP, work with visualizations, study psychology, join a Jungian group. You try psychedelics, get a psychic reading, run, exercise, get colon cleanses, delve into nutrition and aerobics, hang upside down, wear psychic jewelry. You get more insight, biofeedback, Gestalt therapy.
You go to your homeopath, chiropractor, or naturopath. You try kinesiology, discover your enneagram type, get your meridians balanced, join an awareness group, and take tranquilizers. You try cellular salts, get your minerals balanced, pray, plead, and bow. You learn to astral project. You become a vegetarian. You eat only cabbage. You try macrobiotics, you eat organic, you don't eat GMOs. You hang out with Native American shamans, you do a sweat lodge. You try Chinese herbs, moxibustion, shiatsu, acupressure, feng shui. You go to India. You find a new guru. You get naked. You swim in the Ganges. You stare at the sun. You shave your head. You eat with your fingers, get really dirty, take cold showers.
Sing tribal chants. Relive past lives. Try hypnotic regression. Do a primal scream. Punch pillows. Submit to Feldenkrais. Join a marriage meetup group. Write affirmations. Make a vision board. Be reborn. Read the I Ching. Use tarot cards. Study Zen. Take more courses and workshops. Read lots of books. Do transactional analysis. Take yoga classes. Get into the occult. Study magic. Work with a kahuna. Take a shamanic journey. Sit under a pyramid. Read Nostradamus. Prepare for the worst.
Go on a retreat. Fast. But take sprouts, protein not mixed with carbs. Not garlic and onion because they block illumination. Take garlic for a good immune system. Take amino acids. Get a negative ion generator. Join a mystery school. Learn a secret handshake. Try toning. Try color therapy. Try subliminal tapes. Take brain enzymes, antidepressants, flower remedies. Go to spas. Cook with exotic ingredients. Research strange and peculiar fermentations from faraway places. Go to Tibet. Seek out holy men. Hold hands in a circle and get in the spirit. Give up sex and going to the movies. Wear some yellow clothes. Join a cult.
Try the infinite varieties of psychotherapy. Take drugs. Subscribe to many magazines. Try the Pritikin diet. Eat only grapefruit. Get a palm reading. Think with a New Age mindset. Improve ecology. Save the planet. Get an aura reading. Carry a crystal. Get a Hindu sidereal astrological reading. Visit a trance medium. Do sex therapy. Try tantric sex. Get blessed by Some Baba. Join an anonymous group. Go to Lourdes. Bathe in the hot springs. Join Arica. Wear therapeutic sandals. Connect with the earth. Get more prana and expel that black, vicious negativity. Try acupuncture with golden needles. Look into snake charmers. Try chakra breathing. Cleanse your aura. Meditate in the Great Pyramid of Giza, in Egypt.
You've tried everything, you say? Oh, the human being! What a wonderful creature! Tragic, comical, and yet, so noble! What courage to keep searching! What drives us to keep looking for an answer? Suffering? Hope? Undoubtedly. But there's something more to it. Intuitively, we know that somewhere there is a definitive answer. We stumble down dark paths to dead ends and cul-de-sacs; we are exploited and deceived, we become disillusioned, we get fed up, and we keep trying. Where is our blind spot? Why can't we find the answer? We don't understand the problem; that's why we can't find the answer. Maybe it's ultra-simple, and that's why we can't see it.
The house had holes on all sides, allowing everything to be connected. The walls didn't rise all the way to the ceiling to visually separate the spaces, but energy remained continuous throughout the house; the ceiling left gaps between the metal laths, fulfilling its minimal protective function; The interior “doors” weren't doors but curtains, and only one sturdy wooden one separated the inside of the house from the street—though there was no street, only a patch of jungle and a dirt path leading to the rest of the neighborhood. You couldn't tell if the sound of the dust Mother was sweeping was from outside or inside the house; there was no duality between inside and out, between one room and the next—everything was a single entity. It was an open space that said, “Nothing to hide, nothing to protect, nothing to steal, please, come on in.” A cat also occupied it, which at first I thought were three because it was there at every corner I turned. There was no mystery—it was just a stealthy cat sneaking through all those holes. Through those same holes, the smoke from the wood burning to cook the rice drifted in. They only had three metal spoons for serving food—a coconut spoon for the rice—and they used their hands for the dish. A ritual of breaking up the rice, mixing it with the curried vegetables, and making the perfect bite so that as few grains of rice as possible fall out. A whole art of eating. The feel of the food helps you process it as it reaches your mouth and stomach, the portions are perfect because they're the size of your hand and fingers, and it's fun. I could romanticize it more, but while they're eating their attention is on their phones, each person on their own screen watching short YouTube videos at full volume. One of the things I can be proud of about Spain is the custom of eating together, and although TV has crept in quite a bit, I think we're one of the countries that best preserves the tradition. Family is still a pack of wolves.
They aren't afraid of dirt; they throw everything on the floor, then scrape it up and dump it in the street, and afterward it comes back into the house through the holes. Here there is space and silence because things happen; there's no search for anything better, for more excitement—everything is already here. They let life pass not in a sense of passivity but by letting things be without wanting to fight the flow of life. And the typical saying “they're happy with so little.” Well, yes, because the label “little” was put there by the Western eye. I've never seen that ‘little’; in fact, I've seen the “little” that I have. Little green, few nearby rivers, little fire, little community, little tranquility, little silence. I think the phrase is better “they are happy with so little.” They don't want more; they have no ambition if it brings stress and means spending less time at home with their family. I suppose that's their Buddhist life. The less you have, the more you have. Emptiness is creative and generative. Having nothing, letting go. If there is attachment, there is fear, there is resistance. If we cling, everything works against us. The more I brace myself for the impact of the ocean wave, the more pain there is; let the wave pass through us. There is no resistance. That which you resist persists.
Guilt. The great boulder in my identity as a traveler. I feel guilty for not suffering, and, well, for not working. I grew up in a world where happiness has to be deserved and earned; it's not an innate or unconditional state. I'd even say I'm ashamed of not suffering. As I was growing up, I'd listen to my grandfather complain, “Mother of God, Lord, what a lot of work. What patience. Oh Lord. I'm earning my place in heaven,” or to my grandmother say, “after all the sewing and scrubbing I've done,” even my parents sighing and saying, “I can't keep up.” This is the first time I've sat down. Ugh, what a day I've had, Carme." I saw the adults living to work, sacrificing themselves because it's the Christian thing to do, just as Jesus Christ did for all our sins[1], and I, who have wanted to escape that, can't escape the guilt. I find it hard to believe that I'm happy just because, that good things happen to me without self-flagellation, without being a reward. And the more I sink into the pit of guilt, the more I think about how many people are suffering in the world while I'm here swimming in a tropical beach. I feel like going home to escape the guilt and because suffering is addictive, but it's not the solution. It's work to stop listening to all those voices in my head, to realize that the world I grew up in isn't the only model for living. Stop listening to the idea that suffering and effort lead to a reward (for my grandfather the reward was having a place by the Lord's side, and I hope he found it). That if you don't suffer it doesn't count. “How can you be tired if you haven't done anything?” “How can you be sad if you're traveling and not working? If you have no responsibility other than keeping yourself alive?”
I've never felt any pressure, nor have I heard any comments from my parents about my decisions. They've never imposed expectations or desires on my path. They've supported me in everything; even when I wanted to give up, they built me a nest where I could fall in exhaustion. I sometimes asked them what they wanted from me, where they wanted to see me, because I thought it would be easier for me if they told me what to do, if the script was written for me and not by me. Their only answer was that they wanted to see me happy. Genuinely, I've never felt otherwise. And of course, since worry and guilt become addictive, I put pressure on myself to be happy, otherwise I might disappoint my parents or everyone who wants to see me happy, and again, it's a purely internal pressure.
[1] How can I tell the Lord Jesus Christ that I don't have a problem with my sins? In fact, I think that before religion, sins didn't exist; they just labeled some actions as sins. Obviously, I'm not talking about extreme actions like killing someone