Life of a Writer

I have been living the life of a writer for three days now and I find it really cool and sort of sexy. Just have a look at my schedule:

7.30 – 8.00: wake up and cuddle with my wife

8.00 – 9.00: freshly squeezed orange juice, warming up and jogging

9.00 – 10.00: breakfast and shower

10.00 – 13.00: writing

13.00 – 16.00: lunch, sharing ideas about the book and other collaboration stuff, rest, buying food

16.00 – 19.00: writing

19.00 – 21.00: a stroll in town, glass of wine somewhere along the river. The plan is to squeeze in some tennis at 20.00.

21.00 – 23.00: answering e-mails, getting to bed, reading, cuddling

I mean, this looks like watching a character (played by George Clooney or Clive Owen, please) in a Hollywood movie – before a big one hits the fan, at least.

I really like this kind of life. Especially because the writing itself is so enjoyable – purely expressing what I think, feel and stand for and what I also believe would be meaningful and helpful to others.

Ok, to sustain this sort of a sexy life there actually needs to be a bunch of people ready to pay for the book.

But let’s deal with that later.

A short report

Gosh, almost a month since my last post. I have to give you guys a short report:

• my wounds and injuries are almost gone, I am feeling fine. Though I still don’t find the idea of getting back on my bicycle very attractive. I guess the bicycle will just have to rest over there in the corner for a while. And I still need to go and buy a new helmet – the best and the strongest one, that’s for sure.
• I have finished my working season and will lead no trainings and workshops for over a month, which is something that I really needed – a good long break from interacting with groups. In August I will do a two week conflict resolution and mediation process with young international group, over in the UK, but I don’t consider that work, but rather food for my heart and soul, something meaningful to do and to give. Ask me at the end of August whether or not it still was hard work
• me and my wife spent another week in “our” little remote village in the Southern Crete. An absolutely relaxing and nourishing time. I again enjoyed observing locals, men as well as women, with their dignity, inner peace, and utter absence of the frantic need to hurry and speed towards some ridiculous goals of modern times. I always find this very inspiring; helps me remind myself that life is not just work, work, work. And I also celebrate the amount of swimming I did on Crete – I am really proud of that, people, please give me some pat on the back, I need acknowledgement…
• While on Crete I finally had time to read two truly excellent books that gave me a lot of insight into the nature of life as well as into the nature of us, human species.  Both definitely belong among the most important books I have read in past five years and I highly recommend them.
  • Ken Wilber: A Brief History of Everything
  • Ronald Wright: A Short History of Progress

• And last but not least; the final decision has been made on writing a book so from tomorrow I am more or less unplugged from life for the next three weeks. The idea is to complete the rough version of the book before the end of the months so that when the work starts in August there will be only polishing left to do. I hope we (I am writing it together with my wife) are not being overoptimistic.

I have noticed that despite having over 20 themes on my list that I would love to write about on my blog, the focus of my mind and the passion of my heart has already been in the book for a couple of week, hence no new posts. And I guess July will be more or less dry in regards to my blogging.

But, hey, people, there’s so much more fun things to do in Summer then to read my ramblings, so get away from computers!

Definitely not a life-supporting choice

Being on my traditional solitude time on an Croatian island, I decided to go for a bicycling tour, although the sky was getting darker and darker. I hoped to complete the 50 km circle that I had in mind, before the heavy rain would start. Of course the thunderstorm started just after 20 km, and in a minute I was soaking wet, as if I was cycling underwater. I decided for a short cut and started pedalling as fast as I could in order to keep my body warm, hoping to get back to my van before I would catch a cold. A few kilometres before reaching the camp the rain stopped, but I was already very cold and so I just kept cycling as crazy, since the road seemed to be already drying up.

Yeah right.

The last long and very steep descend toward the coast, Robert with a lightning speed (OK, not lightning, but it was about 50km per hour) and suddenly there was a shady part of asphalt, completely slippery. Felt like an ice.

And I went flying, with weird voices in my head and intense images. I just felt my body was really soft, not giving any resistance, just rolling and rolling on the asphalt.

Then silence, just presence and voices of Dutch tourists getting out of their van: “Do you speak English?”… It took me some time to manage first movements.

So, the result: the right knee, both elbows, both hips, the right shoulder and the right side of my back and ribs – red red red. Not bleeding anymore, but a nice German lady from the camp ( a community formed instantaneously, people taking care of me, checking out whether I was, after the treatment, just dozing off on the grass or have already fallen into coma…) who, as a nurse, came to help, told me the pain would start tomorrow.

The scary stuff is that my clothes are in a pretty bad shape, cycling gloves all torn up and helmet broken, with two huge cracks. What would my hands and head be like if I hadn’t had gloves and helmet on? What would my life be like now?

Got me thinking afterwards how our lives are completely made out of our little choices. Had I chosen to wait for the thunderstorm to pass and leave afterwards, had I chosen to take another road, had I chosen to be cautious enough to drive just a bit slower, perhaps I would have happily completed my circle and right now planning another tomorrow. Or, had I chosen to not tighten my helmet firm enough, had I chosen to go even faster, had I chosen to try to control my falling rather then just to let go…

Yes, it is all made of choices, billions of them, and there seems to be no way of knowing where the choice I am making now is going to take me. One choice helps me maintaining this arrogant self image of the master of life, the other one turns me into a bleeding helpless cyclist on the asphalt. A choice to lift up my overweight backpack the way heavy backpacks should not be lifted – while on solitude trekking in Tierra Del Fuego a few years back –  turned me into a fragile little man, alone in complete wilderness, with a badly injured knee. Yet another choice in Tierra Del Fuego, to stop climbing the glacier in the deep fog and rather find a way around the mountain, perhaps helped me live this long.

We may be resisting this existential of freedom of choice, but, oh boy, are we freely choosing all the time.

A good dream

My first night on yet another retreat-on-an-island I had a very peculiar dream.

I was 14 again and just entered the high school. After about a week or so I came home and sat down with my parents. With an utter calmness and clarity within I announced to them that I have decided to not go back to school anymore. I told them that I realized schooling system was utterly destructive to my well-being, because it was going to kill my spirit, my essence. Since it was now clear to me that the whole aim and the structure of education was directed toward training me to be obedient, flat in mind and in feelings, to adjust to the social structures that were there only to support themselves, I now knew that to continue would be the end of any sort of meaning in my life. Schooling, with its routine of looking for mistakes and imperfectness in students, with threatening and conditioning, would eradicate the creativity within me and infuse me with meaninglessness, degrade me to an ant and have me vanish away. I told them I valued my life too much to throw it away like this, just to become an obedient brick in the wall.

My parents were just listening, no objections, no reactions of any kind, just respectful acceptance. I was speaking with peace, focus, presence and a sense of clear wisdom and knowingness.

And this is also how I felt after waking up. Peaceful, complete, satisfied.

A good dream indeed.

Modern friendships

I firstly noticed something different was going on about 15 years ago. A friend that I had not seen for quite some time, called and announced he would like to come for a visit, to catch up and things like that. Not more than 15 minutes after he came he opened up his mysterious bag he had with him and started to show material of some cleaning stuff he was selling. You know, the best available on the market. Ever. After patiently listening to his presentation for half an hour, I told him I was absolutely not interested. I thought we would spend the rest of the evening in a regular friendly chat, but no, he suddenly did not have any motivation to stay and connect with me, and so he left soon after. Gone a half a year or so and he called up again: “Hey, my friend, long time no see, let’s get together and catch up, how about me dropping by for a drink…” I looked forward to seeing him, especially because I thought that it was pretty clear to him now that I was not a buyer of his stuff. How naïve of me. After 10 minutes the mysterious bag opened up again and the presentation started. Only this time to be stopped very quickly by me – and again he left soon, losing all his enthusiasm for catching up.

I thought this was just a unique event, not announcing any sort of a new Zeitgeist, but similar things started to reoccur. Like, for example, an acquaintance calling about twice a year, passionately inviting me for a drink: “Hey my friend, long time no see, we have to sit down and catch up, as soon as possible…”, just to leave me wondering what this is all about when after an hour or so this very same person had nothing to tell me, nothing to share: apart from asking me briefly about what was going on in my life, with a somewhat suspicious look. So it was such a boring drink, no spirit, no flow, nothing. Yet I was invited again in a few months, and again, and again. To be briefly checked out, as it seemed. I was puzzled – why did this person keep inviting me if there seemed to be nothing at all he would want to talk about. Especially since he seemed rather bored, and also perhaps disappointed. And this was not a lonely example.

It started to seem to me that people wanted to sit down in order to check out whether they could get anything, not to share and connect. As if their perception of friendship was not what I thought friendship was all about.

Then I was presented by a very interesting thought through a dialogue with a man of my age while in NYC who said that it seemed to him that nowadays it was really about acquiring friends, not about relating to them. And yes, this was exactly what I was starting to understand through these encounters; that it is all getting so damn goal oriented. Build a network of people, as wide as possible, so that you can get something, career and business opportunities or something of this sort. So you have to regularly check people out and see if anything new – and perhaps useful for your means – popped up recently.

Yes, this is so much the way I am understanding where it is all heading: it is about quantity, not about quality, isn’t it? For instance Facebook, LinkedIn, Blog Catalog… The number of friends some people have on Facebook is bizarre. Also in Blog Catalog: “Hey, I add you as a friend if you add me as a friend, OK?” What exactly does “friend” in this stand for?

It seems it is just about numbers nowadays. The goal is to have more, more, more of them, more of friends, a wider network. How many friends do you have? How many readers do you have? How many visitors do you have? How many people do you have? How many of them?

I really wonder whether this is just a sort of an infatuation with all the possibilities this new social structures and technological possibilities are offering, or is it really a utterly new concept of friendship that is evolving. What will friendships be for our children and our grandchildren? More or less the same or completely different? It seems to me a bit scary that perhaps a concept of having friends and friendships that I know is going to disappear from the face of the Earth in a couple of dozen years.

Anyway, progress and evolution up and down, I myself don’t want to get anything from my friends. I just want to sit with them, share, connect, laugh and cry together, enjoy this link – no matter how illusionary it may be – just share and connect our lives and our lonesome paths through this life. That is what I need out of my friends, nothing else.

Don’t give up, kids, don’t give up

Before hitting the streets of New York I went to the top floor of my hotel for a swim and briefly observed a scene that remained in my head and in my heart; a young mother brought her 5-year-or-so old child to the pool and attempted to make him go into the water with the hotel swimming coach, a young lady. Boy was holding his mother’s leg and wouldn’t let go, quietly crying, with a sorrowful face. Both ladies were trying to persuade him, with unbelievably stereotypical sentences: “C’mon now, you are a big boy and big boys don’t cry. You don’t want to make your mummy sad, do you? Don’t cause problems like you did yesterday. If you stop crying and behave your mummy will buy you an ice cream afterwards, and you do like ice cream, don’t you…”

None of the three was happy and they all tried their best. Ladies tried to change the little boy, to fix him, to straighten him up and have him do what they wanted him to do. And the boy tried to emotionally survive. And it was obvious he did not stand much chance.

Later, while thinking about the scene, it struck me how nobody seemed to care why this little human being was crying. None of them seemed to even think that there might have been a reason for his tears, that perhaps there were some real human emotions and needs behind it all. It seems to me the little boy was feeling afraid, insecure, confused, needing safety, reassurance, connection, some more time to make gradual steps into the unknown…

Now of course, if you look from the rational perspective, it is not such a big deal, come on, mummy wants to take this little kid to a nice swimming pool to have some fun with the swimming coach, what’s so dramatic about this? But if I look with my heart it seems to me so very sad; this little human being, this little vulnerable boy in the big wild world, being pushed here and there in this life too-big-to-handle, all the time being corrected and told what to do and persuaded into doing what grown ups want him to do, to be. With not much power to stand for his own choice, needs, values…

When grown ups decide there is absolutely no reason to cry, children must stop crying. When parents choose to not give even one little minute of empathy to their kids, they need to stop feeling their feelings, stop needing their needs, because there is absolutely no logical reason for having them, right? The feelings, the needs, the values of children are seen as less important, of a lesser value.

What a difficult world children must cope with.

And so they become good, obedient, nice, clean, perfect, sweet, shaped just according to the framework set by their egocentric parents. After some thirty years or so they will start seeing a psychotherapist or attend personal growth workshops in order to climb out of these fixed attitudes that will be by then already fully integrated into their personalities, they will strive to grow out of the automatic role they have adopted in order to emotionally survive…, and they will start to get in touch with who and what they really are.

What a world, my friends, what a world.

Just an ordinary guy

The extent to which we tend to be concerned with our own image, trying to place ourselves and our own worth somewhere on the scale, the amount of attention and energy we dedicate to the impression management, self-promotion…, it all seems pretty ridiculous to me. There are so many other things to worry about in this world of ours.

The tiny little good news – in regards to my tiny little unimportant existence – is that, as it seems to me, lately there has been less urge or even tendency to polish my self image and worry about it at all. To a great deal of relief, because the thing used to be darn exhausting. I used to really cherish this sweet hidden idea that I am special, very special. And that the world yet needs to recognize this. I remember the first cracks on this shiny little devil started with some heavy blows on my thick head long time ago, a sort of waking-up experiences.

One that I really love to remember and still find incredibly funny happened on my first trip to India. I went there, at the age of 20, for the enlightenment and total liberation, of course. I guess thousands of people went to India with the same goal. So, I was not so very special in this regard, but I did like the thought that I would definitely be the one who will actually attain enlightenment, not like the rest of losers who came home humiliated.

So, there I was in a search of a guru. I visited many and was not satisfied (this already sounds pretty stupid, doesn’t it?) and finally learned about a wise man in a small village up north in Uttar Pradesh, where the Himalayas begin. On my first visit to the village, despite the intense search, I did not find the man. I thought this actually was a good spiritual sign, showing that the path to enlightenment was damn thorny. I loved it. I felt I was ready for any sort of sacrifices, I believed I was ready to face all the tortures needed for the liberation, with a blessed smile of Buddha on my smart face.

Next week, after gathering more info, I returned to the village and finally found him; he was a simple, kind, shiny, skinny old man, with soft eyes, white beard and soft voice. Just what I was looking for. He looked just like Ramana Maharshi and I believed this was the perfect sign. He did not make a big fuzz about himself or his teachings, but invited me to come back in the afternoon, to his home, and to meditate a bit with his friends. I learned later that he did not call anybody a disciple or a student, but just simple friends with whom he liked to meditate. Another good sign for me. He modestly asked me whether I was able to sit down on the floor and meditate for a while and was then overwhelmed with my self-promotion about how well experienced in meditation I was, how I loved to meditate and so forth.

So, I came back later that afternoon and we all sat down, about 6 or so of us, in this little meditation room. The old man lit a candle, explained the form of meditation he was inviting me to practice, and just before we closed our eyes he said that I did not need to worry about time at all since he was going to announce the end of the meditation with a bell, after 4 hours.

What??????? For hours? For hours of sitting in lotus, not moving, meditating?

I did manage to maintain the enlightened smile of a Buddha, but my mind exploded. I never ever did more than 40 minutes in a row, and here I was, on bare concrete floor, with this weird man and his weird friends, to sit for four hours???

It was a 4-hour-torture, to my body as well as to my mind. I did manage to maintain my image, my dignity, my ego, but that was definitely not a meditation.

So, the horrible 4 hours passed, the little bell rung, I slowly started to stretch my burning legs, atempting to preserve my blessed smile. And the old man, with some curious sparks in his eyes and a tiny smile on his face, turned to me and said: “I apologize for being so short with time today and so we were only able to do this much. But tomorrow you are invited to come at 8 in the morning and we will do a longer and more deep meditation, I was thinking about doing an eight-hour stretch.”

This time I was ready and I did not blink: “Great, I will be delighted to come, thank you for inviting me.” I had a plan in my mind already (I had plenty of time in the past four hours to develop a plan, you see) and next morning I caught the first bus out of the village, before 6 AM and oh, boy, was I happy to be on that bus. I did save what was left of my dignity by not showing up, well, sort of, , but my self image was not idealized anymore. Reality started to knock on the door.

So, it indeed is a relief to notice, after a couple of decades, to be less burdened by my own image, not evaluating or comparing myself with others too much anymore, in other words, not taking myself too seriously.

This indeed is how I understand the concept of personal growth: not necessarily seeing chakras all over the place and remembering past lives, but acting out the role of a victim less and be fully responsible in relationships, being aware of my own very human needs, humbly being aware of my own limitations, developing genuine empathy for other people’s needs, overcoming fear of stepping into the unknown… simple things like that.

So, perhaps the fact that I don’t think anymore that I am anything special and the fact that I almost don’t spend any time in front of the mirror – perhaps this is a sign of some improvements.

The connecting void of silence

By now I already got used to the fact that after a Soto Zen Seshin I come home with nothing to say – which I find really grand. And once again I am utterly fascinated by the process of just sitting in the moment – for days – with no goal, no meaning, no agenda, no plan, nothing that my mind is dependent on having around all the time. Just sheer presence in the moment. Although my lower back did not quite appreciate how long this moment was.

There’s yet another fascination I was feeling and am still carrying within me – namely the enthralment with the magic of silence. For three full days I was sitting in the same room with about 50 people in complete silence – and I believe this silence has connected us more than any words could have. The man that was sitting on my left and the lad on my right – somehow an intimate relationship evolved among us, though we never uttered a word with each other or even made eye contact. Yet this contact of ours was so sincere and open – I knew when they were having hard time with either their knees or with trying to stay awake, and I know they were aware of my tough moments. And we understood each other so damn well.

The time when people just sit together in silence holds such a deep magic for me. I remember last year on the Dialogue training (hey, there’s another one coming just next week – hurray) on one occasion a spontaneous silence happened and we were sitting there, in a circle and full interpersonal contact, for about half an hour. No need to say or do something, no urge to fill the emptiness with anything, nothing of this sorts at all. It just felt the most natural and right thing to do. Nothing was missing, everything was perfect.

Same things often happen in erotic relationships, don’t they? There comes this silence and the deep connection along. Any word would just spoil it all.

So I am thinking right now that perhaps the real contact lies in the silence, while the words are mostly a disconnecting modus of communication, the one that perhaps even deepens the gap, no matter what we say, because every word always travels through so many conscious and subconscious filters before it finally gets uttered. Perhaps somewhere beyond verbal communication there lies something deeper, more subtler yet more true, genuine and intense, something that we have a long time ago lost touch with. Something that we manage to grasp only occasionally, by an accident.

Sadly.

The beautiful dilemmas of life

The other day in New York City I was talking with a friend of mine about possible reasons for such a strong need in humans for an ideology – a religion, a philosophy, a new-age system and alike. Why is there always a seemingly endless queue of happy customers for just about any possible type of ideology?

Then it dawned on me – since the purpose of ideologies is to help us make some sense of the world, they offer us a model of the world and provide us with answers. This way they seemingly take the dilemmas away, especially these existential dilemmas, the most annoying ones. You know, the big four existential dilemmas about freedom/responsibility, death, isolation and meaninglessness.

Yes, this is what an ideology does – if you go for one, you are suddenly provided with all the answers, about life, death, future, nature of things, nature of yourself… Everything is suddenly clear, you have gotten rid of the stressful and frightening dilemmas and you are fine. As long as you stick to these answers you are safe, you will not be disturbed, you will have the comforting feeling that you know what your life is all about. It’s like a drug, isn’t it? Creating an illusion that your existence has no unknown realms, everything has been explored, there’s nothing to be afraid of, everything is clear. Just don’t forget to give some donation on your way out of the temple. And make sure you don’t ever question the provided universal answers.

This may be the reason why I find it so hard to communicate with people who belong to religious or new-age ideologies – whenever I express a dilemma of mine (like, oh, I am really wandering about the purpose of what I am doing in my life, for instance) they instantaneously jump with an answer (yes, but but but you must, you have to, it is like this, it is like that…).

I guess it all has to do with the ability to face and live with the unknown. To face the fact that there are and will always be these existential dilemmas around in our lives and they will not be ultimately answered – until the moment of death at least. Because all the possible insights into the nature of our existence are inherently embedded in so many contexts that they cannot ever be reliable. Yes, letting go of the illusion of knowing and sinking back into the humble role of ignorant explorer can be frightening. But you get used to it and start using the sentence: “I don’t know” more often again. Perhaps this is what Suzuki meant when he said that the true goal of Zen practice is always to keep our beginner’s mind, since only the beginner’s mind, the mind of the not-knower is free of self-centeredness and involves true openness to the complexity of existence. Tomorrow I am leaving for a Zen seshin retreat and I will have plenty of time to climb another few rungs out of the illusion that I know anything at all, and explore the beginner’s mind.

On feeding ducks

I really like the story Marshall Rosenberg, the father of the Nonviolent Communication that inspires me so much, likes to tell when explaining how he came across some of the fundamental ideas of the nonviolent approach to relationships. He was observing children feeding ducks in a park and suddenly realized it was impossible to say who of the two was enjoying it better – kids that were giving food, or ducks that were receiving it. It was evident that children were at least as happy as ducks, if not even more.

And this is something that I keep realizing over and over again in my life – that giving is actually more fulfilling that receiving. Perhaps this also has to do with my own personal difficulty to receive… – but this is another story. A long one, actually.

Yet, in regard to this giving business I started to feel so damn depressed and frustrated about a week or so ago. You see, I enjoy giving, I really do. I like to contribute to somebody’s life, do something for them, give them something, help them out, meet some of the needs they might be having. It brings me pleasure, happiness and fulfilment. But on that day I just felt I have reached the limit to it: the joy was gone and I was losing balance. Frustration started to creep in, along with the feeling that I am the only one, in certain interaction in my work as well as at home, that has been giving. I am not saying this is an objective reality, but this is how it felt, very strongly. I felt I had been giving, giving, giving and it was not joyful anymore – in fact suddenly each time I gave, I felt frustrated.

When I started to dig deep within myself and seek for the core of my frustration I realized it was not that I would be needing to be given anything back in return, like gratitude, acknowledgement, appreciation… Well, sometimes I of course am needing that too, but now, in this particular situation this was just not the case. The frustration seemed to be coming from the fact that I really needed – and still badly need – to experience that I am not the only one that is giving. I need to co-exist with others in an interaction in which everybody is giving and contributing, where this beautiful flow of giving and receiving is happening. I really want to be in this children-feeding-ducks-situation.

I guess this has to do with my longing for community that I wrote about some time ago. The desire to live with people that enjoy giving to each other. Yes, living with people that find it so damn joyful to walk around and feed the happy ducks, that they just want to keep doing it. Out of simple joy, not out of obligation, responsibility, duty…

Now, if I go and start telling this to people, it comes across as a moral pressure, demand, expectations and it just does not work. So, for the time being I will just be mourning and grieving over the fact that this need of mine is not meet.

Hmmmmm….

Ok now Robert, enough of whining, gotta go packing bags for a week in New York City.

Speaking of ducks; I guess I won’t see many ducks there.