To do what you’ve got to do

This is what I call fast: a couple of weeks back I have met him at the Warrior of the Heart training in Belgium, and a week later Steve, on his tour around Europe, already visited me in our home. Having him here for a few days and taking him around the country was really great, but what was the most meaningful thing for me was, as usual, the simple and sincere sharing of where we are at with our lives.

And the thing that touched me the most was when he was sharing with me his experiences and feelings of working voluntarily in the Kufunda Learning Village in Zimbabwe. Now, everything he shared with me was so damn inspiring that I immediately felt like joining in and contributing what I can to that beautiful project.

On the other hand, I have sensed the typical humanitarian sadness and frustration in his words. A general feeling of fighting an omnipotent and invincible dragon there. For every head that is cut off, hundred new fire-spitting heads pop up. For every problem solved, a thousand of new problems incarnate. For every child saved, there will be hundreds of children dying tomorrow.

We are not saving anything really. And it can be very depressing to face that.

I guess we are down to the question of ethics, the question on which basis do we choose, in our lives, what to do and how to do it. There are, generally speaking, three basic approaches, as far as I know.

The first one would be to just follow the rules and duties, imposed by the culture or authorities, the so-called deontological approach. They say I should be honest and not lie, therefore this must be the right thing to do and so I will stick to that. It is said that I should go out and help people and therefore this is the right thing for me to do and so I will do it.

The second one would be to think about the consequences of actions and go for the actions that will ensure me the consequences I want. If I lie, I might get caught and then I will be punished. This consequence I do not like and so I will not lie. If I will be honest people will like me, which I prefer much more than people not liking me, and so I will be honest. And if I will help people, than not only will people help me back, but the planet will be a better place and we will all be so happy, like in Hollywood happy-ending movies. Now, this is a very nice consequence, isn’t it?

But perhaps, if I choose to be honest and to not lie, people will, in some cases, be hurt and consequentially angry with me. Perhaps they will not like me anymore. So should I lie anyway? Just a little bit? Is there a good lie, the one that makes people happier than the bad truth? Hm, I am getting lost. And, why should I go saving the world if I know that I can not save it. If I know that everything is going downhill. If I know that the child I save today will die next week. Why should I do it and not somebody else (a classical excuse in consequentialist way of thinking)?

Frankly, the more I think of it the more I believe that the good old Aristotle was damn right in saying that thinking about consequences will not get us anywhere and with his suggestion that it is best to live by the ethics of virtues. When we are not concerned with the results of our actions, but rather with the question of how we want to proceed in our lives, what kind of people do we want to be. In this case I am choosing to be honest simply because this is what I want to be: a honest person. This is how I want to live my life. I do not even want to lie on a burning stake, for that matter. And I do want to be nonviolent and respectful towards others; not because some god was reported to have said so or because I believe I would get some sort of a reward for that, but just because this is how I want to live my life, even if it gets me in more troubles and even if this means I will not make all that shiny money.

So, back to humanitarian work and helping people: I believe the only thing that will get a humanitarian worker through all the ups and downs is this very approach of virtue ethics. Helping because this is you, this is what you want to do and what kind of person you want to be. Helping because this is how you want to spend and experience your own existence.

Now, the question for myself, of course, is: Do I dare to climb that horse or am I just trying to be smart here?

And I am back to the question of courage again.

I did not come here to feel safe

Summer is the time for me to go around and learn, gain inspiration and make steps. This one was, again, fruitful, with the two main events being the NVC training in Germany in July and the Warrior of the Heart training in Belgium in August. And I guess it will take me months to really digest it all.

One of the strongest realizations for me from the Warrior of the Heart training came while we were practising with our swords and under guidance of our sensei Bob Wing. We were not only practising delivering a perfect cut with the sword, with full presence and centre, but also receiving a cut, a strike. It was about actively engaging rather than passively receiving. Actively meeting rather than hiding away in fear. Never be a victim but rather, with full presence, meet, engage, accept and co-create. Never be a victim of circumstances, of life. Which does not mean you want to win anybody over, of course.

Through the practice I have felt that something important was there to understand about my life, but it did not dawn on me until Bob shared a short story with us about an incident at one of his previous workshops. They were sitting and sharing in a circle and a conflict happened between a few of participants. Many harsh words were being said and finally a couple of participants said they did not feel safe enough in that environment and stated they were going to walk away from the workshop. At the moment of a heavy silence that occurred, a man stood up and said: “I do not know about you, but I know about me that I did not come here to feel safe! I came here to engage and to learn through experiences, be it nice or not so nice.”

At the moment of hearing this story, the realization hit me so strongly that I had to gasp for air.

Yes, I also did not come here, to this life, to this existence of mine, in order to all the time seek shelter, to hide and to try to be safe, to feel safe. By no means! It would be a complete waste of my life. No way!

I am here to have a full intercourse with life, with the existence, and not to masturbate somewhere alone in a safe closet. I am here to experience it all, with all its aspects, all successes and failures, all ups and downs, all the good things and the bad things, all acceptances and rejections. I am here to experience it all fully, steadily, readily, actively. With full presence. This is what means being fully alive and this is what brings the meaning to it.

To hell with this search for safety; I know this would not be something to be proud of at the last hours of my life. But the fullness of my existence, the full life, yes, this is something that I feel will give me peace in my heart.

I am not sure whether I remember every word of the poem correctly, but this is what I can recollect and what inspires me tremendously.

I am proud of my scars,

because they show I have lived.

I am proud of my wounds,

because they prove I am still alive.

I am proud of the spaces between,

because they mean I still have a reason to live.

The Hunt for Mona Lisa

A few years back I carried out a small-scale ethnographic research on the question to what extent are tourists genuinely interested in historical monuments and art pieces, after they have made the effort to travel far to see them. My observations were rather entertaining, but also thought provoking.

While sitting for hours at a tourist historical attraction, I observed that most of the tourist seemed predominantly bored by the monuments and historical sites they were visited and lacked a genuine interest for what they were visiting. A tour guide on one site told me that the first questions at the beginnings of guided visits to the site was usually: “How long is this going to last?” It seemed that tourist felt they just had to do it, to tick it off the list so they could, without guilt, retreat back to their beers, hotels, shopping, beaches…

But the entertaining part was to observe the choreography of a typical visit, for instance at the archaeological site. Nearly all parties carried a photo or a video camera – in most cases men were using them, sometimes women, but never both. On the other hand, women were as a rule carrying and studying the map of the site. The standard procedure for the couple at the site was that, after reaching an individual monument, men would take couple of photographs or video shots while women would study the map and try to locate their position on it. After both, the photographer and the navigator, completed their tasks, a tiny satisfaction could be observed on their faces; they looked around for a moment, seemingly trying to figure out what more was there to do at the spot, and than continued to the next monument.

In extreme cases the camera person was continuously making video recordings throughout all the journey around the site, with the navigator quietly leading the way and briefly pausing at the monuments.

So, men definitely looked like hunters, shooting down every single trophy at least half a dozen times, while women supported and lead them, did some intellectual and parenting work… Pretty archetypical. And, oh boy, were there many nervous conflicts to be observed.

So, this time I visited Louvre in Paris because of my daughter mainly (I have visited it before, in a much less crowded time of the year) and while finding our way through the crowd…

…I was automatically continuing with my observations. So here are people worshipping the Mona Lisa…

…and then the Venus.

So, this leads me back to the question: “Why travel?”

A community?

Not long ago I was whining over a lack of a community, yet just this morning I realized that this interaction with beautiful people through blogging actualy does seems like a small community forming out. Over past months I have met and connected with wonderful and inspiring people that I otherwise would never know even existed. And if this process continues, and I see no reason why it wouldn’t, perhaps I will meet some of you sometime, in flesh, and, well, this is really great. And yes, it is a community.

I am packing my van again and will be off, this time with my daughter Lucija, to Paris and afterwards to Belgium for an Aikido training that we will take together. And though I am really looking forward to this special trip with my daughter, I am already missing you guys. Really.

So, be well and see you (khm!) in about two weeks.

Beautiful things still do happen

As I already have expressed many times in this blog, especially in The terrifying lightness of denial and Is life really all that beautiful?, I am gradually perceiving and facing the horrible amounts of pain and suffering in this world and along with this and with my age the eagerness to save the world I once had, is slowly dying out. And the depression and apathy are creeping in.

But, occasionally, there are strong sun rays that break through the clouds and this growing shell of my pessimism, and here is one of them.

This is something I was presented two days ago and no matter how many times I watch it, it keeps always opening up my heart and filling my eyes with tears. Yes, there are beautiful things that still do happen and yes, sometimes they are being brought about by a very commercial things as well.

As one of my fellow bloggers said, the producers of this show perhaps this one time went to sleep with a warm feeling that they have actually enabled something beautiful to occur.

Do not have children

Observing a family with two small kids, setting up a tent next to our camper during our short adrenaline vacation in Slovenian mountains (rafting, high ropes, canyoning, paragliding, bungee – verdict: canyoning most enjoyable, bungee most terrifying, paragliding possible future), I remembered a post by my blogging friend Robin Easton on how families with small children are often being looked down upon and avoided in camps, everybody fearing that their vacation is going to be disturbed. So, I immediately decided to not fall into this trap (as I actually even vowed to in my comment to Robin’s post) and be positive and open towards them.

But, oh boy, did that prove to be a difficult task in the next couple of days.

Kids were about 2 and 4 and they were crying ALL THE TIME. Parents were a young and completely depressed couple, just attempting to switch kids off in the evenings, in the mornings, during the days, just to park them somewhere and have some peace of mind. Unsuccessfully. I have not seen them smile at their kids even once, never giving them a single encouraging and gentle glance, let alone any sort of touch, hug, kiss. It was basically just ordering them around and rolling their eyes when the crying started again. They never unpacked their bicycles, never brought any ball or toy or anything from the tent. Kids seemed completely lost, helpless, unhappy, confused, and parents appeared to be at the edge of sanity, worn out, disillusioned, depressed.

It was so easy to have empathy for all four of them. Yet my knowledge of their language was not good enough to do anything really and I also did not feel like jumping into any sort of rescue missions here.

This was obviously not what these two people had imagined a family life to be like – well, this is not what any parent ever desires for. A constant mutual torturing. Yet, not every family scene in the camp was like that at all. There were extremely happy families around, with laughter, play, joy, hugs and kisses, expressions of love and beauty, everybody enjoying each other and life.

I guess I am a bit pissed off by this let’s-have-kids propaganda. Photos of happy mothers with happy babies everywhere, romantic images of loving families, all the celebrities – all delighted and mystically uplifted – speaking how having kids changed their life and brought meaning to them and all of that. And then, when young couples are all crazy about each other, when their brain is temporarily out of order because of being in love, when all families are hinting them to hurry up and produce some grandchildren, yes, it is then so easy to see only the bright part of it and jump into having kids.

Yet, all too often they have no clue about the reality behind it all, the one that was so lucidly expressed in my beloved film Lost in Translation, when Bob, telling Charlotte about life and having children, says: “The most terrifying day of your life is the day the first one is born… …Your life, as you know it… is gone. Never to return.«

So, I would like to scream to all the young future parents, please, for everybody’s sake, DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN – unless you fully understand, that:

• you actually do not have to have children. It is perfectly fine to live your life with no kids. There’s plenty of children in this world and nobody will suffer if you simply choose to not have them because you do not feel like having them.
• yes, having kids is one of the most beautiful things that can happen in life, yet it is also a very, very, very, very hard work
• once you have kids, you have them for good. You cannot change your mind. Ever.
  
• you will be fully responsible for them and your relationship with them for many, many years. No time-outs, no excuses.
• raising children will demand huge amounts of your time and energy. Therefore you will have much less time and energy for yourself and for your relationships with your spouse. This will bring about conflicts, dilemmas, problems, that right now you do not even dream of.
• raising children will ever demand changes within yourself and the relationship with your spouse. Raising children is actually not doing work on children but rather working on yourself and all the stuff that keeps coming up. You can not do a good job with your gloves and asbestos suit on. You will need to get fully naked and be willing to be influenced on a daily basis. It will change you a great deal, whether you want it or not.

But, on the other hand, it is all about the unconditional love, the beauty of life and all the magical subtle joys that will bring about the best moments of your life. There are so many of your needs that will be met and you will have a honour and a pleasure to meet so many needs of your children. And the hugs you will be getting from them will be the warmest and most sincere hugs you will ever experience. And their tiny little fingers trustingly holding your tired hand on a late afternoon walk, while sharing some basic truths of life – well, this will keep you going for centuries.