The most precious moments of my life

Today, while hiking in mountains (again no camera on me, only my phone, hence a lousy photo) with a friend, thinking about the quality of the time in my life, the question arose within me about what makes a certain moment in life a precious one. How do I evaluate whether a certain moment of my life was/is precious or not?

Locating the most valuable moments of my life is easy. Deep insights into the nature of my existence and various awakenings into the presence of now, that kept occurring in the wild meditative period of my life about 20 years ago – these moment were absolutely crucial and they are still here, with me. Being there when my kids got born, to participate in this miracle of life… Precious beyond words. All the aha moments of my life. All the magical moments of pure contact with others. Lying with my wife in bed, in tight embrace, feeling completely loved and accepted. The moments when I have managed to provide some support to somebody and was honoured to witness the sparks ignite in their eyes…

Now, when I think of these many precious moments, I can see the pattern. I believe I evaluate a moment of my life as a precious when it is either about:

• a full – and when I say full I mean full – presence here and now. When the mind stops, when the time stops, when all that can fall off actually falls off and the only thing that remains is… well, nothing, emptiness, just this…
• an open contact with another being, absolutely open, nothing in between. The flow, the connection, the union.
• the feeling that I have contributed to somebody’s life being more beautiful. When I see them shine. When I see them smile. When I feel they are taking my hand and that I have helped some needs of theirs being met. And when I feel this is meaningful to them. I guess I could also say that in these moments I feel I have given love and that this love was indeed needed and accepted. And I melt.

So, I guess, it is the presence, the openness and the free giving.

Just as simple as that.

If I start focusing my life around these three crucial attributes, I believe I should soon find myself living a very very precious life.

This feels very weird: suddenly the question of the meaning of life seems so frightenly simple and easy.

A beautiful shock

I believe everybody that has ever worked as a psychotherapist or a social worker, has heard enough heartbreaking family stories to be now highly aware of the consequences that certain ways of treating children create. I have, with years, developed such a sensitivity for that matter that it is not only rather stressful for me to observe parent–child scenes that are causing pain in children; much more, I started to notice that I actually automatically expect a power struggle to be happening at some point and so am all the time a bit tense when in company of parents and their kids. Not much, but just ready for the moment when a big one will hit the fan.

And yes, they often do happen to a certain degree, power struggles in which parents either go violent and want to have power over their kids, to win, to dominate, to have the final word, or going passively and become victims of their own little dictators, who at the end really freak out in these relationships with no clear boundaries.

These situations tend to evolve and turn into habitual nightmares in which parents go manipulating (…but don’t you love your daddy?), threatening (…if I see you doing this just one more time you are going to regret it!), laying guilt trips on kids (…our kind visitor is going to be very sad and he is going to cry…), lying (…I really don’t have any money left to buy you a chocolate…), evaluating (…you are such a selfish boy and you are making your mommy so sad…) and so forth. The latter one is a particularly hard one for me to hear since I have heard it so many times in my own childhood. And it was damn painful, confusing and isolating feeling. Terribly isolating.

Well, this is a post about good news, actually. You see, being ready for the worst, sometimes I experience a beautiful shock. The last one was when spending time in Warshaw with my newly acquired friend Ian and his little daughter. Of course, for about ten minutes or so I was in my typical state of alarm, but than I noticed how respectfully, with gentleness, patience, empathy, honesty, openness and love he was treating her. And I started to feel I was just melting down in a relief, just emotionally relaxing, breathing again.

Suddenly it was so great to be there, knowing I did not need to worry; he was going to handle everything in the most beautiful way. All her ups and downs, all her problems and demands, all her feelings and needs, all her worries and confusions. Man, was I enjoying their father-daughter company and all that day became beautiful, with love all around.

I don’t know, Ian, if you are ever going to read this, but thank you so much for infusing that day for all of us with all that love.

What do you do with friends?

Something rather new is happening in my life and I am a bit confused, when I think of it. I used to move through my life with a handful of good friends around, about the same amount of them most of the time, not too many, not to few, just about right. And I am talking about friends as I have defined them in my Friendship on an island post. I would just add one additional attribute of a friend to the two in the mentioned post, and this would be a “soul mate” quality, an open flow of connectedness, or perhaps immediate recognition of that. A non-erotic variation of being in love, I would say.

Anyway, about a year or so ago this established number of friends in my life started to increase radically. Perhaps I opened up a bit more and started to see, respond, attract, resonate, connect… more than I did before, perhaps something else has changed, who knows, but what firstly started as a noticeable increase in the number of genuine connections, has slowly turned into a waterfall of true and good friends pouring in. I keep meeting new friends while travelling (the last one joined my collection just last week in Warshaw) or in my home town and there’s truly abundance of them nowadays. Plus there is, of course, this blogging tribe that is throwing all these beautiful people at me. I mean, Robin, Sanity, Razz, Jennifer, Hayden…, what else can I call you guys but friends.

And I am being the same sort of a rather introvert and anti-social guy as it has been the case in the last ten years or so.

Well, I hear you say, what is the problem? What is there to not know about that? You are getting loads of friends in your life; enjoy and quit complaining!

And you are so damn right.

But the thing is that I have noticed how my mind has been utterly spoiled by this action-oriented type of modern mentality. The urge to do something about it, to create something out of it, to move and to evolve it, is growing. You know, I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! It is true that I do not have any burning need for helping hands nowadays, nor do I enjoy just hanging around with people, talking nonsense in order for the time to pass. But, but, but, I cannot just sit here and have all these friends scattered around the globe, there must be something to do!

And there goes my mind: “Let’s organize something. Perhaps a gathering. Every month in a different city. Or let’s do a facilitated mind-blowing retreat together. Workshops. Re-unions. Perhaps just simple parties. Hm, maybe not just parties since they tend to turn meaningless, let’s do a facilitated thing. At least a karaoke night. Or, let’s do a Skype conference. Or perhaps I should just invite everybody here… Or, perhaps we can write a book together. Or…”

This mind of mine is really a funny creature: it wants to move and to change things. Even friendships. I mean, how eternally far away am I already from the scene we so often saw on our journey to the East in places like Eastern Turkey. Friends just sitting together.

Now, I do have some doubts whether their wives had the same appreciation of the ways their husbands used to enjoy the company of friends every day from mornings till sunsets, but let us stay focused here.

The thing is that it seems to me I need to re-learn to just be with people, not having to do anything. Even when I am all excited about them for them being so beautiful and for feeling such a fulfilling connection between us. It is OK just to be. When I think back of Zen seshins or dialogue processes and remember the beauty of the moments, when there is interconnectedness between everybody in the room, yet there is no need to do anything. Presence and silence are enough.

But still, it is kind of funny; at 42 learning how to just be with people. How to just be with friends, without having to do anything.

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.

Friendship on an island

I am still enjoying tranquillity of the surrounding and the aloneness – I haven’t felt so much rested and relaxed for ages. Tomorrow I will go back home – if the wind is not too strong and so ferries will operate.

Yesterday an old and very dear friend Nado came to visit me at the camp. He leaves about 60 km away, in an old coastal town Zadar and is a professional musician, guitarist. On top of that he also manufactures most exquisite hand-made hard-wood electric guitars and electric basses one can imagine. Thought electric instruments, his guitars preserve the rich sound of the acoustic instruments – it is probably the wood he uses, but I believe it is definitely also the love he infuses into his pieces of art. Check it out.

Spending a couple of hours with him in an honest and easy conversation, about life, relationships and midlife crises, of course, filled me not only with a lot of warmth in my hearth, but also with a lot of thoughts about the friendship.

Nado and I have met 20 years ago in the military service – we were both sent to the same army unit in Montenegro. It was not the easiest time of our lives; however we became friends instantly and supported each other until the end of our terms. We even played together in the army rock and folk band.

We keep meeting each other every few years here and there, remaining open and supportive. I believe these are two crucial factors that transform a relationship between two individuals to what can be called a true friendship. Openness and mutual support.

I have once heard or read someplace that the proof of friendship is not that you are on-line non-stop with certain person, but that you remain open to that person even for decades if you do not see each other – and when you sit down again after all that time, the openness is there instantly, you just continue from the point where you have had paused, right on, no need for small talk, no need to introduce and test each other.

And the issue of the mutual support; I guess this is the feeling when I know I can ask for support whenever I need it and the other person will immediately respond, no question asked and without a moment of hesitation. To me it does not mean that I will be using this potential of friendship all the time – in certain friendship I actually never used it so far, I think – but just the feeling that this quality of the contact is present, makes the difference.

Just now, writing this I realized that I actually have a lot of friends like this around the world. Just knowing this feels me up with easiness, warmth