Leap of Faith

Pentru o buna perioada de timp, acesta a fost anul in care mi-am pierdut cuvintele si a trebuit sa ma gasesc pe mine in naufragiul produs. 

In acest drum inapoi spre mine, a fost si anul in care m-am conectat cel mai mult la partea mea nomada. On the Road, descoperind locuri noi, facand mii de pasi, descoperind oameni noi, colorati si diferiti. Descoperind ca viata nu se termina aici, ca exista atatea drumuri si dincolo de. Atata timp cat te ai pe tine insuti/insati, you are enough. Invatand a sta in mijlocul furtunii pe care nu o poti opri, si asteptand sa treaca.

La final de zi, si la final de acest an de lucru, dincolo de roluri sau proiecte, aleg Omul. Asta este ceea ce am invatat si ceea ce am ales in mijlocul acestui naufragiu. Aceasta a fost epifania din aceste zile. E usor sa devenim persoanele care ne-au produs cele mai adanci rani, sa ne mai oprim sa mai avem incredere in altii, sa mai dam spre ceilalti, sa mai credem in ceva. Sa ne oprim sa mai spunem ,,multumesc", sa fim recunoscatori pentru cei care ne-au ajutat, sa recunoastem unde noi am gresit. 

Detasarea nu inseamna a nu mai simti ceva. Inseamna a constientiza ceea ce simti, a sti ce e in puterea ta si ce nu e. To let it go, fara resentimente. Si de a te ridica de jos, integrand naufragiile interne in perspective si forte noi. 

The Year that Hit Home

2025 was the year where I tested my own limits and showed myself what I can do. It is the year where I embraced my independence and fully enjoyed it, professionally and personally. It is the year, that conscientiously, I started growing and wishing more.

It is also the year that hit the hardest in the last couple of years. Yes, right now I feel like sitting in a storm, in the middle of the sea, staying on my feet, but surrounded by huge waves of water, ready at any moment to swallow me. And I keep on fighting this, scared at the same time that this time is too much. It is the year that hurt like hell, and opened that locked door, where my hypervigilance was locked. Didn’t miss it at all.  

And here, down, in this abyss of the sea, I saw and felt that there are still humans who can see me. Some of them, old friends, here as pillars of my foundation, present here, maybe not as intense as in the past, but as a “pain in the knee”, knowing that you can count on them. And I am truly grateful for that.

2025 has been the year when I finally made that step towards Home, towards others like me. Because the bottom of the sea is full of people who struggle. With the past, with their traumas, with their pain. People who don’t want to talk about the core, their roots, although they we are highly defined by it, since it’s the source of our energy. The greater the Super-Ego, the greater the ID.  

And this is the lesson, the reminder, that 2025 brought me. We are all energy, both positive and negative. And we all have the agency to choose between these two. Empaths and narcissists are on the same line, born from the same chaos, but each chooses something completely different when it comes to the vulnerability they see in others. One creates and becomes a wall of protection for the vulnerable, while the other uses the power of others’ vulnerability as a source for their own power. Because paradoxically, vulnerability is power. It is we who choose what to do with that chaos/that Beast inside of us, to flip the coin or not: to change that tremendous pain into a tremendous positive (or negative) energy, into something that we keep on building (or destroying), keep on giving (or taking). And paying it forward, teaching others to do the same. 

Going Home

"Think you're escaping and you run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home". 

I remembered this today. I kept on running for years from this feeling, from this story, from myself. Until now. And today I met myself in the story of others. Instead of burden, it felt like home. And instead of storm, it felt like peace. 

And I started breathing. 

Emotional burnout

It feels like a deep will of feelings where you search for some water, but you really have to go deep into it. It feels like exhaustion. Like every action, that you used to take so easy now it comes with thousands of chains and questions. It feels like begging for help, but no one is hearing you. I just want to stay, to rest, to take a break from life, and just stop. Just for one moment, just for a day, but stop. Breathe. Away, in silence, away from the crowd. It feels so deep and you have to fight it so hard. And you wish for someone, anyone, to give you back that 1% of empathy by just telling you "I can see you, it will pass". 

Untamed

“I am enough”. I have been hearing this phrase several times in the last months. People struggling to find themselves, to be enough for themselves, able to live in a world without others.

There are times for me when I need to be alone. To breathe. To enjoy the silence. To listen to it, to unplug from the hustle and buzzle of normal life, of deadlines, of always taking care of others, of thinking of others. Those times when you finally are in a pool of strangers, only you and your silence. And in these times you actually see the Others, you feel them around you, you feel that you belong there, being part of a larger group, although all the people around you are strangers. Perhaps they don’t even see you, as you used not to see them - the grey ghosts in a sea of blind colours. It is the moment when you go back to your inner self and enjoy your own company.

From a time that I actually don’t remember, I have been enough. No need of talks, of pseudo-books, of confessions. No need of relieving traumas, because they are there, in the core, but incorporated in your DNA, acknowledging your own limits, gaining strength from it. The Shadow Beast from which everything else emerges.

We have always been untamed. Always wanting to belong, seeking connection, always dreaming of a normal life, but always wanting to keep our core, our independence, our wilderness. Untamed.

Murakami and Our Uncertain Walls

I truly believe literature and children are at the core of who I am. They're my square one - where I find my peace. All the time, in any second, these two aspects are in my DNA. Life seemed to have had other plans for me, and I don’t yet know what this newly forged "I" will look like in the future, but whenever Life pushes me too far – into its chaotic mazes, its never-ending working hours, when I feel like a marionette, I pull the string and try to go back to square one, to my real sanctuary.

Style has always been something that I look for in a book, and although I have always enjoyed Murakami’s writings and his ideas, I have always felt something missing in the language, something that felt false, like it got lost in translation. Dialogues that sound unnatural in Romanian, descriptions that lose their meanings, and so on. So, with his latest novel, I tried the English version, which I think sounds much better than what I have read so far by him in Romanian.

Reading this novel felt like sitting in a quiet place, jazz playing in the background, rain tapping the windows. It’s like stepping out of reality, of how the world goes, and enjoying the other World that is in all of us, surrounded by our own Uncertain Walls. The borderland, the place where fiction and reality, conscious and unconscious, meet and have a drink together, where no one has a Name, and it’s ok, because here, in this place, there is no time, no hands on the clocks, no running, no egos, no shadows.   

“In my head, there was a battle going on between reality and unreality. At this moment I was standing right in the interstice between this world and the other world. There was a fierce split between the conscious and the unconscious, and I had to choose where I should belong.” (121)

“The flow of the river became an elaborate maze, and, just as it traveled deep underground, our reality, too, seemed to proceed inside us, branching out down several paths. Different versions of reality mixed together, different choices became intertwined, out of which a composite reality – or, what we come to understand as reality – took shape.” (131) 

“Single people need those kinds of modest rituals in their lives. To get through each day.” 366

“I shut my eyes and thought about time. In the past – for instance, back when I was seventeen – there was literally an inexhaustible amount of time. Like a huge reservoir, filled to the very brim. So there was no need to consider time. But now was different. Time, I knew, was limited. And as I aged, considering time ahad even greater implications. Time, no matter what, ticked away, ceaselessly. (370 )

“However, there isn’t just one reality. Reality is something you have to choose by yourself, out of several possible alternatives.” (423) 

Black and White and Tons of Colours

If there is something I truly believe in is that the world is not only black and white, but there are always dozens of greys and tons of colours in between. We are not only the “I” that we see in the mirror, or the “you” that we see in front of us. We – the simple people - are our ancestors, their stories, our stories, overlapping, mixing, meeting at the borderland that we define as “I” or “you”.

Despite everything, I still believe in humanity. I still believe that there is that “good” part in most of us – in the humble, common people – we just need to really listen, not only hear that “You” in front of us. I believe in the simple people who enjoy a sunset, a walk in the park, a talk with a friend, a cup of coffee on an orange bench, or we, who see all our humanity in the smile of a child. The people who try to breathe and keep on living in the wrath of history.

I am tired of people who think they are the only ones who detain the truth. Tired of judging people, tired of people who see only the ugliness of this world. I am tired of the noise around me. So sick and tired, beyond my own words. Nowadays, in the new world that arises, and that shall pass one way or another, we, the common, simple people, need to keep on caring the fire of humanity in us. And accept all the colours around us. Because our truth about the other is not THE truth if we can see only the black or the white. 

Blue January

This too, shall pass …

The phrase that I keep repeating to myself during these days.

"I was bruised and battered
I couldn't tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
Saw my reflection in a window
And didn't know my own face
Oh brother are you gonna leave me wastin' away
On the streets of Philadelphia?
I walked the avenue, 'til my legs felt like stone
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone
At night I could hear the blood in my veins
Just as black and whispering as the rain
On the streets of Philadelphia
Ain't no angel gonna greet me
It's just you and I my friend
And my clothes don't fit me no more
A thousand miles just to slip this skin
The night has fallen, I'm lyin' awake
I can feel myself fading away
So receive me brother with your faithless kiss
Or will we leave each other alone like this
On the streets of Philadelphia?"

Quiet times in times of War

I started this year with the following quote:

"It's a little embarrassing that after 45 years of research and study, the best advice I can give people is to be a little kinder to each other." (Aldous Huxley) 

I want to finish it with it. I wish I could say that in 2024 I was in a survival mode, but it would be false. I was most of the time in a war zone, with no time to think to a distant future, struggling with change, with pain, with lack of kindness, with superfluity and superficiality, of being alone and managing alone to keep the ship sailing, giving time, and energy, and patience to something that I still believe in. Still, it may not have been my ship to keep it on the surface. Being alone, on this ship, was the hardest and the most stressful thing to do, and only the thought that it was temporary made me move on.

At the end of 2024, I finally hear my own body, aching under all the words unsaid, and the times off that I haven’t taken, and all that I want right now is quiet times. If there is something that I learnt during this year is to be grateful for the people and the things that I have, to focus less on the things I haven’t accomplished (although it does haunt my mind) to the small good things that have kept me afloat. So, I am thankful for: 

1. My people – too few perhaps, but the only ones that I accepted in my boat, old friends, and new Joys, who are more as family to me.

2. People that taught me that we are the same, but have different colours, different reactions, different moods, different insanities. And during sessions of therapies with them, I learnt a few things about myself too. Be kinder, accept the other, and stop judging.

3. The chance of growing. 5 years ago, I wouldn’t have seen myself here. 10 years ago, I would have said that “I am a teacher, and this is what I will do all my life”. Before everything, I would always be a teacher, and a catcher in the rye for every child that I met, and everyone who really knows me knows that I would give an entire world for a child, but now I have discovered new parts of myself that I had no idea that I am good at, although I do miss the tranquillity from time to time.

4. The chances that I had to work in a team. As I said, this year showed me what it means to be alone. I have always wanted to be part of a team, and in those few moments when I felt that, I was really grateful. Plus, “no man is an island”, and I learnt that two brains can work better than one.

5. The few books I managed to read this year, found here, and my review of McCarthy’s last novels here, going back into myself, finally doing something that I cherish, my core identity, my square one. I don’t manage to read as much as I used to, nor to write as much as I want, and somehow, I feel this part taken from me. Each year, I promise myself to make time for reading a bit more, and each year, for my birthday, I buy myself a book to start the year with. This year is Murakami’s latest novel.

6. The few trips taken this year. The silence of the mountain, and of the sea, the time when I was away, forgetting about life for a while, wishing I would travel more.

7. The small fluffy beings – too many this time – that bring happiness even in times of need.

8. The times when I had the courage and a car to drive, wishing I would be able to do what I planned to do.

9. Embracing loneliness. Accepting it. Definitely not what I wanted from life, but learning its language, and because of it, being more grateful for number one, my people that are in my life.

10. The small good things from each day (1.5h walks, children smiling, and their gratitude, kind, unrequested words, and so on) that are sometimes so unseen that most of the time only our survival, our power to go on are the only evidence of their existence.  

Learning to Surrender

Uneori îți vine să te urci în mașină și să conduci cât mai departe, spre un dincolo. Îți amintești apoi de toți vitezomanii și agresivitatea din trafic și automat te întorci în prezent. Uneori îți vine să înșiri tot ceea ce simți pe-o foaie albă, dar poate ți-e teamă de ceea ce simți, sau poate nu mai știi nici tu ce e în tine și apoi iar te întorci în prezent.

Te joci cu amintirile, sau ele se joacă cu tine. Mereu mi-a plăcut să îmi folosesc această ,,supraputere” cu oamenii dragi mie, deși uneori am primit fix opusul. Mereu însă și ele s-au jucat cu mine în așa fel încât uneori mă gândesc că la fel ca în literatura modernistă, sunt oameni care trăiesc în exterior și oameni a căror viață se întâmplă mai mult în interior.

Sunt gânduri, amintiri, emoții încolătăcite, și nu mai știi pe unde să o apuci. Vrei să le dai un limbaj, dar se încăpățânează să fie peste tot, dar ascunse de fiecare dată când vrei să prinzi una. Eu, cea care are nevoie de stabilitate, și ordine, și lucruri clare, în interior e haos. Nu știi dacă să te ridici de la masă și să pleci, nu știi dacă să rămâi, nu știi cum să repari lucrurile pe care le-ai tot amânat, pe care le-ai greșit cu tine însăți, nu știi încotro să o iei.

Poate că cel mai greu lucru pe care trebuie să-l învățăm este să ne predăm, să nu mai încercăm atât în a ne impune vieții. Sau cel puțin în anumite momente când simți că ai pierdut războiul. Dincolo de zgomotul asurzitor al tuturor gândurilor, al tuturor amintirilor, al tuturor greșelilor, al tuturor emoțiilor, să închizi ochii și să dai drumul la tot, și poate doar așa, în spatele acestui zgomot asurzitor fără cuvinte, poți găsi într-un final liniștea și ordinea pe care o tot cauți. 

La capatul noptii

Cum ar arăta o lume în care nu am mai ști să ne bucurăm de nimic? Plină de mizantropie, misoginie, cinism și fără niciun sentiment? Cum ar fi să treci prin viață astfel, sau viața să-ți dea o lecție care îți transformă întreaga existență și în care Binele nu mai există?

Am detestat personajele din La capătul nopții prin tot ceea ce ele exprimă, prin lipsa de umanitate și prin această lipsă a Binelui în care da, chiar cred. Cu toate acestea, ele exprimă o lume reală, acea parte pe care poate cei mai optimiști nu vor să o vadă, o lume vie aflată la capătul nopții, în care Celine chiar crede și pe care o explorează cu îndemânare, într-un stil masculin, clar, fără ezitări.

,,Nu pierdea niciun prilej mama să încerce să mă facă să cred că lumea e bună şi că făcuse mare bine că mă adusese pe lume. Era marele şiretlic al nepăsării materne această presupusa Providenta.” (209-210)

,,Mai vine şi vârsta, poate, trădătoarea, și ne amenință cu cei mai rău. N-ai destulă muzică în tine să faci viața să danseze, asta e. Toată tinerețea ţi s-a dus să moară de acum la capătul lumii, în linişte, în adevăr. Și unde să te mai duci oare, dacă nu mai ai în tine suficient delir adevărat? Adevărul. Iată o agonie fără sfârşit. Adevărul acestei lumi e moartea. Trebuie să alegi, să mori sau să minţi. Eu n-am putut niciodată să mă sinucid.” (241)

,,Egoismul fiinţelor care au fost amestecate în viața noastră, când te gândești la ele, bătrân, se dovedește incontestabil, aşa cum a fost de altfel, de oţel, de platină, și mult mai trainic decât timpul chiar.

Când ești tânăr, celor mai aride indiferenţe, celor mai cinice bădărănii ajungi să le găsești întotdeauna scuza unor ciudăţenii pasionale sau a nu știu căror semne ale unui inexpert romantism. Dar mai târziu, când viaţa ţi-a arătat de câtă șiretenie, de câtă cruzime și răutate are nevoie numai ca se mențină de bine de rău la 37 de grade, îți dai seama, ești pe deplin lămurit și bine plasat pentru a înțelege toate murdăriile de care e plin un trecut. E de ajuns în toate şi pentru toate să te contempli scrupulos pe tine însuți și starea de ticăloșie în care ai ajuns. Nici mister, nici candoare, ţi-ai halit toată poezia pentru că ai trăit prea mult. Mare neghiobie, viaţa asta. (253)

,,Descoperi în tot trecutul tău ridicol atâta ridicol, înşelătorie, credulitate că ai vrea să încetezi brusc să maí fii tânăr, să aştepţi ca tinereţea să te părăsească, să treacă pe lângă tine, s-o vezi plecând, îndepărtându-se, să-i vezi întreaga vanitate, să-ţi plimbi mâna prin golul ei, s-o mai vezi din nou trecând prin fața ta, și apoi odată plecată, să fii sigur că s-a dus tinerețea și, liniştit atunci dinspre partea ei, rămas singur, să treci uşor de cealaltă parte a timpului pentru a privi cu adevărat cum sunt oamenii şi lucrurile. (341)

Lifeboats and small good things

In-betweenness. Sinking or navigating the storm. Protecting or giving it all up. Staying or leaving.  Sanctuaries turned into prisons. The borderline is not a place of peace, but of being torn in two halves: hoping and giving it all up. 

Perhaps what matters the most is what you leave behind in people, although they won't remember it. And we are all covered in billions of fingerprints of others, most of them not even knowing that they are there, on us, whether we accept it or not. In all the chaos, and chains of narcissism, the small good things keep you breathing: from passing people who see you as "mother's mothering" or compare you, unknowingly, with the people who once shaped you. 

And perhaps, in this borderline, these small good things are our lifeboats. 

  

Long Dark Night

Nick Cave’s latest album somehow echoes the depths of one’s soul, the struggle to find peace in this world, of letting go – of trauma, pain, or dreams deferred – of jumping into life, but learning how to float inside of it.

We only live once, or at least we remember this one life until that final day. And still, days repeat themselves moment by moment: we wake up, we go to work, we return home. We do our chores on repeat, and from time to time we have our moments of joy: a child smiling, or hugging, a friend’s calling, a walk in the forest, all the things, and all the people we long to, whom we call family or sanctuary. From time to time we dare to try more. And we take a step back from the routine and a step forward into the unknown. 

Burnout and Routine

We get up every day, drink our coffee, go to work, and then back home. On repeat, day after day. We help people around us not because we want something back, but because we still believe in humanity. We want more to life than just work, but somehow we keep on failing on what we want on a personal level. And we give, and we work, and we give again, until one day our body just says stop.

It feels like fainting, like being drained of energy, and everything hurts. It feels like something that you have eaten too much and now your stomach just refuses it. It feels like the pain, the emotional one, gets so high that it turns into numbness. It feels like you want to fight it with all your being, but no pills, no vitamins, no coffee can help you now. It's you against yourself.

And so you stop. And try to take breaks on your own. You remember how much you once used to love travelling, and how much you missed that. You embrace the silence, the getting away from the routine, from all the noise, from all the struggle. It's another kind of tiredness, a good one, that puts your mind at ease. You stop trying to forgive, you just let it be. And you try to be for once a human, with its own needs, with its own pain. And slowly, really slowly, you start breathing, not sure yet if you can stay on your own feet or the direction you suppose to go to now. 

Paul Auster's 4 3 2 1

The news of Paul Auster’s death caught me somewhere in the middle of 4 3 2 1, one of the novels that I enjoyed most from this writer. I don’t know about others, but I do dream from time to time about how my life would have looked like if I took another road, if some events from my life never happened. What would I have become if I hadn’t had a sister, if I chose another profile, another road, other people, if I said what bothered me from the beginning, and so on. There are the small things, when we look back in time, that make all the difference.

I don’t want to write a review here, because the world is probably full of reviews about this book, as it should be. Because I was already familiarised with Auster’s work and his plays with literary techniques (especially Travels in the Scriptorium), I already knew what to expect here, and how the book would end. What is, after all, the difference between us as fictionalised characters and us in the real world? Which ones would we prefer? Is there any way we can make the difference?

I guess that what Paul Auster does here is to write about all the aspects of Life, and that maybe he teaches us here that "Memory is identity" (Julien Barnes), and it’s not only those pieces of our puzzle that make our lives, but it’s also what we chose to remember as part of our identity and conscience, those people who were there for us in times of need and moulded our personality, from the presence (or absence) of parents, aunts, uncles or cousins that pathed our way to the importance of friends who later on in life became part of the family. No matter how many lives we have, no matter what roads we take, for all the Fergursons all those little things matter, because in the end, these are the things that make us humane, and this is in the center of this masterpiece.

Thus, Fergurson’s lives gravitate around these topics: motherhood (Rose who is always described as an ”extraordinary” mother, a devotion to her that almost resembles Cartarescu’s depiction of motherhood in his novels) and the lack of a father from his life (and people who successfully managed to substitute this role) the importance of sport, of good friends and how they have impacted his life, of sex and love, of the history of America (especially the way Afro-American people have been perceived or the influence of the Vietnam war inside America’s university campus), and the glue that keeps everything together: his passion for writing.  4 3 2 1 is among other things an encyclopedia of books that influenced Paul Auster’s career, and from time to time, there are hints and references to other ideas/books written by the author himself.

To put it in a nutshell, Paul Auster reminded me - perhaps when I needed the most - that I believe in the humanity of the human being, and if there is only one book that you should read in a year, I think this would be on the top list. 

Some of the lines that I mostly enjoyed: 

"The word psyche means two things in Greek, his aunt said. Two very different but interesting things. Butterfly and soul. But when you stop and think about it carefully, butterfly and soul aren't different, after all, are they? A butterfly starts out as a caterpillar, an ugly sort of earthbound, wormy nothing, and then one day the caterpillar builds a cocoon, and after a certain amount of time the cocoon opens and out comes the butterfly, the most beautiful creature in the world. That's what happens to souls as well, Archie. They struggle in the depths of darkness and ignorance, they suffer through trials and misfortunes, and bit by bit they become purified by those sufferings, strengthened by the hard things that happen to them, and one day, if the soul in question is a worthy soul, it will break out of its cocoon and soar through the air like a magnificent butterfly." (140)

"[...] remembering how his mother had ultimately replaced God in his mind as the supreme being, the human incarnation of the divine spirit, a flawed and mortal deity prone to the sulks and restless confusions that afflict all human beings, but he had worshipped his mother because she was the one person who never let him down, and no matter how many times he had disappointed her or proved himself to be less than he should have been, she had never not loved him and would never not love him to the end of her life.” (518) 

"No impulse to reinvent the world from the bottom up, no acts of revolutionary defiance, but a commitment to doing good in the broken world she belonged to, a plan to spend her life helping others, which was not a political act so much as a religious act, a religion without religion or dogma, a faith in the value of the one and the one and the one, a journey that would begin with medical school and then continue for however long it took to complete her psychoanalytic training, and while Amy and a host of others would have argued that people were sick because society was sick and helping them adjust to a sick society would only make them worse, Hallie would have answered, Please, go ahead and improve society if you can, but meanwhile people are suffering, and I have a job to do." (996-997)

Joy/Vertigo

No matter what the future holds, there is the moment of today of pure joy, which reminded me of the first novel I read long time ago by Paul Auster:

“Deep down, I don’t believe it takes any special talent for a person to lift himself off the ground and hover in the air. We all have it in us—every man, woman, and child—and with enough hard work and concentration, every human being is capable of…the feat….You must learn to stop being yourself. That’s where it begins, and everything else follows from that. You must let yourself evaporate. Let your muscles go limp, breathe until you feel your soul pouring out of you, and then shut your eyes. That’s how it’s done. The emptiness inside your body grows lighter than the air around you. Little by little, you begin to weigh less than nothing. You shut your eyes; you spread your arms; you let yourself evaporate. And then, little by little, you lift yourself off the ground."

(Paul Auster, Mr Vertigo) 

Bird set free

„Every time I find the meaning of life, they change it.”

(Daniel Klein)

You see, I’ve had a design, and I don’t know where I did wrong. Cuvintele parafrazate ale lui Faulkner, la care te tot întorci. Iar acest design a fost paradoxal acea simplitate a vieții, departe de vacarm, acel belongingness.

Nu știu să spun ceea ce simt. Uneori mă gândesc că poate e mai bine așa, a nu da frâu liber emoțiilor, bine ascunse în zidurile reci ale rațiunii și ale logicii, și a continua să plutești, uneori să înoți, în acea mare de zgomote din care nu poți vedea încă uscatul. Este poate și asta o lecție, a învăța să respiri când totul sufocă.

Mă gândeam azi din tramvai, urmărind fugar fețele oamenilor de lângă mine, încercând să mă sustrag de la a auzi toată agitația din jur, de a nu respira tot aerul înădușitor și umed, de a nu simți mirosurile de praf, de oameni – ai străzii, ai orașului, bătrâni, tineri, grăbiți sau încercând să amăgească timpul – , miros de ploaie, de noroi și de parfumuri, toate amestecate laolaltă. Mă gândeam că uneori simți că ai eșuat în viață, că poate nu ești acolo unde ți-ai dorit, că nu ai făcut nimic din ce era important și că poate e prea târziu de a încerca și altceva, și în același timp, ce este acel altceva? Poate un alt domeniu (și ce te face să te gândești că nu ar fi același sentiment?), un alt loc (și nu ar fi același program, aceeași muncă?), o altă viață. Mă gândeam la oamenii din jur și la oamenii din viața mea, la noi începuturi și la veșnica teamă de a nu face parte din grup, de a nu fi acceptată, de a fi nevoită să faci totul singură.

Mereu am dat totul. Nu am știut însă niciodată să cer sau să țip atunci când trebuia. Și poate că acest a da totul, a da o parte din tine indiferent de ceea ce faci, e un înțeles al vieții, a fi true to yourself, indiferent ce s-ar întâmpla. În relații, în muncă, în ceea ce-ți amintești, în grija pe care o porți, în ceea ce simți. Suntem uneori creatori fără creație, sau părinți fără a avea un copil, suntem roboți și la final de zi cădem rupți de oboseală și de acea umanitate care doare în paturile noastre sau în paturi străine pentru ca a doua zi să o luăm de la capăt, iar singurul lucru care ne mai rămâne e de a spera că într-o zi vom fi acceptați așa cum suntem, că într-o zi, vom reuși să ajungem la țărm, și că până atunci singurul lucru care ne rămâne e acel to go ahead full steam. Oricât de singuri suntem, oricât de tare doare.

 

Memento

Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids

Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs

(Florence and the Machine - Blinding)

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It’s true. When you hit the bottom of the sea and you lose all your words, and everyone and everything has hit you, you either die or you learn to breathe underwater. And then you start floating – not swimming, but floating, accepting and letting go of your own fury, pain, and all the unforgivable things.

We live in a world of hypocrisy. We teach something to our children, but we show off in front of others to be seen as cool people; in reality, we are self-centered and would sell everyone for our own well-being. Money is everything in this world. In psychological books narcissism is a disorder, in real life, it’s part of normality, and those few with strong principles and that kind of morality that goes beyond stage 4 of Kohlberg’s theory ofmoral development are the abnormal ones.

A small good thing. Like in Carver’s book, you don’t get that small good thing in times of need from the people that you expect, but from strangers.

Empathy vs. Pragmatism. They can go hand in hand. And during this week I have understood the point where my empathy ends. As long as we have ourselves, there are solutions. We are all in pain, on the same ship of fools, but while others take their grief and bury it inside themselves and are capable of seeing others and always giving a hand to those in need, others scream and demand to be heard and have a different status, not taking into account what others feel. The only time when there is no solution is when you have lost yourself.

Vulnerability can also be a strength. On my road to breathing again, I received this question: "How can you make vulnerability your strength?” We tend to hide our own vulnerability, be ashamed of it, and we want to protect ourselves. But do we really protect ourselves when we hide? Few people dare nowadays to show vulnerability, and fewer know how to see it as their own strength because everything is like a coin with two faces, with its strengths and its weaknesses, and nothing is only black or white: vulnerability, empathy, independence, memory, and so on. 

Trauma and Attachment

There are times when things can get too much, and everyone and everything hit too damn hard.  And you use all your patience, and empathy, and will to survive, but sometimes, there are days when your own psyche just collapses, and you desperately try searching for help.

This book has been like a breath of fresh air and sometimes an eye-opener. Everything is rooted in childhood, and in some cases, even what happens when we are in our mom’s womb can have an impact on how our brain works. We have our brains wired from the beginning and in the early years, and how others respond (or not) is how we will be, and sometimes we are not even aware of our fight, flight or freeze responses in our everyday lives. However, psychology goes beyond science, and different patterns can mould different personalities. Thus, ironically the same traumatic event can create a narcissistic personality or an empathic, overprotective one. I really enjoyed reading about the connection between memory and language, and how they inter-develop at the same time, the importance of attunement (“we are ‘in tune’ with someone else, enough that we see their need and care enough about them to meet that need) and how independence, developed too early in a child, can lead to issues related to control, lack of empathy and of attachment, and the inability to see the importance of interdependence.

Secondly, parentification means not only taking care of one’s siblings or assuming grown-up roles in childhood but also being a parent for your own at that certain age, which may lead to the development of strong parental instincts and overprotecting the people around you.

Last, but not least, violence (physical, emotional, verbal) is not the answer, and it is definitely not an adult response. Children have the right to be violent due to the environment in which they were raised, and it is our responsibility as adults to heal them. But in adulthood, physical/emotional violence, although a response to our past, is just not right. 

Independence-interdependece and the development of empathy: “Henry’s story reflects a movement that began in the 1970s, known as the ‘Me decade’, during which people began pursuing their own wants and needs. Tom Wolfe (1976) described this new attitude in his essay “The ‘Me’ Decade and the Third Great Awakening”. It was during this ‘Me decade’ that people began seeking more independece instead of finding a balance of interdependence. They began to meet their own needs instead of depending on others to do so. Over the decades, this movement toward fierce independence has resulted in a lack of attachment in society as people have increasingly shunned the vulnerability that comes with expressing their needs. However, vulnerability is the foundation of attachment. Vulnerability involves having the emotional opennes and willingness to admit that someone cannot do everything for themselves and then allowing someone else to meet their needs.” […] “children who lack attachment-based relationship will develop into adults who struggle to recognise and understand the emotions of others.”

“Knowing how to apologise is not a skill we are born with, and just like emotion regulation skills, children can only learn this relationship skill if someone models it for them and prompts them to apologise at the correct times.”

Respect: “You exhibit respect for others by allowing them to share their thoughts and feelings, by validating their feelings, and by offering support when necessary. Speaking with respect also involves being mindful of your tone of voice and body language. Think about how you compose yourself when you interact with others. Do you keep your voice calm, use a soft speaking volume, and use respectful language? When you have a disagreement, do you express your thoughts and feelings without becoming upset, or do you call people names?”

“If the mind is like a recorder, then emotional abuse is like a song that plays in a feedback loop over and over again through the years.”

“For an adult who did not have their needs met in childhood as a result of neglect, the same principles apply. That adult may have mastered using manipulation and attention-seeking behaviors over the decades to meet their own needs, leading to a diagnosis of a personality disorder. For example, someone with borderline personality disorder may not have their needs for attention or love met as a child, causing them to rely on manipulative tactics to get their emotional needs met in adulthood. Similarly, someone with histrionic personality disorder may exhibit overly dramatic behaviour (no matter how dysfunctional it may be) in an attempt to meet their needs for attention. Or someone with antisocial personality disorder, who grew up in a disconnected family where their rights were not regarded, may now attempt to independently meet their own needs at the cost of others. Finally, someone with narcissistic personality disorder may have grown up in an emotionally invalidating family where empathy was not modeled or taught, leading them to have difficulties valuing and respecting others.”

Parentification/overprotection: “When this parentification progresses into adulthood, the individual may become codependent and look for others to take care of because that experience has been normalized. It is what they are familiar with and what feels most comfortable in relationships. In turn, they may become caretakers and sacrifice their own needs in order to meet the needs of others. To them, it feels unnatural to have another person focus on their needs and take care of them, which can impact their ability to build attunement, trust, and attachment in adult relationships. The healthy give-and-take behaviours that characterize normal relationships become a source of distress.”

 

Sărbătoarea neînsemnătății

Neînsemnătate înseamnă la Kundera minimalismul regăsit în viața noastră, cea de toate zilele, de la prieteniile care ne leagă sau singurătatea din fiecare dintre noi, recunoștința fiului pentru mamă sau încercarea fiului de-a înțelege abandonul mamei, de la încercarea de a găsi ceva diferit, unic, dramatic și de-a schimba cotidianul și până la banalitatea regăsită în Istorie. Și în această neînsemnătate, și în aceste puține pagini, ca-n orice minimalism matur și scris bine, se ascund dedesubtul lor toate sentimentele, toate angoasele și toate luptele fiecăruia dintre noi.

           ,,În vocabularul meu de necredincios, un singur cuvânt e sfânt: prietenia.” (30)

,,Ce și-au spus rămâne definitiv uitat, dar, un moment i s-a fixat în memorie, un moment concret, gravat cu precizie: așezată pe scaunul ei, a privit cu intensitate buricul fiului. Privirea asta i-o mai simte și-acum pe burtă. O privire greu de înțeles, i se părea că exprimă un amestec inexplicabil de compasiune și dispreț; buzele mamei luaseră forma unui zâmbet (zâmbet de compasiune și dispreț), apoi, fără a se scula de pe scaun, se aplecase spre el și, cu arătătorul, îi atinse buricul. Imediat apoi se ridicase, îl sărutase (oare îl sărutase într-adevăr? Pesemne; dar nu era sigur de asta) și plecase. N-o mai revăzuse niciodată de-atunci.” (44-45)

,,Prima lui meserie, care reprezenta pe-atunci pentru el tot sensul vieții, era pentru Caliban cea de actor; profesia asta era scrisă negru pe alb în actele lui și, tot în calitate de actor fără contract primea, de multă vreme, alocația de șomaj.” (59)

,,Ființa umană nu e decât singurătate.” (72)

,,Neînsemnătatea, prietene, e esența existenței. E cu noi peste tot și tot timpul. E prezentă chiar acolo unde nimeni nu vrea să o vadă: în grozăvii, în bătăliile sângeroase, în cele mai cumplite nenorociri. Adeseori se cere curaj ca s-o recunoști, în condiții atât de dramatice, și ca să-i spui pe nume. Dar nu-i vorba numai s-o recunoști, trebuie s-o și iubești, neînsemnătatea, trebuie să înveți s-o iubești.” (124)