I think everything should be personal in the first place
When Cathleen Kelly’s bookstore is out of business and Joe Fox comes to visit her and says “You know, it wasn’t personal, it was just business”.
Then, she answers: “What was it supposed to be ? I’m so sick of that! All that means is that it wasn’t personal to you. But it was personal to me. It’s personal to a lot of people. And what is so wrong with being personal anyway? Because whatever else anything is, it ought to begin with being personal”.
— from the movie “You’ve got a mail”, 1998.
It seems to me that people tend to separate their experience of beauty from what they consider real. There is real life, quite “normal” and painful, and then there is beauty, inspiration.
I think it is related to a general tendency to believe that only what is palpable and fully “controllable” is real. Notice how that belief is rather something that we accept passively, as we grow as an adult, than something that we actively choose.
But, without even thinking, that kind of belief feels wrong.
I must admit, it is a phenomenon that tends to arise in me too, probably more often that I can tell. Because it is so easy to accept it !
For example, I listen to music, I enjoy it, and then “go back to reality”.
But can you truly enjoy something when you consider it just as a source of pleasure that is lost in the middle of nowhere ? Is pleasure just pleasure or is there something more to it ?
What if your sweetest dreams and intuitions were also what was bringing you closer to reality ?
Reality cannot be but felt. So, if you kill/smother your feelings, you kill reality…
When we neglect the importance of our feelings, considering them just as a source of pleasure, disconnected from “real life”, we are killing reality.
Feelings (especially the ones related to joy and beauty) are mysterious attempts to embrace complexity. They annihilate space, remove distances between all thoughts and objects. All things we thought to be separated from each other, start to behave as one.
Feelings also annihilate time by putting everything in one instant. What usually requires time, is synthesized in one instant.
Complexity is fragile and wild, because it cannot be controlled and requires a strong vitality to be encompassed. Conversely, things we are confident with are things that we can control.
There is an infinite amount of complexity, hidden from our consciousness, but only a few things that we can control in our minds.
What is commonly called reality is just what remains when we are too lazy or too weak to embrace complexity. What remains is all the things that we can control in our minds (so to say, just the tip of the iceberg of the actual reality).
Do you want to live in a reality that is already dying ? or do you want to live in a reality that supports life in its abundance?
Expanding our reality begins with inspiration and the desire for change. In that moment, we have the intuition of a greater reality, but not yet the awareness of a greater reality. True awareness takes time to develop, as we decide to listen more carefully to what we sense.
There is a great mystery in it. Because sensing a greater reality always comes along with awe and beauty. Conversely, when we get drawn into negativity, our awareness of reality gets smaller.
The other great mystery is how all moments of beauty seem to be connected with each other. In fact, whatever is the nature of your awe, its color, its shape, its message, there is something transcedental that brings all things together. And the more we feel it, the greater the awe. It is as if different movies with different stories and emotions, were actually repeating something deep and elemental, in harmony with each other.
When I was a teenager, I was afraid to lose the complex feeling of a situation, as I was faced with another situation. Only several years later, I realized that all my beautiful feelings were cocooned inside the same kernel of beauty and that it was only because of that kernel of beauty that these feelings were special. It is like pure light being both one (white) and a multitude of colors (rainbow).
For that reason, it is actually impossible to lose the beauty of one specific situation, as long as we stay connected to the “kernel” of beauty.
Inside specific situations, even when they are beautiful, there are always some imperfections. These imperfections can smother the beauty of the situation if we do not anchor our faith into the “kernel of beauty”. So, my fear as a teenager was coming from not recognizing these imperfections and not recognizing the kernel of beauty. Therefore, I could easily be dragged by these imperfections, without realizing it; and, as I was dragged, I could lose the sense of beauty of one particular situation.
How to transform pleasure into a personal journey of discovery ?
It is about transforming it into a form of meditation. And what is meditation ? Meditation is listening and connecting. The point is to listen to your feelings, instead of saying “I have them” like a spoiled child.
Instead of “consuming” the pleasure, cultivate it and be humble with it. Do not try to fully own the pleasure you feel in whatever situation (for example, let’s say you are enjoying a song). If the pleasure is only yours, it cannot expand and bear fruits.
As a consequence of this humble attitude, you start wondering “what does that feeling is trying to tell me ?”. If you define a feeling by “pleasure”, you kill the feeling and it’s too late: it becomes just a “pleasant unintelligible noise”. But, instead, if you try to communicate with your own feelings, you start to learn and develop your awareness, as well as increasing your sense of pleasure.
Life always tries to bring things together, to communicate. When we succeed to brings things together, we become a supporter of life and we feel a form of pleasure (in its general definition, including beauty, joy or awe).
To nurture our feelings means to communicate with them, and make them part of our reality.
Cheers !
