for a minute there, I lost myself...

The only thing constant in my life at the moment, in terms of activities, is my stall in Greenwich market. I have a stall called Philosophy Takeaway in which people come and talk to us, mainly my mate Sel and me, about philosophy. We have a hat of questions or people just ask whatever. Of course we don't have the answers, but we do try, even just to make people break their routines. I want to ignite a flame, any flame, any curiosity I can on people. I want people to realize things, by themselves, to open up, to open their minds... Philosophy is the way I found, almost a year ago. The stall was a leap of faith, when Sel and I felt that we were doing nothing of any use about anything. I feel different now, having learnt things, having my whole perception of reality being turned inside out. But the stall is still there. We talk to many types of people, all ages, all sizes, all backgrounds. It happens every Wednesday and feels like the only constant. I feared for a minute, that the incredible gap between what I think about reality and what random people may think would be too much. I feared I'll start preaching or getting frustrated at them, at myself, at everything.
It didn't happen. People, at some level, respond to your disposition. I constantly remember that we are all on the same quest.
I would like to spend my time meditating, hugging people, listening to music, painting, reading, writing and laughing... but it can't happen right now. I have to live 'life'. We can't help but live in the world. Interact. Talk. Use transport. Go places. See people.
I go to my stall and ask people if they are free, ask people if they feel as though they are being programmed, ask people if they feel controlled, fulfilled, awake even... I talked to them all. This seems like a time for communication.
I came back home today and felt as if the voices in my head, the voices of other people and my voice were an overwhelming cloud of buzzing electricity all around, ingrained in my heart even, confusing, almost heavy.
I listen, they listen. They speak, I speak. Am I saying what I mean? Am I speaking my heart at all times? Unfortunately not really... at this moment I can say that I empathize with all but understand none and end up saying words to make them happy.
Some times for the sake of this contact, this communication, words can become vacuous, pointless if the message is not what you mean... and for a minute it can feel as if you loose yourself.
azile x

ps: the chalk drawing was done by me today.

seriousness of the issue.

Gif creator

Life has so many twists and turns. We learn so much yet some times I feel emptied of all knowledge and just thrown into a pool of interactions. People. One of my most serious struggles at the time is how to handle the people around me. There is a line between what I want to say and what people want to hear/are used to hearing/accept hearing. Conversation can be difficult. Sometimes I get so frustrated. It's been increasingly difficult to look past things that they do and say that are plain terrible. Everyone complains about money. No one talks of love or solutions. Everyone is caught up in the made up net. Not enough love. I try to love everyone, that is my first approach on everything, yet it gets hard, when you realize that people are being controlled and plainly destroying themselves, swimming in ignorance. I've always tried to know more, make myself more aware, make this experience more of a life. Honestly, I want everyone doing that. It's impossible, I know.

Weird beliefs? I have many. So the only way to handle a blind world is by not taking it too seriously. Don't get caught up in unimportant things, in small hooks, dramas, what people think/say, money and all the others that keep us preoccupied instead of occupied in things we like. Humour, humour helps a lot as well... and finally, laugh at yourself.

life is a wide experience with a wide variety of feelings, strong and fleeting feelings that wave in and out your heart. Love it, love others. Make others happy, make yourself happy. Do something that is worth it. That's all for today.

Spring

It's some days into April. Full spring. My life feels like its blooming as well. My soul feels so strong and fragile at the same time. I'm talking about my soul, let's begin there. Spirituality has had different faces during my life, many different stages, everyone has their own path, I guess. When I was 17, I went to a spiritual trip to the jungle for a few days. I didn't understand what it was about, my feelings understood, my intellect was as lost as ever. One thing I did feel/understand, I felt like I was absolute love, absolute healing and one with nature. I felt amazing. Then life moved. My life changed dramatically. I moved to London, a very materialistic place and I got beaten up (metaphorically and literally). For years I hid my love and lived my material life, as I thought I was adapting myself to a new culture, a new culture that seemed more advanced than my abused Latin America. I was so into it, this new life. I forgot about my soul. I was so scared. I tried to find escapes. I went to study philosophy and make art in my own time (I always wanted to know more, I felt there was something more, I always kind of felt like a creator of some sort). I joined the new culture and forgot about the amazing vibrations and security I let my soul be once. I drank, did drugs and went to dangerous places, I talked to dangerous people, I heard stories of soldiers returning home from killing, I danced with the rejects and hugged homeless people. I didn't know why of anything. I was dancing and forgetting. I wanted to feel alive but I didn't know how. My present self can look at those days, those 5 years, looked at as days, like you would look at your past child self. Oh I was so naive when I was eight someone might say, I can fully say I was so clueless and naive about a month ago. I've learnt more than ever, ever. It has taken me 5 years to come back to what I learnt when I was 17, 5 years and a lot of information, a lot of learning and a lot of love. I'm not saying I know it all now, all I'm saying is that I've been found.

22

The person in the picture is me 2 days ago. I turned 22. I actually felt happy. This birthday was different, special even, at a personal level. I didn't feel like I had to celebrate it or party, I didn't feel like I needed loads of attention and presents. This is not due to me thinking/feeling that I am growing up and 22 is 'adulthood'; this was due to another reason. The crux of the issue is freedom, or rather our lack of it. Most people feel overwhelmed about the nature of our crazy world, about what we are doing here and about why things happen the way they do and why they feel how they do. Unfortunately, most people ignore this or avoid this and seek momentary methods of happiness to deal with this and deal with the overwhelming-ness of it all. That means that we are never free, we are always entrapped in cycles, in worries, fear and what not. This day, this time and specifically on this birthday, information and not things are coming, and it is far more fulfilling. I keep the stream flowing, I am informing myself all the time. First, you don't have to accept things as they are, keeping an open mind is infinitely more valuable that a set of hypocrite values and informing yourself means that you cannot be so easily manipulated, which is not uncommon in our world. Everyone tries to tell you what to believe. The world is not simple, but it can be felt and understood. So this birthday out of all birthdays, my heart was looked after and I received truth.

Dream story

There's no way of telling where is it that she's walking to. Her pace, un-paced, her movements, jerky, her breathing, erratic, her figure, jagged. She still walked. All she did was walk and think about the pointlessness of the landscape. With her clumsy movements she carried on down the path in the field, one of those old paths created by too many people walking through them. Years, no, decades showed in her fragile wrinkly hands. They still touched nothing, caressed nothing. Ages of the universe reflected in the freckles, but still, she resounded like a shell. Her eyes, a foolish glaze, her gaze, indifferent... She doesn't even need curiosity. She smells grey. She smells inhuman. She walks pointlessly because she can't find anyone to give her answers. She breathes in the past and breathes out intentions, bad intentions sometimes. She's a ghost. She's nobody. She's everybody. She is a young woman physically, she remembers. She tries to feel something, anything. She makes a tea in her mind. She spins and spins in circles as she makes a cup of tea in her mind. She stops. She breaks the cup. She breaks herself. She's numb. She can't remember how to make her heart beat again. She's not lost, she's bored, whispers the wind. She's bored of nature, she's bored of herself. She fell asleep dreading and wondering what it would be like to loose all love. The warm fussy love that feels so real that flickers like a candle or roars up in flames, all inside your heart. She's in dream world, she walks and she's feeling it. She knows she's limbo without love. This would be it, her without love. Pointless. A shadow of a reflection, wandering not wondering, straying, empty and shifting. All she does is wish she wasn't there, she wishes hard she wasn't there. She's having a nightmare. There would be nothing without love................ she wakes up. Its ok, she wakes up.

De-cons-truc-tion

By feeling the two extremes simultaneously I keep my self balanced. I feel the fear and the courage, the energy and laziness, the isolation and connection, the disdain and the identification, I feel the reason and I feel the emptiness, the envy and admiration, the hate and the understanding, the wholeness and the pointlessness and as I feel both edges, at the same time, I can keep myself going and breathing every living moment. I couldn't tell you whether our individual tunnel vision, our biological stroll through the planet is all there is. No, that I couldn't tell you... I couldn't tell you if we are another primitive stage of life in this vast changing universe and that our centuries are specks in the vastness of universal terms. I couldn't, with certainty, tell you whether we are just repeating this same instant of experience again and again, afraid to give up our status of doubters...
All I can tell you is that I live for the moments when I can clearly not with my eyes but some other way, feel the glue that holds this whole thing together. The glue that makes paper, cherry, illusions, coffee, leisure centers, telepathy and maths exist in the same world. By feeling the two extremes simultaneously I can taste the bitter sweet, turning it into a new life script. My scanning, curios, awake (sometimes) eyes cannot be satisfied with the given answers, no more, I can only tell you that all the love travelling through your veins is no coincidence and that there is nothing we need more than to understand that we are made of infinity.

The State of Affairs.

the current state of affairs in the world right now, is not great. All the media is telling us to get scared and then to get distracted, to watch a film, to get drunk, to look away... anywhere but to the state of affairs we are living in. Overpopulation, they say, climate change, the powerful are disgustingly psychopathic and greedy. The state of affairs also shows us that until the problems hit our economy, and hit it hard, things are not going to change... and at the moment everyone seems to be selling out.

Even Yoda sold out....

azile
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