Writing and Connecting

Writing means connecting for me.

Connecting is important because, as it’s been researched and proved, contested, and then re-researched and re-proved again and again, we can’t live without it. (and please note that all I am saying here is filtered through my singular fleshy “I” and, although some of the statements you read here may sound like absolute truths — apologies, unintended — they are not.)

It does not mean that I need to be surrounded by other humans 24/7, quite the opposite. I need my space and silence, free of the energies of others. My ability to cope with the intensity of fleshy human presence is most probably conditioned by my upbringing and the years that I have lived — and I have lived for a while now. My need for connection is satisfied by the proximity of my kids and my other half, yearly visits to my home country, and occasional visits to family. Hellos and how-are-yous and little chit-chats with people in the street do the job. My connections happen in virtual space quite a lot too, and some of those have been life-changing.

Connecting is important and helps me learn and evolve. Learning and evolving are important as well, because I strongly believe I’m here to develop my ability to live in another energetic realm after my fleshy part is cold and dead. I don’t know if I can call that energetic realm GOD — the word “god” is charged with concepts and ideas that can feel divisive and/or inflammatory. So I created my own idea, which of course is not only “my own idea”; it’s a mélange of ideas of others, filtered through my fleshy self and the experiences that have been my part.

So I base my life on the belief that we are all connected, all have the potential for good and evil, there is an immortal part in us, we are a finite infinity, and that paradox causes us a lot of torment and often is the source of incredible joy, beauty, and richness. Life hurts and life gives pleasure, just like love does. Every life everywhere has the potential to develop into almost anything, depending on our own unique traits as well as our environment. No one lives in a void, and if we do, we die — sooner or later. The environment, which I understand as a complex, intertwined construct of social, cultural, political, and religious convictions, is often detrimental to what becomes of us and our lives.

I’m writing this in London, in my relatively comfortable house. I have food in the fridge, a car, a mortgage, no stable income; my other half earns using his muscles and brain; our children have what they need. I’m writing this very much aware of heartbreaking protests in Iran, wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, instability in Venezuela. The environmental crisis and the never-ending topic of immigration, as if all evils of the modern world stemmed from people wanting a better life for themselves somewhere else.

That is the reason I’m writing about the environment we are born into. We can create our narratives within the limits of the book we were placed into (our souls have chosen?). We are always free and we are always subject to.

Some are luckier than others when it comes to freedom, and bringing Viktor Frankl and Man’s Search for Meaning to state otherwise does not cut it for me. From this particular book, which I read a few years ago (feels important to mention), two scenes keep coming back to me. One is of a young woman who was dying in a so-called hospital. She was on the way out, brutally stripped of everything she had ever loved and known. She was talking with Frankl, and the conversation went like this:

“This tree is the only friend I have in my loneliness.” Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. “I often talk to this tree,” she said to me. I was startled and didn’t quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. “Yes.” What did it say to her? She answered, “It said to me, ‘I am here — I am here — I am life, eternal life.’”

The other is about an inmate of Frankl’s who was having a terrible nightmare, and Frankl decided not to wake him up because whatever nightmare he dreamt must have been better than the reality they were living.

If Frankl hadn’t written it, millions of people would have never come across these stories. And that would have been a huge loss.

So you see, there are no absolute truths, and I am far from believing that all people are angels in disguise. I keep many stories in my head and let myself experience life as it comes, which means that I feel moved to tears on a regular basis, and I distance myself when I feel I need to.

Some of my reactions come from the unconscious, and if I am lucky enough to realise a glitch has happened — I dig deeper. Most of the time all those realisations happen because of interaction — with people, books, nature, art. I know that people who were fully present to embrace life gave me hope.

I know that connection helped me live and grow. Connection with people, books, nature. At our core we are very much the same, and we need to be embraced fully — in big things and in small things, in the beginning, middle, and the end. Being embraced like that (literally and metaphorically) gives the strength to look deep inside ourselves and acknowledge what we find in our depths: the good and the bad, the light and the darkness, the colour and the dullness, the deep and shallow ends.

Embracing fully needs patient, circular practice.

Embracing fully helps us connect with others on our own individual, compassionate terms so that the world becomes a more wholesome place for EveryOne. (Slightly prescriptive, but I’ll leave it.)

With gentleness,

AM