Mornings are for coffee & thoughts. As the song Corcovado by João Gilberto, praising the view from the janela– the window – of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – goes by its musical notes, we need muita calma para pensar
e ter tempo para sonhar – calmness to think and time to dream.
Think about Life as a mere set of experiences, molded and shaped by people, conversations, points of view and actions to make love come true. Opening the heart is not easy if our ears are not ready to listen. People can hurt us, we can hurt them, and there is no correct answer to decrease the level of suffering.
However, we can dream, read of marvelous adventures of explorers who went out with their ships and had the curiosity of seeing something different, someone different. Listen, clash with diverse customs, cultures, ways of living, speaking, eating.
The process of change and transformation takes time, but when it happens, we will not even feel it because it will be already a part of us. By the time, we would have become used to new practices and methods of living the life in the new place, acquiring new tools in navigating life in a new environment.
As a result, we would have become a new version of us, applied to the context we are in, and fully plunged into a new atmosphere. The Soul and Values will still be us – from the way we remember it, from the education we have received from our families and from the way we have grown up, & from the depth of our humble beginnings, but we would have added something invaluable: the understanding of others, of someone different than us. The understanding would have been mutual. Other people would understand us, our preferences, our methodology of working, living, loving.
Trust me it is daily exercise of listening to what we love the most – inners passions – and to what we are bothered by – unfortunately tends to change and increase over time. However, I tend to be optimistic and believe that, at the end, it will all make sense and it has a deeper meaning – something that we can fully grasp, only by looking back at past experiences, taking stock of them, and fully acknowledge them.
Ciao, and keep moving forward!
Gaia
In the cover page: Hot air balloons filled with tourists rise into the sky at Sunrise in Cappadocia, UNESCO World Heritage site, photo credit: Emrah Gurel/AP Photo. If you wish to see more photos & read the article associated with it, here it is Hot air balloons ride over Turkey’s iconic Cappadocia, on Al Jazeera