The Chocolate Balm

Here's a piece of conversation I had with myself yesterday:

Me: I’m craving for chocolates.

My alter ego: What’s there in that stupid brown gooey thing so laden with calories?

Me: I want that bittersweet taste. I want that rich molten feel circling around my tongue. I want that divine pleasure to last for hours.

My alter ego: Per say, right now you have a chocolate in your mouth, in that case can you describe how would you feel?

Me: It feels like the world is a better place to live in, it makes me feel loved and feel wanted. It takes away all the gnawing pain I feel in my heart.

My alter ego: So, it seems as if what you really want is to live in a make-believe world. A world without pain, a world where you feel loved and wanted

Me: Uh-oh. Is this a ploy? Are you trying to talk me out of wanting chocolates?

My alter ego: No, not at all. Having or not having a chocolate is absolutely your call. What I’m trying to learn is what exactly are you looking for in a chocolate, is the food itself or is the food serving as a cover up for something more vital.

Me: Uhm, well in that case I want to feel good about myself, I want to feel loved and wanted, I want to make my parents happy.

My alter ego: Why don’t you try to let loose yourself for a second. It’s okay to feel lonely and unloved, and it’s also okay to seek out love. Why don’t you acknowledge the fact that you want love?

Me: But what if I know I can't have it? My relationships are best in my mind and I can’t handle my parents pressure as they don’t take stock in the virtual world I live in. Hell!! What's the point of wanting love when I can't have it?

At this juncture my alter ego takes the centerstage. Now listen to my ego speak:

Yes, I guess you have fallen prey to the usual bait—FOOD because you believe that what's the point in wanting something you can't have? You want to spare yourself the pain and turn to something you can have--food—is’nt that right?

Why don’t you just admit what you want and then work in a positive direction to have it, rather than letting something else replace it. This way you will be able to get in touch with your innate desires. I agree that it’s the insatiable desire and craving itself, which is amazingly satisfying. But you have to believe me that It's the desire--not its fulfilment--that cheers your soul. It works by keeping your mind off the worldly tensions and worries. If you closely listen to that language, you hear your self.

It is not the chocolate, it's not the chips, it's not the icecream. If you give yourself permission to want without judging or dismissing your desires as crazy, you, too, have the power to return yourself to what you want most: the centre of your own stunning, tender, radiant heart.

It turns out, that the chocolate has had always been inside me.

An Idyllic Realm

Wishes have had always been ambiguous. However, it buoys up the dreamer’s spirit to dream. Wishes strengthen the moral fiber leading the dreamer to believe that there is a world beyond present. I am a dreamer these days, walking in baby steps en route for what I envisage to be a more shielded offing. The sun rises each day giving me a reason to spread my wings and fly.

Tomorrow shows the promise of a brighter day and in that, I must have faith. Today I look inside and love the woman I am becoming. My strength can carry me forward and my feathers will shine in the suns dawning beams as I soar into that blue sky.

Probably this dream is my raison d'être of living.

Soul Soup

I am angry at my agony,
dissatisfied with despair,
yet I know I cannot run from it,
because I take it everywhere.


The comfortable certainties about the nature of trust on which most conventional systems have had been founded have always been at best doubtful. Doubt and uncertainty are symptoms of the poison our culture has fed us for a hundred years. But once it looks at us in the eye-there is no escaping. It's a completely new learning experience. We all learn from experiences, past mistakes, and consciously avoid them when life gifts us a chance for a new start. However, we cannot count on them. Especially when the situation completely defies previous patterns. Patterns are safety nets. Patterns help us explore what we have on hand, and give us directions and hints for our next steps. But they also rule our lives so that we fall into the same tricky trenches we deserted, and voila! Deja vu.

So what do we conclude here--is it that the lack of having a familiar pattern a stroke of luck? In case we don’t, then we're starting on a completely blank slate. We are free to put in whatever we want to make it our own. A perfect one. But unfamiliarity breeds fear. There is no faith, nothing to latch onto. For some its exciting. But it's not the excitement that counts. It's how much we learn about ourselves - that we can feel a certain way about someone the way we’ve never felt before. The wisdom of Jane Austin seems so right at times like this. It’s ironical , how she is right about everything else, yes, its not about Willoughby's charming good looks or Wickham's easy manner (or for that matter Hugh Grant's endearing stutter or Pamela Anderson’s breasts) it has to be built on unwavering feelings. Like admiration. And respect. Which seem, over time, to be turning into something else.

A friend of mine once commented, "You need to stop thinking." Of course, if only I could do that.

I'm solemnly trying to accept that doubt and uncertainty are really just a part of life.

I wish I could overcome this feeling .

Uncertainty

Last night I was so excited, so certain that today would be beautiful. Now, huddled in my pyjamas and holey tee over my second cup of tea, faced with uncertainities, life seems less promising. Perhaps I should quit starting the day off with depressing music. And if I'd call my parents back, then I wouldn't have to feel so guilty all the time. I know I need a little clarity.

There are lessons in living abstemiously. I ask the gods for guidance and then fill my ears with noise. But sometimes they grant me the most incredible ephipanies. I feel like I'm flailing about in a great body of water. Each breath of air seems a gift; my toes stretch beneath me to discern some hint of a current. "write and paint and listen and wait," the gods tell me. But sometimes all I want to do is weep like a child, to stomp my feet in tantrum. But my world has lost all hard surfaces against which the soles of my feet might be banged. And when I weep, I feel the water level rising. Outside, the world is dead- a withered world. I long to break this silence, but my powers are like lilies, succulent and fragile. How will I ever grow strong here, where the only rain is inside of me?

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Well, this is it
I’m running out of space
Here is my address
And number just in case.
This time as one
We’ll find which way to go
Now come and meet me
On the sunny road

Sunny Road - Emiliana Torrini