Path

[Lila9]

Apparently, I lost my previous journal forever, because I naively clicked "hide" and I thought that I could make it appear at any time again.

But then when I wanted to write in it and make it appear again, I contacted Leo and apparently, it was too late to restore it.

My first journal was called "My path" but this journal I call "Path" because I don't feel like I'm possessing my life anymore.

Not sure whether it's good or bad, anyway, "Path" is more classic. 

I also changed my profile picture. I'm so classy when I mean it.

 

[Lila9]

I don't know if this journal will contain "high quality" things or not, it will be what it is.

I have days when I'm very numb mentally and I just can't think properly, only complain repeatedly.

But I also have days when I have good things to write about.

Writing is something that I can get better at. Here's a chance for me to improve.

 

 

[Lila9]

I was thinking about sadness today, I felt sad and I was in acceptance of this feeling. It brought me such a cozy relief.

There are so many negative truths in our life and society and I feel like many people are in denial about it.

I'm tired of the obsession with happiness and perfection in modern society, even in spiritual circles. This obsession brings so much phoniness.

I want to honor sadness totally, imperfection, to give it its place, it deserves full respect.

 

Life is also sad and imperfect.

You are free when you allow yourself to be sad and imperfect.

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Lila9

[Lila9]

The Cursed Buddha

 part 1

 

It was in the afternoon, the air was hot and stuffy.

I was walking around the gypsy market until suddenly a 50-year-old woman shouted at me "Hey girrrrl, let me tell you the future!"

"I'm not a girrrrl" I said.

"Never mind, come on, give me your hands."

I carefully held out my hands to her, she turned and felt them for a few seconds until she stopped and looked inside my palms.

"Your right hand says something different than your left hand, what is your strong hand?"

"Right."

"You will get married soon."

"Oh, come on."

"You will have a good husband."

"Yes Yes."

"20 euros."

"I only have 2."

"Okay okay bring it."

 

To be honest I had just over 20 euros in my bag and the last thing I wanted was to give her most of my money for this thing.

I handed her the 2 euros I had in my pocket, it was an excess from something I had bought before.

She thanked me with a gold-toothed smile and handed me a small card with her face on it and her name written in phosphorescent yellow Innes Franco.

 

I shoved the card in my pocket and started walking through the alleys of the market until a little boy stopped and asked me

"If you were God, where would you hide from humans?"

"In the sewer." I said.

"Why?" asked the boy.

"Humans don't like to be near their own shit, so the safest place from humans is the sewer."

"But it stinks there."

"If I were God I wouldn't care about the smell, besides, look at the cockroaches and the rats they live in the sewers,

that's why humans don't stand a chance against them."

 

"You convinced me," said the boy with a light smile on his face, "follow me please, I have something to show you."

I followed the boy curiously, it seemed really important to him that I should see something.

We walked between different stalls of food, clothing, antiques, fortune telling and fate, it was very crowded and people looked nervous, there was a mix of smells in the air, mainly of fish, incense and sweat.

We walked for long minutes and every few seconds the boy turned back to see if I was still following him, until we reached an old peddler's stall.

The first thing that stood out to me about his face was that one of his eyes was very light and the other was very dark.

Then, I looked down and saw many statues scattered in several rows.

These were Buddha statues of different colors and sizes, sitting in Padmasana.

Behind the peddler were small tables with a variety of crystals in all kinds of colors and shapes.

"Ask her." said the boy to the peddler, panting.

"In short, where would you hide from humans if you were God?"

Before I could answer the boy answered in my place: "Sewer. In the sewer she said."

The old man changed his facial expression to wonder, turned his gaze to me and asked me "Is that true?"

"Yes." I said.

"Come on" the peddler opened his mouth and started laughing.

"I don't understand" I said confused.

"Why would God want to hide from humans? If he is afraid of humans, he is not really God."

"Umm... I guess that's true."

"In any case, that's an interesting answer, I'm curious to know why you think that way, there must be a good reason for it, after all, the boy didn't bring you to me for nothing."

"Humans hate their excreta-" I started to say.

"You told me that people hate their shit, you used more blunt language" said the boy, interrupting my words.

"It doesn't matter, it's the same, humans hate their waste, whether it's shit or anything else, they hide it underground and rarely if ever go there. If I were God and I felt the need to hide from humans for whatever reason, I would hide there."

"Like cockroaches and rats, they also hide there from humans and therefore humans cannot defeat them, as she said." The boy completed me.

"Nice." said the old man, "Good answer, I didn't think of it that way."

"What now?" I asked.

"Nothing," said the old man.

"Then why did you bring me here?" I asked the boy.

"No, no, no. I didn't mean anything in that sense" the old man hastened to say.

"Then, in what sense?" I asked.

Edited September 23, 2022 by Lila9

[Lila9]

I'm in such pain right now...

[Lila9]

Thia pictorial language kills me. So poetic.

When will I be awake so deeply that I will understand why every hair on my balls (or at least in the place they should have been if I was a male) is exactly the way it is and not any other way? 

 

[Lila9]

Life, as it literaly appears, with its limited construction of the physical environment, the specific developmental stage of the people around you including their biases and paradigms, the culture around you with it's norms and standards, your limited body, your attachments, your stage of development, your ego, feels like a prison.

That's why I deeply understand why some of us drawn to art, philosophy and spirituality.

Life would be much harder to live if those things wouldn't been accessible.

The internet plays a big part in this.

Thank you internet. 

 

 

[Lila9]

I don't remember when I've experienced my first Feminist Awakening.

I think that it wasn't a sudden event but a gradual process. Insight after insight after insight... Boom after boom after boom...

 

 

[Lila9]

Many men underestimate the importance of feminism to women.

Discovering feminism for me, as a teenager, felt for the first time that I'm allowed to be myself. It felt like a cleanser or a protector from society's tendency to gaslight women. It implied that I'm valuable as a human being, it was importent for me at that time.

Yes it's not perfect but stop treating it as if it's the biggest threat on the world while it's only a threat on your own ego.

Not everything that doesn't benefit you is bad. For some people it can be literaly life saver.

 

[Lila9]

My soul song:

 

.

[Lila9]

God loves us all.

Edited September 25, 2022 by Lila9

[Ulax]

20 hours ago, Lila9 said:

Many men underestimate the importance of feminism to women.

Discovering feminism for me, as a teenager, felt for the first time that I'm allowed to be myself. It felt like a cleanser or a protector from society's tendency to gaslight women. It implied that I'm valuable as a human being, it was importent for me at that time.

Yes it's not perfect but stop treating it as if it's the biggest threat on the world while it's only a threat on your own ego.

Not everything that doesn't benefit you is bad. For some people it can be literaly life saver.

 

@Lila9 As a teenager, was there a specific feminist who you first found persuasive?

[Lila9]

4 hours ago, Ulax said:

@Lila9 As a teenager, was there a specific feminist who you first found persuasive?

Actually no, I didn't know feminists at that time but I did got inspired by fictional feminist characters that I read at that time like Hermione Granger and more female characters like Bellatrix and Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter), Ann Shirley (Ann of green Gables), Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games), Pippi Longstocking, Lisbeth Salander (The girl with the dragon tattoo), Mari Poppins, characters from "Little Women" and more. It was so refreshing for me at that time to read about women I can relate to, women who are humans with flaws but also admired and respected by their talents, skills, character, brilliance, courage, personality and not by obeying to social expectations or to the patriarchal and traditional norms only, women whose happiness was not dependent on a presence or absence of a man only. 

If I will ever raise a girl I introduce her to this kind of literature that is literaly empowering and inspiring, for sure, and not to some lovey-dovey fantasies about waiting to be saved by some white knight and then living happily ever after because it's simply not true and not realistic. 

My mom tried to raise me on those fantasies because she believed in them herself and also on another traditional ideas because she didn't know better but she gave up when she realized that I was developing towards healthier direction in life than her when she was at my age. 

 

Edited September 25, 2022 by Lila9

[Lila9]

There are a few things that can only be done alone. Love, prayer, life, death, asthenic experiences, blissful moments-they all come when you are alone. 

Nobody wants to be alone. The greatest fear in the world is to be left alone. People do a thousand and one things just not to be left alone. You imitate your neighbors so you are just like them and you are not left alone. You lose your individuality, you lose your uniqueness. You just become imitators, because if you are not imitators you will be left alone.

You become part of the crowd, you become part of a church, you become part of an organization. Somehow you want to merge with a crowd where you can feel at ease, that you are not alone, there are so many people like you-so many Muslims like you, so many Hindus like you, so many Christians, millions of them... You are not alone.

To be alone is really the greatest miracle. That means now you don't belong to any church, you don't belong to any organization, you don't belong to any theology, you don't belong to any ideology- socialist, communist, fascist, Hindu, Christian, Jain, Buddhist- you don't belong, you simply are. And you have learned how to love your indefinable, ineffable reality. You have come to know how to be with yourself.

 

Try to understand this. You are born alone; you die alone. These two are the greatest moments in life: birth and death. You are born alone; you die alone. The greatest moments of life- the begining and the end- are in aloneness. When you meditate, you again become alone. That's why meditation is both- a death and a birth. You die to the past and you are born to the new, to the unknown. 

Even in love, when you think you are together, you are not together. There are two alonenesses. In real love nothing is lost. When two lovers are sitting- if they are really lovers and they don't try to posses each other and they don't try to dominate each other, because that is not love; that is the way of hatred, the way of violence- if they love, and if the love is coming out of their aloneness, you will see two beautiful alonenesses together. They are like two Himalayan peaks, high in the sky, but separate. They don't interfere. In fact, deep love only reveals your pure aloneness to you.

All that is true and all that is real will always bring you to aloneness. Love, Prayer, life, death, aesthetic experiences, blissful moments- they all come when you are alone. When you are in love you think you are with somebody. Maybe the somebody is just reflecting your aloneness, the somebody is just mirror in which your aloneness is reflected. But the deeper you move in love, the deeper you know that even your lover cannot penetrate there. Your aloneness is absolute- and it is good that it is so; otherwise you will be a public thing. Then you will not have any innermost core where you can be alone. Then you can be violated. But your aloneness is absolute; nobody can violate it.

(Tarot in the spirit of Zen, The game of life, Osho)

[Lila9]

Social anxiety forced me to feel so lonely. So isolated. Especially around people. It took me years to get over it. No one knew, no one noticed. It was my personal war against something vague, obscure fear.

That made me stronger though, and just generally more empathetic. It was my step towards self help and development. I didn't want to end up fearful of people for the rest of my life.

It's been a long time since I've experienced physical symptoms of social anxiety, even though I still experience it from time to time, but not in the same intensity that I had in the past, even not closer.

In the past, my symptoms were unbearable. I tend to froze, my hands became stiff, my jaw, my chest, especially my chest, which felt like there is some metallic device that suffocating me, I felt like I'm about to get a heart attack, to go mad, to die.

I remember that I was a teen and I wanted to understand what's happening with me, why I have such anxiety around people. I googled it and I found the term "social anxiety".

 

The realization that it has a name helped me, it brought me some hope.

 

 

 

 

[Lila9]

3 minutes ago, Lila9 said:

Social anxiety forced me to feel so lonely. So isolated. Especially around people. It took me years to get over it. No one knew, no one noticed. It was my personal war against something vague, obscure fear.

That made me stronger though, and just generally more empathetic. It was my step towards self help and development. I didn't want to end up fearful of people for the rest of my life.

It's been a long time since I've experienced physical symptoms of social anxiety, even though I still experience it from time to time, but not in the same intensity that I had in the past, even not closer.

In the past, my symptoms were unbearable. I tend to froze, my hands became stiff, my jaw, my chest, especially my chest, which felt like there is some metallic device that suffocating me, I felt like I'm about to get a heart attack, to go mad, to die.

I remember that I was a teen and I wanted to understand what's happening with me, why I have such anxiety around people. I googled it and I found the term "social anxiety".

 

The realization that it has a name helped me, it brought me some hope.

 

 

 

 

It made me realize that I'm not crazy and I'm not imagining it. Also not the only person who experience it.

Yet, there was a tremendous fear about the fear itself, fear with shame and also depression.

Mental issues like anxiety and depression are transparent. It's not like other illnesses that others can notice and understand. Most of the suffering you experience in your psyche is not very noticeable.

You still can function with some degree of social anxiety and depression and appear normal, even when it comes with a lot of suffering from your side, but it feels like hell. That's why I ditched 50% of school, the main reason was social anxiety and depression.

[Lila9]

23 minutes ago, Lila9 said:

It made me realize that I'm not crazy and I'm not imagining it. Also not the only person who experience it.

Yet, there was a tremendous fear about the fear itself, fear with shame and also depression.

Mental issues like anxiety and depression are transparent. It's not like other illnesses that others can notice and understand. Most of the suffering you experience in your psyche is not very noticeable.

You still can function with some degree of social anxiety and depression and appear normal, even when it comes with a lot of suffering from your side, but it feels like hell. That's why I ditched 50% of school, the main reason was social anxiety and depression.

Everyone thought that I'm just very lazy

[Lila9]

I don't belong to this world.

Some people belong.

Some people don't.

I don't.

[Lila9]

The Cursed Buddha

 part 2

 

 

The air cooled slightly and the sky turned gray.
I noticed that suddenly there were fewer people around us and the market felt less crowded.
Although not completely empty. People passed by and sometimes stopped by the old peddler's stand.
Most of them asked about the price but there were also some who asked about the materials the sculptures are made of or their origin.
A skinny man with a button-down shirt interrupted my conversation with the peddler when he showed strong interest in the sculptures and asked the peddler many questions.
The peddler answered them slowly and patiently, providing any information the man was asking for.
Me and the boy on the other hand, were impatient. The boy drummed his hands on the table and mumbled a song in a language I didn't recognize and I moved my leg nervously while counting all the sculptures on the stand.

Finally, the man bought a turquoise stone Buddha statue with gold decorations.
After handing the peddler 50 euros in cash, he asked him where in the house he would recommend putting the statuette,
"I don't think the bathroom is an appropriate place for statues" he said and laughed, "besides, any place will be appropriate depending on how you feel."

"It doesn't really matter," he said to the boy after the man left, "I tell them what they like to hear."
"Why?" asked the boy, he stopped drumming.
"No one likes to hear that the fancy Buddha statue doesn't care to see them there doing their business, they're the ones who care."
"Then why don't you tell them that?"
"Because they argue with me about it, and I don't have the passion to argue about it, it's hard to convince people who don't want to be convinced."
The boy nodded in agreement, I examined a small marble figurine, after counting all there was in that stand for the 3th time. 

 

"Oh yes," said the old man, turning his gaze to me, "first of all, what's your name?"
"My name is Lila, it's nice to meet you." I put the figurine in its place and reached out to shake the old man's hand.
"My name is Manfri, the boy's name is Helios, nice to meet you, Lila." Manfri shook my hand, his hand was cold.
"Nice to meet you, Lila." said Helios and also extended his hand, I bent down slightly and squeezed his hand gently while asking him:
"Helios, how are you and Manfri related?"
"He is my grandfather's little brother who died shortly after I was born, Manfri is like a father to me" said the boy and turned his gaze towards Manfri with a smile.
Manfri looked at the boy with a smile and said "I love him more than his parents love him, that's why he likes to spend time here with me, they are too stressed and never have time for him."
"Most people never have time." I said.
"Well, I'm almost certain you talked to a gypsy woman before you got here, her name is Innes if I'm not mistaken."
"Right." I said while looking for the business card she gave me.
When I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at it again, I noticed another inscription under her name that I hadn't noticed before.
Underneath her name, 'Innes Franco', it read 'a professional fortune teller of the highest caliber, the proven incarnation of the legendary and iconic fortune teller Cassandra.'
I read that line out loud. I hadn't finished the line yet and I heard giggles from Manfri and Helios.
"She still believes she's the reincarnation of Cassandra, I don't believe it" Said Manfri with a chuckle.
"She is what?" I asked confused.

"She claimed that the soul of a legendary prophetess from the past was transferred to her.
When she made that stupid statement 15 years ago, I thought she was kidding us, but... don't think I have a problem with it, I really don't.
If she was really the reincarnation of an iconic prophetess from the past, I would understand, but she's not."

Helios sat down on a chair next to Manfri, he pulled out a rubber band from his pocket and started playing with it.

"I understand, she did seem a little unprofessional to me, but still, what makes you so sure she's not the same prophetess from the past?" I asked him.
"Look, we can't really know who, among all the people in the world, is the reincarnation of that prophetess from the past, but we can tell who isn't, and there is a way to check it."
"How?" I asked curiously.
"For that I'll have to tell you the full story, but it's not a problem for me because it's exactly related to the reason the boy brought you here, the question is whether it's a problem for you, I don't want you to feel like we're wasting your time." Said Manfri and looked at me with a slightly guilty expression on his face.
"I'd like to know the whole story," I began to say in a soothing voice so that the peddler and the boy wouldn't feel like they were burdening me, "I'm quite curious... but I'm in a hurry."

I was really in a hurry. A good friend of mine was getting married that day and I promised her that I would come before the wedding to help her with the preparations.
I can't let her down because she helped me so many times during our acquaintance and I was barely there for her. When she asked me to help her with the wedding preparations, I told myself that this was my chance to finally be there for her.
"That's fine, come back when you wish and I'll gladly tell you the full story, take care." Said Manfri and waved at me.
Then Helios asked me if I want him to accompany me to the entrance of the market because it's a new area for me, and I said that I think I'll be fine.
I greeted them and then I walked towards the direction where I came from with the boy.

 

Innes. How the hell did he know that I talked to Innes?
Did Helios tell him that? I tried to recall what happened after I pulled the business card in my pocket.
No, the boy didn't see me talking to the gypsy, I met him after a few minutes in another area of the market.
Then how did Manfri know that I talked to her?
Maybe he assumed that she talked to me because he knows that she tends to approach young women like me?
Because she knows we will swallow her bullshit about husbands and marriages out of desperation?
Or because life is all ahead of us so we are the ones who are more likely to be interested in fortune telling compared to older people?
Probably. Whatever. I didn't have the time to think about it.
I was running through the alleys of the market, cutting people. I had to come to my friend at the time that we arranged.
At 18:00. It was 17:20 and I wasn't even dressed for the wedding.
I had to go home, change clothes and then her fiancé had to come and pick me up at 17:50.
In mutual reluctance. It took her a while to convince him.
He disliked me since their first or second date and I disliked him for obvious reasons.
He was a terrible person in my opinion, but not to her taste.
She saw in him all the good things that I tried to see in him but failed.
I understand that love can be blind sometimes,
but why does it have to be that blind?

 

 

Part 1

 

[Lila9]

On 9/25/2022 at 5:21 PM, Lila9 said:

Shyness is a personality trait that you can see in other animals as well, as I said it's a survival strategy, a group must have both cautious and risk takers so if one strategy doesn't work, at least the species will survive. it's not an illness or a problem. It's only a problem when you are too shy to have friends, relationships and it messing up too much with your survival.

I read about it in Susan Cain's book "Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking".

I remember I had two cats who were siblings. One of them was more friendly and active compared to the other who was more shy, cautious of humans and other cats. They both grew up in the same environment, the differences in temperament between them were clear since birth.

It doesn't mean that the friendly cat never was cautious, and it also doesn't mean that the cautious cat never was friendly.

I think that it's important to be aware of your own temperament and to look at it with no judgement. Just accept it as a part of you and see what you can do about it, don't give it to limit you in life but also don't bitch yourself up about something that might be inherent in your brain.

I also think that shyness and introversion are often demonized a lot in the self-help field. Perhaps it is a stage orange thing which values extroversion very much. I don't think that they dive deeply with an open mind into the reason that some are shyer or more introverted. They automatically judge it. Probably those kinds of people who demonize introversion and shyness have a big shadow around it

I think that shyness and introversion can be both natural and sexy traits both in men and women. I don't know why some people see it inferior to extroversion and bold behavior, I guess it's a cultural bias.

Shyness and introversion are not the same trait but they often come together and overlap. It was hard for me to know if I'm shyer or more introverted. But as I grew up, I realized that I'm more introverted than shy and many times it's not that I want to be social but I'm too shy but it's that I don't have the energy to be social. Still, there are occasions when I do want to make contact with someone or do something but I feel shy, I'm pretty aware of those occasions and I ask myself what this feeling of shyness tries to tell me? Does it try to protect me from real or imaginary harm? What is the reason that I'm shy on this specific occasion and not on other? How can I grow from this situation? What is the right thing to do? Does overcoming shyness in this situation support my goals or not?

In certain situations, I realize that it's important for me to overcome shyness, in others I don't see a benefit in it and just let myself be in my shyness. 

 

Edited October 2, 2022 by Lila9