Love the questions

Like trying to figure out what’s on the last page of a book you haven’t even started, I too often try to answer many questions before living them. As if there was a rational and definitive answer to a question that only us can bring a meaning to.

A few months back, as I moved in a new room closer to the center in Jerusalem, I found a magnet with this quote from Rilke. I had the impression this magnet had been waiting for me, and many were the times I reread it to try an ease the thirst for answers in my heart.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Decalogue to overcome the pressure of the blank page

1- No matter how hard I try, any good idea in my mind will never sound half as good once written down (and it just happened again while writing this rule)

2- Any deep reflection that I wish to capture in writing will automatically become anodyne and shallow once re-reading the text

3- There will always be someone who will know how to express in a much graceful and talented way whatever thought or feeling I have towards a work of art

4- No matter how good my English might be, the fact that it’s not my mother tongue will always determine the final result

5- Done is better than perfect: the longer it takes me to write again, the harder it will become

6- I don’t need to prove anything by writing on this blog, this is just for me. My only command is to be honest and collect beauty in all sorts of expression

7- Always remember how good it feels to reread some of my previous posts and realize I took the time and energy to accomplish them

8- This blog is like a good old friend. It doesn’t matter if we lost contact for a while, it’s a place I can always come back to

9- There has been a few moments in life when I’ve felt truly connected, let’s spread the news

10- I’m the only one who can make this happen

Stuff we learn the hard way

Ever since I was a little girl I remember feeling sad and disappointed with my friends from time to time. I’m this kind of person who acts exactly the way I feel and have never understood hypocrisy. What you see is what you get, for better or worse.

As you grow up, you start to think you might have to change your attitude towards people and start building barriers, or keep some kind of distance.

Create a protection so that every time a good friend lies to you, disappears for no reason, stops answering your texts or calls, goes away and doesn’t contact you again, starts a relationship and stops needing you or simply pretends that, what you thought was a real friendship, never happened, it doesn’t hurt as much.

Here’s an abstract of a comic strip from one of my favourite comic artists, Alex Noriega (check his Facebook profile pictures whenever you’re feeling down), published in his blog Stuff No One Told Me ( But I Learned Anyway) that summarises it in a perfect way:

The Art of Life

The art we use when sailing / Avoiding storms or confronting them / This is the only meaning of life / Because life itself is only a parenthesis / in the middle of nothing.

Juanjo Sáez- El Arte

This is my favourite page from a fantastic comic book by Juanjo Sáez.

I always think that I spend most of my time confronting the storms, instead of accepting them as they come and even taking profit from them. I wish I had more art sailing in this ocean of life

Every Little Thing’s Gonna Be Alright

“At any given moment, life is completely senseless. But viewed over a period, it seems to reveal itself as an organism existing in time, having a purpose, trending in a certain direction.”

Aldous Huxley

Have you ever heard about fractals? Benoit Mandelbrot defined in 1975 a mathematical equation describing shapes where every little part is equal to the totality. Nature, which is always been described as chaotic opposite to predictable geometric shapes, presents, however, many examples of fractals.(Check some pictures in my pinterest board ). But fractals are not limited to geometric patterns, they can also describe processes in time

In that sense human nature can be also described by fractal equations. As my dear Aldous said, we might find ourselves at some point in our life where nothing makes sense and everything seems pointless. What am I doing with my life? Where am I leading to? We might feel lost in total lack of perspective and thinking that’s not how my life was supposed to be. There should be something else, something that gives sense to my existence.

But, what gives sense to our existence? Well, every little step, every little moment in which we succumb to despair or we rejoice with ecstasy. We are the combination of our everyday thoughts, actions and feelings and in the end these are what define us.

We may not understand it now, but in a wider approach of our life every single failure, illness, achievement or triumph is responsible for shaping our identity. If we don’t like the kind of life we’re leading, then take action. Little by little. Every day. Every thought. Every word we say or keep to ourselves. Every little thing we do is “trending in a certain direction“.