HEARTBREAK

HEARTBREAK: WHATEVER YOU LOVE WILL BREAK YOUR HEART

It’s my contention that there is no sincere path a human being can take without breaking his or her heart… so it can be a merciful thing to think: ‘Actually, there is no path I can take without having my heart broken’ , so why not get on with it and stop wanting those extra-special circumstances which stop me from doing something courageous.’ David Whyte

‘Heartbreak is our indication of sincerity: in a love relationship, in a work, in trying to write content that brings back a sense of purpose, in the attempt to shape a better, more generous self, and a better, more generous world. Are you prepared to live in a world with its harsh need to change you? Can you look back with firm eyes saying ‘This is where I stand!’ David Whyte

Peace of mind is not the absence of conflict and heartbreak. Peace of mind is achieved by acceptance of conflict and heartbreak. If you love someone, if you are working towards a particular goal that you deeply care about , in my case writing, then conflict and heartbreak are inevitable.

If you are passionate about it will break your heart time and time again. So accept the heartbreak and disappointments and get on with the goddamn job, the work, the love, the caring, the empathy and compassion; for to withdraw from life because your heart is too fragile, is to succumb to Spiritual Death. Been there, done that.

Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless side of love and affection. Heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way. I believe that human beings are desperate, always, to belong to something larger than themselves.

How often do we voluntarily banish ourselves from ourselves, abdicate our wholeness and subjugate our consciousness, our sentience, our common sense, and the possibilities of true healing, in the hope of achieving invulnerability- to protect ourselves from more hurt, to lessen our pain?

‘To forge an untouchable, invulnerable identity is actually a sign of retreat from this world; of weakness, a sign of fear rather than strength, and betrays a strange misunderstanding of an abiding foundation and necessary reality: that untouched, we disappear.’ David Whyte

When we live a fully engaged and fulfilling life, there are bound to be many goodbyes to loved ones. If we are not willing to accept having our hearts broken, then we simply close ourselves off from all of life, from having meaningful relationships and live an isolated and meaningless existence.

We don’t get to choose whether we have our hearts broken or not, what we do get to choose is what we ultimately care about, what causes us pain, what does break our hearts. So we need to choose our values; what and who we truly care about carefully. And we need to constantly reevaluate and examine our belief systems and motivations. We want a guarantee that we will not experience pain and loss.

There is no such guarantee. But there is one guarantee: If we don’t allow ourselves to experience moments of silence, joy and love, we will not have what it takes when the excrement does hit the proverbial fan.

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VALUES: DO NOT FORGO YOUR PRINCIPLES FOR POWER AND PROFIT

It seems like an unreasonably high standard. It’s undeniable that many feats have only been made possible through compromise. Yet it seems that the pendulum has swung too far today: we forgo our principles in the name of power or for profit. Above we talked about values. We need to choose wisely a set of inviolable values that we should never compromise on, for money, reputation, or success. Don’t sell out.

And the pendulum has swung too far in the name of greed, power, and profit.

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From his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey writes, ‘The values of fairness, of integrity and honesty, of human dignity; the principles of service to others, the striving of excellence and the principle of potential; that we can grow and develop more and more talents. These are natural laws that are woven into the fabric of every civilized society throughout history and comprise the roots of every family and institution that has endured and prospered.’

‘These values are part of every enduring religious tradition, as well as enduring social philosophies and ethical systems throughout the history of human civilization.’ Stephen Covey

‘By embracing values, defined early—they’re the subtitles of the chapters you’ve read: honesty, vulnerability, empathy, moving away from emotions, embracing your fear, believing in the good.’ Maria Ressa

‘In the day to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.’

‘If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing you will die a million deaths before they grieve you. Worship power, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.’ David Foster Wallace

IF YOU’RE FALLING, DIVE MAKE THAT LEAP OF FAITH

‘Life is a daring adventure or nothing.’ Helen Keller

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

‘The person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The person who walks alone is likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before. Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim.’ Carl Jung

‘People strive toward reason only so that they can make rules for themselves. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life. The person who walks alone is likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before.’ Carl Jung

Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens. I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become. In life we judge every single experience that we have. There’s an inner dialogue judging everything as ‘good or bad’ or ‘for or against’. Life is meant to be experienced, not judged. It comes from a deeper place inside that has not been taught the skills of living in the present moment. You can’t truly create experience, just as you can’t find meaning by looking for meaning.

As far as I can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being. How can I be substantial if I do not acknowledge that I must transform myself, if I am to become whole. I cannot change anything unless I accept it. Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.

Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discovery of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them.’ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoc

STARTING OVER: Think of the life you have lived until now as over, as a dead man. You went out this morning and stepped out and got hit by a bus. Roadkill! Game over! Light’s out! Good Night Vienna! Now, let us say by some miracle- it didn’t happen. So the rest of your life is a bonus and if you live according to Nature, love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting.

We have but this one life; we’re dealing within a limited time frame here: myself more than most. So we must make the best of our lives with the time that we do have left. We do not know how much time we have left. That is not for us to know, and we shouldn’t even think of it. To what avail? But what we can decide is what to do with the time that is given us. So we must make the best of our lives. When you’re falling, dive! Take that leap of faith!

There is still a lot in this world that is worth fighting for. And although we may not think that we can make a difference, we can begin sowing the seeds of love. This is what karma truly is. To reach out to someone who is staring or falling into the abyss and lift their spirits and pull them up and away from the darkness and resolve to be a warrior for peace.

Our task is to reach out to someone who is staring or falling into the abyss and to lift their spirits, and say, ‘Don’t let go, I’ve got you’ and pull them up and away from the darkness and resolve to be a warrior for peace. We do not exist for ourselves alone, and it is only when we are fully convinced of this fact that we begin to love ourselves properly and thus also love others.

‘Don’t let go. I’ve got you.’

‘We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place- or not to bother. You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one must take responsibility for their lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other.’ Jane Goodall

We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us. If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

‘When one door of happiness closes, another one opens. But usually we spend so much time looking at the closed door, we don’t see the one that has opened.’ Helen Keller

I look back in wonder at the pain and suffering of my own life, and how I somehow managed to endure; to break on through to the other side. And that I, or we, any of us, must be much more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. And I know I am not alone.

We all have had our traumas. And if I have gained some wisdom from living my life, and despite my existential loneliness, perhaps all of my struggles have not been in vain; that I am exactly where I am meant to be. Writing day and night to find joy, solace, clarity, kindness, or insights which may help someone navigate the storms of life. Most of us don’t share our scars, for fear of being judged. That’s a delusion. People will embrace you if you open up. And:

‘Those who matter don’t mind and those who mind don’t matter.’ Dr. Seuss

How strange that we should feel compelled to hide our wounds when we are all wounded. Community requires the ability to expose these wounds and weaknesses to our fellow creatures. It also requires the ability to be moved by the wounds of others… But even more important is the love that arises among us when we share, both ways, our woundedness.

A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there. Truly it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then the light is nearest to all of us.

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS

‘For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. ‘ Stephen Hawking

‘Mankind’s greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn’t have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.’ Hawking

Our greatest failures occur when we stop talking to one another, but truth be told, we are incapable of listening to one another. We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.

‘The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you, have not been shaped by a paterfamilias or a schoolmaster, they have sprung from very different beginnings, having been influenced by evil or commonplace that prevailed around them. They represent a struggle and a victory.’ Marcel Proust

CARL SAGAN: ‘I have a foreboding of an America in my children or grandchildren’s time, when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues.’ Carl Sagan

‘When awesome technologies are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues, surely we are lost. ‘Sagan

When the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when clutching our crystals, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. ‘ Carl Sagan

‘Unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true. We know what the truth is, it’s simply boring. The truth is boring and if you were to search for the truth, you’ll need to do some work to find it. Fiction is inexpensive and easy to produce, there is no fact-checking on social media, no dispelling of conspiracy technologies.

We want to feel good and we want it now! FOMO is an outdated word for us today- is it ‘woke’ or is it anti-woke? Which one is ‘woke’ today” What is woke? Do you see the absurdity of it all? Things are categorized, and human beings are definitely categorized and up for sale. Paste a big red sign on your forehead, saying FOR SALE.

‘The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow-decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance! ‘ Carl Sagan

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN: WHY WE ARE SO POLARIZED?:

‘A squirrel dying in your backyard may be more relevant to you than people starving in Africa.’ Mark Zuckerberg Facebook

‘I’m trying to think, don’t confuse me with facts. In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state.’ Plato

‘Our modes of information have been shattered. We are all on our own with our thoughts, with our smartphones and laptops and our own personalized digital experiences are fragmented to the extent that we are no longer able to discern what is ‘real’ and what is not. We spend so much time thinking about and reacting to the digital lives that we and others have created, that there has been a complete breakdown of our ability to talk to one another or listen to each other.’ Sam Harris

‘The measure of a man is what he does with power. Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.’ Plato

‘One of the consequences of our reliance on information from social media and related technologies is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to arrive at some kind of consensus; some kind of fact-based discussion of what’s happening out there. Everyone has a discordant version of events and conspiracy theories; the result being that we have arrived at the point where we have rendered ourselves ungovernable.’

‘Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.’ Plato

“We spend so much time thinking about and reacting to the digital lives that we and others have created, that there has been a complete breakdown of our ability to talk to one another or listen to each other. One of the consequences of our reliance on our source of information on social media and related technologies is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to arrive at some kind of consensus; some kind of fact-based discussion of what’s happening out there.’ Sam Harris

‘Ignorance is the root and stem of every evil. Those who tell the stories rule society. You should not honor men more than the truth.’ Plato

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Reflections

We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.’ Albert Einstein

‘It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be meaningless, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure. You must be willing to give up what you are in order to become what you will be.’ Albert Einstein

‘Life is very short and anxious for those that regret the past, neglect the present and fear the future.’ Epictetus

Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it. That’s why the philosophers warned us not to be satisfied with their learning, but to add practice and then training. For as time passes, forget what we learned and end up doing the opposite of what we should.

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WISDOM: WE FORGET THE INNER VALUE, THE RAPTURE OF LIVING

Wisdom has been the hardest virtue to articulate. Perhaps it is the state of the world as we speak; for where can we find wisdom these days. Slim pickins!

‘The only thing necessary for evil to prevail, is when good men do nothing.’ Edmund Burke

We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about. This is the soul’s individual journey, and the soul would much rather fail at its own life, than succeed at someone else’s. All journeys have a secret destination of which the traveler is unaware. Solitude is the place of purification. Our work is to make ourselves visible in the world.

WISDOM IS A STRUGGLE AND A VICTORY

The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you, have not been shaped by a paterfamilias or a schoolmaster, they have sprung from very different beginnings, having been influenced by evil or commonplace that prevailed around them. They represent a struggle and a victory.’ Proust

‘In order to cooperate, Sapiens no longer had to know each other personally, they just had to know the same story. Why are we so good at accumulating more information and power, but far less successful at requiring wisdom.’ Yuval Noah Hariri

‘How is it that the most intelligent beings to have ever walked on our planet are destroying its only home. It seems that we have lost wisdom. We are making decisions based on, ‘How does this help me now, how does it help my family now: the next shareholders meeting, the next political campaign’? We are not thinking about how our decisions will affect future generations.’ Jane Goodall

‘To the wise person who truly understands the nature of reality, there is no place for complacency or arrogance. There is no time for that! The wise person lives with utmost humility and gratitude, and in constant awe and wonder at the miracle of existence. Life is full of miracles. Tao guides along the way and accepts that all life is a mystery. Embrace the mystery of life. Be silent and look around and pay attention and you will begin to experience the utmost gratitude and humility for the gift of life and live in a sense of awe and wonder.’ Lao Tzu

‘My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing. Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind. We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing. We are healed of suffering only by experiencing it to the fullest.’ Marcel Proust

‘The true journey of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having fresh eyes.’ Marcel Proust

‘If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less, but to dream more, to dream all the time. The true paradises are the paradises that we have lost. It comes so soon, the moment when there is nothing left to wait for. ‘ Marcel Proust

Everyday, we get another shot at life, another shot of love and compassion, another shot at trying to make a difference. We can change. You can change yourself, day by day. It is possible to produce thoughts, speech, and action of compassion, understanding and forgiveness. There is cause for hope, for joy.