What Happens When You Live Abroad

Reblogged from Thought Catalog:

A very dependable feature of people who live abroad is finding them huddled together in bars and restaurants, talking not just about their homelands, but about the experience of leaving. And strangely enough, these groups of ex-pats aren't necessarily all from the same home countries, often the mere experience of trading lands and cultures is enough to link them together and build the foundations of a friendship.

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And having to start from zero and rebuild everything, having to re-learn how to live and carry out every day activities like a child, fundamentally alters you.

The Swan and the Silver linings

Photo By Twig Capra 2010

…You know, when Odette could only regain her human form at night, and she could only breathe like a human and live when the sun went down, her lake became a way of being, it became her joie de vivre. Resented and enchanted by forces above her swan or human existence, the princess could only be freed by Siegfried, who was tricked to declare his faithful love to Odile, the evil representation of Odette…but she breached her circle of sorrow by giving herself to the lake, as a human.

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Like Siegfried, you do have a chance to choose who you free away from the spell; to pick the Odile that you’re tricked by, or the Odette that you’ve expected for a while. Like Odette, you will realize there must be a way to free yourself from the limits you’ve constructed for yourself, or maybe to live – painfully – within those. The silver lining you are trying to find through your thoughts has nothing to do with the philosophy of this story. But it’s a way to show you where you’re stuck.

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Forget about the false reasons you give yourself to live, pretexts about your ability to understand where you are, and choose to rise from the ashes of what you believe it’s real for the others. Dismiss the socially constructed myth of the normality that you attain to, be different in your madness, and you’ll find your own cure. Surround yourself with hope and that bit of “positive self-centrism”, and you’ll get to be the swan which goes against the story. Because you know…silver linings are blurry, but clear enough for you to reach them at the right time.

The Danger of a Single Story

10 steps to move forward

10 Things you must give up to move forward

What would you do if Money didn’t matter?

Brain Travel

The side of the things you sometimes embrace is most of the times the other side of the things you  don’t want to happen. It’s like a travel in the space between fate, choices, mind, heart and…yes, choices. Or all these mixed up in a sort of love and hate poem of your flight.

Beneath autumn thoughts and wintery synapses, the lyrics which keep you going are hidden within the frontiers of your mind. Each time you go there, it  feels like a bare ground, but with lots of green species underneath… so you fly further. Up to the northern, left part of your brain, you get to see the things you’ve thought and the ones you should have thought. You really feel like going to fix the injuries or, better… the disorder that once created them.

On the right side, the capillary rivers irrigate the beautifully compounded hills of colour. And you believe this destination likes you, wants you, but still doesn’t teach you how to land. Then, you get that temptation of flying higher, in and out through your other brain levels.  If you feel tired, then either your wings or the engine were not well prepared for this travel. You don’t get to fix thoughts and neither to find the place where you belong. Realizing that you are missing some bits of these travels because of the links you didn’t see at one point becomes the essence of your flight composure.

Yes, you are travelling in your own brain. You may now pretend you got both edges of the story of your flight – the heart of the stateless mind, or the mind of your stateless heart. You stepped on what you thought, chose and felt, and you got to a thought.  Finding the place where you belong is not about learning how to fly higher, but how to land better. That’s one side of the things you sometimes embrace. Then you fall asleep. And you are out of your own brain. Stateless.

The Ants

It’s almost November before December.

The city of lights and busy nights gets noisier. The ants are moving around, preparing for the end of the year. The anthill looks nicer and the cricket put on his celebration costume…

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In their world, there’s a passionate spirit of being meticulously dedicated…to everything. One ant followed by a few others, does her daily shifts of community work, with as much effort as they all put in each month,  intelligently preparing for the winter. The real winter.

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The ants culture is fabulous. It’s like a tiny empire of customs, intelligence and a temple spirit of the anthill. There’s no rocky ground ahead for them, because they know their individually stupid but collectively intelligent behaviour will save them from the next “recession”. It is that which makes them inspirational, exceptional through their hard labour, commitment to their culture, group attitude and seasonal responsibilities.

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It’s almost November before December.

The city of lights and busy nights gets noisier. The human beings are preparing for the end of another year…

The Laughing Heart

Your Irrational Brain

The Forbidden Apple

 The rare bites you get go beyond the taste of common apples. It’s a fast imaginary of the sunshines it received to get so good. The beauty of striving for That Apple  is precisely in its forbiddance. You want to have it longer, but you can only steal it. You’d like to get it and taste one more piece of it under your hidden veil, but – you know – it’s not that easy.
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… it contrasts the commonalty of the apples you find on the market. It’s expensive but affordable, very green but mature, well-shaped, with a fragrance you feel before the bite. It’s untouchable but rare and amazingly touchable, exquisite, fine and sharp if you bite too much, or too often…
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You’re not allowed to eat it, but only to taste it. Because that long wait between two different bites makes it more craved, more delicious….you strive for it. You dream of biting it, savouring the juice, and the smell of fresh and strong green. Bite by bite, each piece poisons your senses and then you know it: it’s the candid flavour of The Forbidden Apple. It’s the mature Apple you can’t have.
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After the secret bite, you feel your entire body is compromised in that moment of glory, which lasts until your next desire.
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That’s how it is…in life, love, or politics…there are Apples you reach and Apples you hope for. Sometimes, there are both, but they are forbidden.