The main problem with writing is that, sometimes, I would like to feel I can say the right thing and not the same banal things that you can say just to fill up spaces, like when you are with people you don't know very well and go on talking and talking of the most trivial things and you always have that uncomfortable feeling of not saying the "right" thing.
Well. First yoga lesson today after almost two years and felt good, even if the school is not so nice as the one I used to go to in St. Louis, but it's ok, it's near, it's comfortable, it's not too expensive. It's amazing how a thing like breathing, if done properly, can change your life in a positive way. But, obviously, the problem with yoga is that, just like psychoanalysis, it takes as a prerequisite the idea that, if you have some problems with the world, is YOUR OWN problem. That is, you are the problem and you are the one to change, you are the one who has to take things in a different way. I appreciate the yoga way to give meaning to existence (and I don't know anything about psychoanalysis, so I cannot say much on the ways this discipline tries to give some kind of meaning to things and thoughts), and it's probably true that we are a big part of the problem... still. Still, what I don't appreciate thanks to Rosi's illuminating observations is that the stress is completely and exclusively on the individual and there's no attempt to change things around you (and I think this is the personal interpretation of yoga in the Western world). I know I am a big, BIG part of the problem; I know that I secretly get angry for the stupid things people say without knowing how stupid they are or, at least, they sound and get angry when I have the arbitrary feeling that they are not talking about something they think they like because they really like it, but just because it's trendy or alternative or fashionable. And I do get angry when they talk about something they don't really know blurting out a list of "lieux communs" just to give the impression they are competent on the matter when they aren't. And I get angry when I see people under 25 thinking of being so alternative and nonconformist and forgetting everything about it at 26 when they get a "normal" job and start to give you lessons of moral about the fact that you are older than them and you never grow up because you try to accomplish something slightly different. And obviously, I get angry when older people do the same and try to convince you that nobody is happy and satisfied with what she/he does in this world, so why should you? Ok, I have a problem of hate and getting angry and yoga can be useful, at least in my case, even if I'm secretly convinced that most yoga gurus are as intolerant as I am when things and people get on their nerves. And you know, something that I find really scary is when someone is angry or annoyed or uncomfortable with a situation and keeps smiling and talking quietly (like a lot of "yoga people" end up doing). In my personal experience, that is the worst thing ever, the meaning of S-C-A-R-Y is there, in the incapacity or unwillingness of showing you have a turmoil inside. I think that real gurus, if they really exist or ever existed, are more or less like manga old gurus, with a penchant for sex and young girls or love of food or whatever and get angry sometimes, but they have some sort of unusual strength inside. In fact, yoga texts state it's no good to repress oneself, but then that is the impression I have.
Ok, so I have problems with the world and other people, I acknowledge I'm a big, big part of the problem and that my attitude and breathing properly can make miracles to my life and, maybe, to others' as well (like not killing them when I feel like it or I cannot stand them anymore --> they don't know it, but it's good for them too that I practise yoga regularly... just jokin' :)). Still, the unquestionability of the world around us and the necessity of conforming in anyway, of "melting" and integrating necessarily, it's something I cannot either understand or agree with. I know this is another way of creating "docile" bodies and minds leaving things essentially the same forever and ever, but I know that probably is just something I cannot grasp now, it must be something I cannot understand by nowdifferent. It's obviously not like: "I can breathe properly, I'm happy and safe, so everybody is happy and safe and who cares if a black 19-year-old boy is killed with an iron rod and insulted in the street". I do care. And I cannot say everything is alright. Sometimes, I really would like to "do the right thing". Or least, to say or write it. To discover the force and knowledge in me necessary in order to express what I feel and propose a solution and... but everything I can say sounds so banal and granted. So, even if I'm not a follower of any religion and never was and will never be, I pray for this boy and for his family and for the killers as well. I pray and visualize because I really feel that people should find the light within themselves and stop eating all the shit their distorted minds and brainwashing cook for them, everyday, since the beginning of society. There's something rotten in tthe society we created and no yoga or miracle cure for cancer or anything else can heal this if there's no real willingness of change. I pray for the Revolution. I pray that the desire of real understanding without longing for possession and personal affirmation seizes our hearts and minds. I have the impression that our problems are really, really ancient and we have been dealing with them forever now, and we have used all the words in the world in the attempt of describing them or finding a solution and everything we try say sounds devoid of any sense or meaning. Say Love. Say Forgiveness. Moreover, in my mind the meanings of these words are interwoven with a religious dimension that is culturally rooted in a certain part of the world and it excludes from a start a series of meanings I can't even imagine. There was no Renaissance. There is no technological evolution. There's no evolution with that "evolution", no real progress without that only progress that can start from the heart and soul of people.
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