Part 2: Where it all began
We’re back in Colombia, where I took a domestic flight from Medellín to Santa Marta. I was reading a book when a girl sitting next to me on the other side of the isle asked me to show her what I was reading. I gave her the book and we started having this amazing conversation. We talked about many things; connecting with strangers, the beauty of travelling and the importance of curiosity. Basically about not being afraid to live.
We had been talking for about an hour when the plain started landing. The landing didn’t go as planned. The captain had to perform an emergency intervention and had to pull up the airplane meters from the ground. Every imaginable form of energy was sucked out of the passenger cabin. Only fear was left. Except for us, strangely enough. We kept talking as if keeping the connection between us alive was the only thing that mattered. It felt like we became the centre of the universe. And somehow I instantly knew that this was destiny presenting itself, experienced through this radiating force of cosmic energy. I don’t know how to describe it, but I just knew something amazing was happening.
That sense proved to be true, since I’m sitting in her family’s house right now. Writing. A two hour drive from Mexico city. The sun is slowly rising in the open window behind me, warming the Mexican highland. The sound of singing birds fills the air, while the feeling of pure wonder remains alive within me.
What happened before
Back in September, a disastrous earthquake hit Mexico City. I immediately asked Maria if she was okay. She was. We talked for a while, and I asked her if she was willing to gather information regarding the help that was being provided and allocated by the local government in the direct aftermath of the earthquake. She responded that she and her family had been directly involved in providing first aid and primary necessities, and that they were helping to clean up the mess left by the earthquake. So, I told her that I was working on this idea that involves a more direct approach of providing charity, cutting out unnecessary middlemen like governments and NGOs, and that I could really use her help as a local source and base of first hand knowledge. She wholeheartedly agreed to help and sent me pictures of the affected areas, which showed houses and buildings in ruins. As a side note she mentioned that the government was working harder on upholding the devastating image towards the rest of world in order to attract large donations, than on actually actively helping the victims. I still didn’t know exactly what to do with this shocking information in a detailed level, but just like everything up until then, I trusted it would work out by following my gut feeling.
And so I did. Not in the most subtle way, I have to say. I made a mess of it, on a personal level. But I knew I had to give up the safety nets in my life, because only in complete personal freedom I knew I would be able to create something lasting with a potentially transforming impact on humanity. Reflecting on what I would have to give up if I wanted this to succeed was a humbling lesson for me. In every aspect of my life. So I gave up. On almost everything. My relationship ended within the next month. I quit my job. I got into a heartbreaking fight with my dad. These confrontations were painful but they were needed to become truly free from expectations of others.
A wise man told me I had to manifest this idea into reality by myself. So I rented out my house and booked a ticket to Mexico. Weeks before my flight was scheduled, I was chatting with Maria. And then she sent me the most heartbreaking and amazing voice message ever. She told me that she and her family were willing to pick me up as soon as I would land and that I could stay with them as long as I wanted, that I’d be their guest and that they would take care of me. Maria offered to take me to the epicentre of the earthquake to visit the places where locals had been living on the streets and were now trying to build camps on the remnants of their own houses. She also offered to translate and to help me get in touch with the right people. I actually shared this voice message with a lot of people. To inspire them. And it still fills me with pride for humanity everytime I hear it. It’s a message filled with kindness and the gift of pure hospitality. Nothing asked in return. I will try to share it sometime in the future. It brought me to tears. As did many thing since I broke up with my ex haha.
But what this all points out to me, is that sometimes a chain of events is so hard to comprehend that the actual chance of them happening are mathematically zero. So we can only marvel, left in awe and sheer amazement of the workings of the universe. Our human arrogance makes us try to explain anything and everything. This has hurt humanity.
We love control. But control kills. Imagination. Spontaneity. Curiosity. And, maybe even more so, the wonder of life ‘happening’. All we have to do is play along. But we make it so hard for ourselves and the world around us. We value the wrong things and forget to appreciate true beauty, so often. While all we have to do is just dance to the rhythm of the universe. Surf on its waves.
A few days ago Maria and her family picked me up at the hotel where I was staying the first night after my flight into Mexico. We had breakfast together. Afterwards, we headed out to visit some of the spots where victims of the earthquake were left to their own fate, under distressing conditions, after false promises of the government.
To be continued...
