Hail to Failures
A bliss in collisions.
Are you one of those people who read hundreds of articles about the purpose of life and its goals? Hello my friend! Nice to meet you :)
I love reading those articles too, especially when they have lists like top 5 or 10 or even some wild ones that go up to 21 or even 33 things. Whatever… Have you actually applied any of them? They are always well written with quotes from philosophers or tech superstars and all. I often wonder if the people behind them apply what they write themselves to begin with.
Ok, now that I have your attention, let me tell you, I don’t believe those lists work.
One fundamental thing that lacks in those articles is embracing failure and embracing rock bottom. Well, I want to challenge all those who say you need to find a purpose in life and list you 10 things you can do every day until you find that purpose. A fulfilment. No, it doesn’t work like that. We are fragile. A tree has more capacity to survive a storm and recreate itself more than us humans. We are not like mountains either. We are floating emotions. Yes, that’s what we are. Emotional beings. Every single one of us, even those people you see on news magazine, even those who have billions or have it all. When they are locked somewhere at some moment in time, they are also floating emotional beings with problems like you and me.
So now we, you and me, are having an epiphany, me as a I write and you as you read, what should we do then? I am not going to list things for you to do. No, I won’t waste words on that. I will tell you instead that I don’t know, but I can share what works for me. I love my down times, because when I am happy, and have it all, I simply enjoy it. Right? But when I don’t, I am thriving to get back to that happy moment. Down times are my most creative times. I am not a robot. I have feelings of all sorts and I want to feel them completely as soon as they hit me. Sadness, anger, happiness, all of it, I welcome them. Why should I run away from my emotions?
Allow me to share with you something I love to do at any emotional state. I love to lie down on my back looking upwards, there is even a word for it: “supine”. I do this when I am alone or even surrounded by others. I spend 15–30 min in my living room on the cold floor, and there is nothing as soothing as that moment when I just stare at the ceiling. Everything else disappears. I don’t close my eyes, they are always open. This is not a meditation. This is just a physical activity that works for me; as I look at the the ceiling, I reflect and analyse, I do not drop my thoughts and there’s no movement whatsoever.
As I move up again, I do not feel like a new person. It’s still me. During one of those supine moments the other day, I discovered I do not know what I want, I am often lost and my thoughts are in chaos. My thoughts collide with my emotions, thus chaos dominates both my head and heart. Well, scientifically, stars are born through collision. First comes chaos, then follows collision and thus, hello a star. Am I saying you are a star?
I can’t answer that.
What I can say is if a star is made after a collision, then we are made after our failures. Embrace the rock bottom, embrace the chaos, embrace all that shit you feel because only after that you will become whatever you want to become.
