The Universal Wonderbag

I was born and raised in Germany in the early sixties. Over there schoolkids were given a wonderbag on their first day in school. A wonderbag is a cone shaped gift bag with lots of surprises in it. And just as in life, you sometimes find good things, bad things, disappointing stuff or really nice surprises in your wonderbag. So when I started thinking of a title for my publication that sounded like a neat name for it.

I left Germany when I was 17 and live now in the south-eastern part of France. For a long time I had forgotten that wonderbag and its surprises. To me life was a struggle for more knowledge, for success and the only good way was upwards on the social ladder. And I did quite good : medical studies that I financed all by myself, got married to a pharmacist, two kids, money, investments, nice cars, big house, and so on. And then one day the wonderbag threw out one of those more ugly surprises you always thought you could avoid. That surprise almost killed me and it sure left me in a durable state of physical dilemma.

Friedrich Nietzsche said that “if it doesn’t kill you, it’ll make you stronger” or something like that. I don’t know if that’s what he meant, but the fact of having looked darkness right in the eyes for a moment actually helped me to open myself up to so much more than just social elevation.

But it wasn’t an easy process. At first I didn’t accept being different all of a sudden. Not being able to go on wasn’t even an issue for me. So I went back to work, the “business as usual” thing. There was no way I would bow my head to a health problem or give in. So I did what many writers on Medium suggest : I watched my food choices, lost weight, went back to sport, worked out. I even began a new educational program for doctors at the university in the aim of being more effective for my patients. And for a while I thought I made it. I believed that working harder was enough to get back on my tracks up that ladder. The cool stuff like reading, being creative, taking time for myself and my family was scheduled for later. And of course I was wrong.

A year ago everything in me broke down. My body and my head just said STOP. No more of that.

It took me more than six months just to accept that I wasn’t going to go back to doing my job the way I used to. Six months to gain the insight that I burned out all my reserves and that this situation was going to last.

Now, that knowledge is a tough revelation as you can easily understand. So what happened next ?

I began to look for alternatives. And I found them. It was reading two books that actually got me going :

• SIDHARTHA , a book written by Hermann Hesse in the 1920’s. This German author classified “Entartet” by the Nazis, has been one of my favorite writers ever since I read “Steppenwolf”
• MEDITATION by Jon Kabat-Zinn. It’s just a small How to guide by the inventor of Mindful Based Stress Reduction, but it really helped me to find inner peace and a new way of looking at life.

Trying to understand the Buddhist teachings or Dharma behind both of these books is a very complexe task if you really want to dig deeper, but the main points are extremely simple and good sensed :

• human beings suffer
• the suffering is caused by desire in all its variants, aversion and illusion
• there is a way to free yourself from these poisons
• the way is the Dharma which is the teachings of the Buddha

In other terms, my own suffering came mainly from the desire to climb this social ladder and all the consequences this had on my life. I had to accept this fact first in order to soothe the suffering. Now I don’t consider myself a Buddhist and I don’t feel like freeing myself from all desires. But the fact is that following Kabat-Zinn’s book I managed to accept my situation and to start a new life project. And this is why :

• 95% of our activities in daily life are automatic patterns : getting up, teeth brushing, breakfast, and so on, and while we believe we are controlling things, our mind is actually most of the time occupied by things from the past or event yet to come …
• most of our brain activity is due to these patterns and most of our thoughts are automatic thoughts
• the fact that we live in the past or the future is an important source of suffering through regrets or disappointements
• the best way to regain control is by learning to live in the present
• the best way to learn to live in the present is mindful meditation which is nothing more than training your brain to become aware of the present as often as possible

Not sure of what I say is right ? Try this : sit down on a chair, close your eyes give yourself this very simple task “focus completely and durably on nothing else but your breath, without modifying it in any way”. Simple isn’t it. But this is what is going to happen : within less than 10 seconds your mind will send you messages like “this is stupid”, “you have better to do than just watching your beep beep breath”, or “don’t forget you have a meeting this afternoon”, “I don’t breath the way I should”, …. try it. Now , this means that you think you control your thoughts, but actually you don’t. You mind is in automatic mode all the time.

Mindful meditation is nothing else but train your brain to recognize this fact.

It’s not even about trying to control your mind. Just about becoming aware that most thoughts are automatic and that when it comes to put into action these thoughts you might want to think it over first. But that’s enough to change your whole world.

It changed mine. Today I still meditate, not every day, but regularly, and I try to remind myself of that wonderbag and its surprises as often as possible. The biggest surprise I found in it so far is the awareness I gained (and I gained it the hard way) that :

life is here and now, achieving big goals won’t make you any happier, more, more, more is less, less, less and don’t believe a word of what is written in books, because there’s just one single truth : you are a tiny little part of a huge wonderous whole called L I F E so cherish it every minute

Now go and get drunk with your best friends, kiss them and be happy or sit down in your garden, close your eyes and listen to the birds and the bees. No matter what as long as you feel alive …

Universal Wonderbag is meant to be a publication open to anyone who would like to share her/his thoughts on life.

So if feel like contributing to it please feel welcome to do so. Anything that shows that you have your own thoughts will do. Even if they derive from readings or TV shows or college lectures. Questions about life, its sense, its nonsense, its ups and downs. Ideas about how this planet should work, how mankind should develop, which way around the cosmos should turn.

Anything, but P L E A S E :

• no “ ‘X’ ways to do this or that”
• no “how I managed to do this or that”
• no “ how to get better on this or that”
• no “ read my book and get rich, intelligent, thin, big, or tremendously beautiful”

So, if you think you know something new, or if you have one million questions about life and its meanings, then let us know and join the …