I’ve finally set aside a time to write. 5-6PM. Today I didn’t start immediately, I was thinking that checking Instagram or email would inspire me to write something, rather than writing without inspiration.

It didn’t happen. I saw a beautiful picture of the Fayore Islands and noticed my good friend still hasn’t had their baby due this month, so it wasn’t a waste of time, but nor did it work to inspire me.

Tchaikovsky wrote a song I love “Romance (in piano) or Romance (in violin),” I haven’t listened to it in years, but it’s as if I never stop listening to it in my soul. Because when I hear it, it’s so current. For me it captures all the longings and broken dreams of yesterday and today.

Tchaikovsky wrote a lot of my favorite music, but he was seldom inspired, he hated sitting down and getting to work, but when he did sit down uninspired to work, then inspiration happened and it was a needed precursor to attempt.

Creative work is so subtly complicated for me. It seems easy, sit down at 5PM-6PM, try to write.

Yet, since I write for no agenda, no income, no project, I feel like I should always be inspired. I guess that belief is holding me back towards trying to write consistently.

I’m a little scared of deciding on a large project, because I have thrown out so many and discarded others.

One thing I was thinking about lately was the cycle of transformation and recovery. Last year I was so frustrated with the way I was rushing through life, through no one else’s fault but my own, yet had difficulty switching it off, it took about a year of mindful effort to stop. Now, I think I enjoy at least 25% of each day, which is a lot more than 0%.

I found a beautiful song while writing this post Nocturne Op. 10 No. 1, it’s amazing that from the comfort of my home I can hear almost all the beautiful music from almost all human time and all over the world. When I was growing up I was so limited between my dad’s records, my grandparents records or my mom’s tapes, and even then I was lucky that we had a variety of Beatles, classical. I suppose lucky to have hearing as well, it’s amazing Beethoven composed while deaf better than most people with hearing ever will.

I really love words, but I find that I am lost as a writer. I wonder what my purpose in life is, with some people it’s so crystal clear. With Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Cesar Milan, but not so much with me (at least to me).

I have a good life, I have happiness, I have health, I can serve others (teaching my kids indefinitely since I’m the third generation of teachers in my family it seems right for us), but the one thing I feel I lack is a clear purpose.

After thinking about it for the past four years I think I will have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and take life as it comes without knowing my clear purpose.

It’s possible that all the people I think have a clear purpose didn’t feel that way, or that mine will become clear in time, or that we all decide our purpose every moment and are not locked into anything we don’t choose in our hearts. I don’t presume to know. All I know is that a quiet part of my soul yearns to know, it’s not a void per se, it’s more of an unceasing wondering.

Last year I wanted to improve my life, and I did, and then I hit a kind of plateau of satisfaction and I’m torn between writing more about that to help people or not writing anything at all about it because we are all so different we all find a different way towards life balance.

I wonder if I should be writing at all or rather doing something else to serve humanity or just taking a break myself. But I don’t feel like I need a break, I’m living at a slower pace, yet doing as much as I ever was by not rushing, using notes to keep track instead of trying to remember and having a flexible yet pretty consistent routine.

So I was thinking transformation/growth and recovery need to occur in cycles, I ‘m not to tired to keep pushing myself towards new goals or living my best life, but I can feel that my life is mostly balanced now, so no big adjustments need to be made right now.

I feel like satisfaction is a tricky, underrated skill. Knowing when something should change, a boundary should be drawn or even a revolution should happen is vital to human kind, yet there are many moments when life is optimal the way it is, when a sculpture can be left as is. Perhaps there is nothing missing, but just the human condition to strive for more.

Just found this article looking for a more simple quote that suffering is caused by seeking permanence in an ever changing world:

A man was gifted a plate by his wife. It had beautiful drawings. The man was an antique dealer. Every day at the market, he would eat lunch from his plate.

Soon, his wife passed away. The man was grieving, but he still ate from his favorite plate every day. One day, the plate fell down and broke into a thousand pieces. The man was devastated.

A fellow stall owner told him: “I know someone who can teach you how to fix it. But he lives far away.” The man went to seek the plate fixer. After one year of traveling, he found him. The plate fixer helped the man reassemble the pieces and the man returned home.

At first, he was happy. But the plate never felt quite the same. One day, it broke again and, again, the man was devastated.

Another stall owner told him: “I know someone who makes plates just like this one. But he lives far away.” The man went to seek the plate maker. After one year of traveling, he found him. The plate maker taught him how to make his own plate and, with it, the man went home.

At first, he was happy. But still, the plate never felt quite the same. One day, it broke again. Again, the man was devastated. But he was tired. He could not travel far anymore.

A fellow stall owner told him: “I know someone who sells plates just like this one. He has a new stall on the market.” Happy that he wouldn’t have to travel far, the man went and bought a plate just like his.

At first, he was happy. But that plate, too, never felt quite the same. One day, it broke again.

As the man looked at the broken pieces on the floor, a stranger passed by his stall. He said:

“You are lucky. It was just a plate.”

At that moment the man was enlightened.

The first of the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism is suffering. They call it ‘dukkha.’ It has many definitions, including pain, grief, sorrow, stress, unsatisfactoriness, and misery, but I think the simplest term that captures it in our modern times is ‘unhappiness.’

Our suffering isn’t physical, at least not most of the time. It’s emotional. One way or another, things don’t go how we want them to, and we face emotional pain because of it. This pain isn’t random. We inflict it upon ourselves. That’s the lesson of the above story.

All suffering is resisting or desiring change.

– Niklas Göke

It seems like the last pin in my inner harmony is not finding a purpose, but being at peace with being one of many people who have not yet had that milestone in life. Something settled with me tonight, something from my past visited me when I re-listened to my old favorite song, something from now visited me when I admitted I spent half my writing time not writing (though I wrote an hour by going over half an hour) and something from my future looked upon my with kindness. Every time I look at any picture of myself I always look ridiculously young, I was wondering why I can’t immediately feel that way when I take a picture and maybe I can start?

Good evening or day! I still find it almost unbelievable that people all over the world will read this. I wonder how much it affects people born after that was just normal and in what ways, for me, who never dreamed of being connected the way the internet has allowed humanity to be, it is a beacon of hope that perhaps other things that once seemed impossible could become possible and common place as well.