I realised that I can’t run away from who I really am.
I like strong who don’t care much about a world full of anxieties, people who seem to be carved into a rock. I admire them. I like the power they exude, the courage, the bark in which they present themselves in society. I also like the strong skin they have under their clothes. Nothing seems to go beyond it and nothing reaches the core, nothing affects their soul.
Being able to go through life fighting like a gladiator with iron armour is a great thing. It’s admirable to be able to go to sleep at night without your mind wandering wildly on the plains, playing over and over again the movie of the day that just ended. It’s nice to leave work at work and to make the soul not to take with it any sigh or pain found on the route.
I realised I couldn’t do that. I don’t have a soul built on a fixed pattern, nor have I been able to shape it that way. I forced it, squeezed it into me and pulled it out when I thought it was appropriate. I softened it and exposed it to high heat, maybe it can form a stronger crust. I beat my soul and I forced it to take different forms, to assimilate changes that did not come naturally hoping that it would get stronger and stronger.
I didn’t succeed. All I managed was to feel the pain, to try to heal the pain, and then to start over and over again.
The mind, yes, is a domestic animal that transforms over time. The mind can become strong; it can become an extraordinary force. But the soul is always the same. And so, I failed to change it in any way. I failed to turn a velvet soul into a gladiator’s soul. I failed to turn plasticine into rock.
I realised that this is me: a sensitive, dreamy, idealistic, empathetic soul. And I don’t want to try to change that anymore.
***
Think of who you really are. What defines you. What makes you happy, what makes you angry. What you enjoy and what you don’t. What enlightens your day and what makes it brighter. What you find energising and what drains you of energy. What brings you joy and what saddens you. And accept it. Embrace it. Love it. And more than anything, live it.
‘Think of the world you carry within you.’ (R M Rilke)