A man once asked a group of people of which I was one: we all believe ourselves to be tolerant. We might tolerate people of other races, other sexual orientations, with different political beliefs. But are we tolerant towards those who are not?
Are we tolerant of terrorists? Of religious fanatics? Are we tolerant of those who are different in ways that we find absolutely unacceptable?
And if not – can we still call ourselves tolerant?
An experience. A simple experience of God, of life, of happiness, of love. A direct, undeniable experience.
Do I need to believe that I had an experience? I just had it, believing or not will not change anything. Do I have to prove that I had an experience? I just had it. That’s a proof.
Do I need to explain the experience to myself or to others? I may if I wish to, I can call the experience whatever I want, label it, evaluate it and judge it, but will that influence the experience itself? Will that change it?
I experience what I experience, simple as that. If I experience God – then I experience God. If I experience love – then I experience love. If I experience happiness – then I experience happiness. There is nothing more to it.
“You have to tell people this!” my friends say, “you have to write about it!”.
Why should I? I wonder.
I moved to France last spring, had a five glorious months of delicious food, lounging in cafes, soaking my feet in the Mediterranean in the evenings perched on a pier by a medieval coastal fortress. Then I came back to US. I did not like it. I do not like it. I miss home. I miss the laziness, the relaxed appreciation of morning sun and good coffee, I miss food that doesn’t sit like a rock in my stomach. There is so much fear here, in America, so much stress, so much tension. And the food is flat-out scary. And I don’t like it.
“You have to write about this!” my friends tell me. They don’t like it here either and they look to me to say something, to make a difference, to change … something.
But I don’t have a wish to change America, because when I look at America I see people. People who choose, people who decide. I see a country created by the choices of it’s citizens, and I respect those choices.
There is so much I don’t know, there is so much I don’t see. There are triumphs and acts of greatness in this country I dislike. There is love and kindness and beauty and I respect those too. I respect the american way, I respect the american path. Even when it leads through heavy trauma, pain and struggle I still respect the choice that created it. And I respect the choices that will heal it and transform it in time.
There is nothing for me to say. There is nothing for me to write about. There is no need for me to make a difference, and there is nothing for me to change.
After twenty five years of doing what I should, of following the path laid out for me by my parents, my teachers, the society, the culture, I stopped. I sat on a couch for almost a year. I did nothing much other than looking for an answer to this question: what do I want? What do I want to do in life?
I was a twenty five year old woman, educated, with a degree I got because I didn’t know what else to do. With a life (now left behind) that I built because I did not know what else to do. And I did not know what I want. I did not know what I want to do in life.
It shocked me. It shocked me that I would not know. How could I not know?! It was me, it was my life, how could I not know how I want it to look like?!
It took over a year for faint traces of answers to begin to emerge. It took a long time for me to be able to look not to my parents, my teachers, the society and the culture for answers, and begun to look to myself. It took a long time for me to learn that the only valid question by which I judge my choices and decision is not whether they will bring love, peace and happiness to everyone else – but whether they will bring love, peace and happiness to me.
“I can’t think of what I want!” the young woman sitting before me exclaimed, “I have no time for this, I have to work, I have to make money! You don’t understand — I have to do all it takes just to survive!”
She didn’t speak, she exclaimed with passion and fervor. And desperation. I cringed at the desperation. I cringed at the world this woman lived in – a cruel, harsh place where one has to fight just to live, just to eat. A scary, dangerous place. A place where one has no leisure to be oneself. To think oneself. To take care of oneself.
“Yes, that is the world as we, humans, see it,” I thought, “but that is not the world as I know it.”
What if it is not the world that is wrong, but our perception of it? What if we got it backwards? What if it’s not hard work, sacrifices and obstacles we overcame that give us the freedom to consider and enjoy our happiness. What if it is our happiness that creates life full of freedom?
What if it’s not all the money we made that gives us the space to ask: what is it that I want? What if it is our knowing what we want that brings us wealth, abundance, money?
What if the world is not a hard, scary place that has to be survived, but a beautiful playground that is meant to be enjoyed?
What if the pervasive unhappiness and desperation that plagues human societies is not caused by the cruel world, but by our misunderstanding of it? By our misunderstanding of ourselves?
What if we got it all backwards?
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