“Maybe I am taking all of this too seriously!”

The thought lit up the dark corners of my mind and I saw … oh, any number of things!

“I can’t be an artists, I did not go to art school!” was big, bold, staring me right in the face. “No, it has to be original, if you repeat your own design, if you rework what you’ve done already, that is cheating” was hiding right behind it, next to “it has to be new, original, creative and meaningful!”

“No one wants to listen to you” peered at me from the dark corner. That one was hiding still, half concealed in shadows. “You have no right, no credentials, no authority to show anything to anyone” was there too.

How much more? I wondered, as I looked into the cave full of stories, how much more sits there hidden, unseen, stopping me, tripping me, pulling me back, tying my hands, biting at my heels. How much mess do I have in there?

But, I thought, maybe it doesn’t matter all that much. Maybe I don’t need to be heard, maybe I don’t need to be a great artists, an original artist, or any artists at all. Maybe it doesn’t have to be big and special.

Maybe I can just … do what I want. Just that.

Maybe I am taking it all too seriously, too profoundly, too deeply.

Maybe I can just draw. Maybe I can just write.

Just because I want to.

Him: Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?

Me: If that was the case, wouldn’t it be called “others life” rather than “my life”?

Her: One’s humanity is so intricately linked to the humanity of others. To serve one with love always leads back to the other in an infinite circle that expands and expands. However, the extreme of a virtue is a vice (quoting Aristotle).

Me: Then again serving oneself with love — relating with oneself with love — being love, would lead back to others in an infinite circle, with the added bonus of being infinitely present with one’s own originality and uniqueness.

Her: Yes! The answer is self love and the question is how to serve out of your love.

Me: I wonder though if, when we are truly present as ourselves, being love, the “serving” becomes … obsolete, in a sense. We simply are what we are, we simply are love — and that opens the space, holds a space for everyone else to be what they are as well. It is mutuality, I think, a partnership, more so than serving.

Her: Being. Serving….I think of it as beautiful dance…the two. What a wonderful, expansive thing to see them as one.

Me: Being what I am, being with you as what you are — there is no one to serve. There is no one that needs service.

There is only presence.

There is only bliss, and happiness.

It is so very important to me, you see, that I am seen outside as I am inside. It is so very important that who I am and how I appear matches.

I am a hard, judgmental bitch. I am. I react with anger to pretty much anything that is uncomfortable. I am proud, arrogant and righteous as all hell, and I need to know that. It is very important to me that I know that because once I do — this is simply what I am.

There is no need for guilt here, nothing is being blamed. There is no need for defence either — imagine that!

Imagine never having to be defensive because when someone says: “you are such a bitch” you can simply say: yes, yes I am. When you can own it as easily and comfortably as your gentle, compassionate and loving qualities, well — what a weight that is off your shoulders, isn’t it?

No more need to hide, no need to pretend, no need to take offense, no need to defend, no need for indignation, no need for a fight.

How much space, how much energy get’s released, what a relief it is — just imagine — when you can simply be you,  in all aspects of you.

Comfortably.

That night I asked myself: what would change, really?

That night when I couldn’t sleep, when I lied in a soft darkness with thoughts of wealth for shadowy companions. It was that night, after the meeting we had about the business idea, the business that was going to bring us untold riches — that night dreams of splendor, of abundance, the waking dreams kept me company in the quiet darkness.

I looked through the dreams, examined one after another, turned them around, this way and that, at an angle, from a side. Here was the dream of a huge house — oh, wait, not only one, a house for everyone! Oh, and here Christopher’s car and oh, all the purses and sunglasses and shoes!

And, oh, the travel! Right here, next to a dream of a private jet and a yacht marooned in Monaco. And oh, a flat in Paris, and …

On and on, one after another the dreams floated by, delightful, rainbowy, magical things, and I spun and drifted among them with my arms wide open and my eyes dazzled, until…

Until I grew tired and sleepy. Until a thought came, sharp, black and white thought, stark and simple thought: but how will I change? Will I change? Will I be any different that I am now?

No.

No, came the answer, the small word, two letters have chased the hundreds of dreams away. No.

I would be the same. I would be the same so my life would be the same.

The riches, the wealth and splendid abundance — it would change nothing.