The view from my living room is beautiful... safe for those bars blocking the way
Hello, my friends! Happy New Year 2021! In this new cycle, I've been rethinking my approach to content creation in the platform and in social media at large. This Monday, I'd decided to write something about my Rune Service, which I'm planning to resume in a different format soon, but the words simply didn't come, so I took a walk through a nearby neighborhood and felt the re-emergence of an idea that I explored years ago.
After the holidays, the regime resumed its weird lockdown scheme (7 days of "radical" restrictions, 7 days of relaxation,) so the streets were mostly empty and the day was just radiantly gorgeous. As I walked, I started taking pictures of the peculiar residential architecture in Caracas: the vast majority of homes and buildings here are surrounded by tall walls, thick metal gates, grill doors and windows, even broken bottles. This is because Venezuelans have been on a self-imposed lockdown for decades, not due to a random virus, but due to the far more pervasive disease of gun violence and crime. Although this city feels much safer now than it did two years ago, it remains at the top of worldwide murder stats, and robberies have been common for as long as anyone can remember. The same applies to the rest of the country.
Now, some readers might argue that it'd be best for us to arm ourselves for defensive reasons, but historically, we have associated firearms and blades with criminals and thugs-in-uniform (quite normal here, especially in the past 20 years under chavista dictatorship,) and have responded to this problem by rejecting armament and instead raising veritable fortresses in which to live and work. The most well-to-do hire security guards and install surveillance systems of varying complexity in their areas, but the fencing and walling are ubiquitous even in slums. Residential buildings in general have magnetic keys which only residents possess and elevators usually don't work without them. Most of us have to go through at least four doors to either leave or enter our homes. In the worst times, we've even set our own curfews which, along with the mass exodus of inhabitants to other nations, have all but totaled night life. Essentially, we've made a collective choice to imprison ourselves over time, and we've regularized these prisons so much that they don't even register anymore, we tell ourselves that we're free because we can leave our cells whenever we want.
Like the current confining measures across the globe, these reactions are meant to ensure survival. However, confinement and movement restrictions set us apart, hindering our social interaction, eroding our collective identity and fostering mutual distrust, all supposedly to protect life, so I ask you: what's the point of living in fear? Is it really worth it to experience this level of disconnection and entrapment just so we can keep breathing? What's so important about surviving? Where's the vitality of persisting just for its own sake?
The fear of a virus, or gun violence, or dictatorial oppression, is equal to the fear of pain and death; animal instinct demands the preservation of continued existence at all costs, but we're no mere animals, we're reasoning, creative beings with the capacity to recognize, understand and accept our mortality as a part of that continuity. What's so terrible about dying if we're unable to feel truly alive and enjoy the wonder that the world has to offer? Aren't we in this place to share with each other and grow stronger in the presence of the Tribe? What legacy are we bequeathing to coming generations? If we're to preserve life, we might as well do something worthwhile with our time here, right? These are important questions that we should all be pondering right now, and that's the great gift of this lockdown period: it has given us as a species an actual opportunity to consider the fundamental value of being here and now.
Each of us has a Purpose to fulfill
When I bypass the bars across my window, I can take wonderful pictures like these ones
Back in 2015, after two decades of mourning, I overcame my mother's passing, started to truly let go of the pain and found my mission, the overarching reason for my existence in this incarnation: Storytelling. In my role as a Storyteller, I've had to dismantle my own narratives, my pride and anger, my joy and sorrow, my beliefs and even my identity. It's been an amazing journey, but it's required no less than total surrender from me. I've renounced many things, up to and including personal connections; I've willingly immersed myself in the workings of suffering and the ego; I've had to train my mind, body and spirit in ways I couldn't even conceive before. Each threshold I've crossed has exponentially expanded the avenues of self-knowledge, and for every answer I've discovered, a myriad new questions have appeared before me, humbling me, allowing me to love myself and everything around me more and more.
I've risked my emotional and physical integrity to get to where I am, and I'd gladly hazard everything many times over to shed my skins and unveil my deepest self. Through my Purpose, I've achieved a level of freedom that I can't possibly convey in words. Each skin I leave behind is a death, and from each death I've been reborn immeasurably stronger and wiser. As for fear, I no longer feel it the way I used to, it's a tool for me now, it marks where I must direct my attention, the branching road that I must study.
So this is my advice to you: ponder the important questions, the most painful and unpleasant are the most relevant; get into your fears and unravel them, every fear covers an aspect of your life that you need to heal and transmute; explore your sorrows, give into them and feel them to the core, don't try to suppress them or deny them, that will only strengthen them; resist any external attempt to restrain and terrorize you, such efforts merely reveal the weaknesses of those in power; find your courage and take as many leaps of faith as necessary. Believe me, your Intuition and your Heart never lie or fail, they'll guide you unerringly to the Truth within.