leiju - living, enjoying and simply being

It's been so long since I took time to write.
I blame myself more than once a day for being lazy, for not getting things done, for not doing enough. In reality, I'm just trying to do too much.

I'm trying to be a good partner, a good human being, to keep learning, to read, to inform myself about a multitude of different things and different topics, to get through my to do list, which includes much more than it really should. I am also doing my best to move into a new house, to help the man I love get started with his business again, to keep all those I am trying to work with more or less happy, to maintain contact with friends and family, to set up a business of my own, to finish jobs that are waiting to be done, to prepare for our wedding on the 21st of June, to live up to my promises to various people, and to make a documentary in a far away land.

And yet, I still feel like I am not doing enough.

I would like to take up writing again, to take the time to sit down and let it all spill out of me so that I do not need to hold it within myself anymore. I'd like to write about the things I believe in and share my limited knowledge with the world, for free. I would like to sit and write at night, but then I would compromise the very first thing I am trying to be: a good partner.

And then, I would like to sit and meditate, be a good person, learn to live with my own requirements and deeply ingrained sense of worthlessness, but for that I would have to take time away from all the many things I have piled upon myself as tasks to be completed preferably sooner than later - ideally already yesterday rather than today.

Oh, and I would like to open up to the world again, like I have done for so many years. Write about all that which makes up my Life, keep no thing hidden and no stone unturned. I miss the illusionary connection to the anonymous mass of passers-by this blog has given me over the years. But then little fears creep up, fears I had always managed to brush aside before.
No! It does not matter if I come across as a little brat!
No! It does not matter if I come across as a self-centered, well-to-do, good for nothing waste of time and space!
No! It does not matter if my ideas are used by someone else and I live the rest of my Life not having fulfilled the illusion of my Dreams...

... except that nowadays it does all seem to matter.

I fear that my ideas and thoughts will be rejected not because of their content but because of the way I come across. I fear that I will be judged before I am heard. I fear that my ideas will be stolen and someone else will get all the credit and, in the process, manage to screw it all up and end up doing more harm than good thanks to their personal greed.

I thought I was strong, that there was no storm that could ever blow me over anymore. Boy, was I wrong! I have learned to be precautious again. I have learned to shut up and be pretty in the corner again. I have learned to watch out and let paranoia guide my path once more.

Of course the only thing keeping me from me - that me that was so incredibly and ferociously alive and independent - is me and all the fears I have accumulated over the past few years. Heck, I thought we humans get wiser as we grow older. It seems that I have grown more weary and cautious and rather less wise. The beliefs of my youth have turned into theoretical observations to be agreed with rather than lived by. How sad is that?

I seem to have driven myself into a dead-end and don't want to reverse out of a fear of hurting those close to me. It is just a fear, not reality... As long as I remember that, I will survive. The day I learn to forget it again there will be no Life worth living in me anymore.

We've moved to a shared flat in Zurich, I've started the project of a lifetime and the wedding plans are going smoothly. There's a lot going on and I can feel it not only weighing on my mind but also affecting my body.

The physiotherapist helping me heal a knee-wound some 11 years old, put me on a tread-mill yesterday. It was the first time in my Life I'd been on one of those. As he taught me to control the length of my step, I learned to walk while my eyes told me I wasn't moving. It was rather confusing to start off with; I had a hard time keeping my balance and an even harder time walking normally without holding onto the side-railings. After some 10 minutes, I got off and tried to walk around the room. Now that was a new kind of feeling! My whole body woke up to the actual fact of walking, i.e. that moving your legs makes you move forward! If I'd landed into that moment without remembering the 10 minutes I'd just spent adjusting to walking on a tread-mill, I would have thought I was high on some sort of mind-altering drugs.

Dan smiled at me and told me that this shows the power of the mind on the body. He mentioned burn-outs as one of the examples of our mental thinking affecting the reality of our bodily experience. I smiled to myself, thinking of all the things I've got boiling and frying in my mental pots and pans.

Keep cool is the motto I'm feeding my mind.
It'll all work out in the end, one way or another.
And if, like my father said, all of it fails miserably, then at least I'll have learnt a hell of a lot. Not just about buying a house and organising a wedding, but also about me and how I deal with life and all that it throws at me. Or should I say, all that I throw at myself …

… and I wish much Peace and Love to Walter who's just set sail to cross the Atlantic towards Brazil. Perhaps we'll meet again sometime on this Earth, or perhaps we'll meet again once we've both come home again.

How I had been lured into the elevator, I'm not quite sure, but as soon as I stepped onto it, and pressed the button for the 38th floor, I knew I was in trouble. The doors closed before I could rush out of the cabin. It ascended slowly to start off with, seeming almost maliciously slow, and then it stopped.
"Come on, what's going on here?" I asked aloud.
And then the elevator shot upwards, as if answering my question with a speedy lift towards my intended goal. The floors where whizzing past, a slight anxiety slowly stirring in my guts.
And then, suddenly, it started dropping. I do not know how high I was by that point but the fall was fast enough to make the blood rush into my head. I held onto the railings attached to the walls, waiting to see what would happen next. The elevator stopped, then shot upwards again. I was thinking to myself that I hadn't yet reached the end of this story, that I should be able to see outside soon. And within seconds, the concrete walls of the elevator shaft turned into glass, and I could see over the urban landscape stretching in front of me for kilometres. The air was filled with light and I enjoyed the scenery for a brief instant, knowing that this was the last time I would see humanity.
And then the elevator plunged back into the depths, burying my living body with itself.

I was on the hunt for a toilet, a very particular one. I had already shoved many people out of my way, hoping to find the right one amidst the chaos I was surrounded by. Everything was dark and dirty, the toilet seats barely in sight, and when freely visible, then eaten by years of corrosion. The floors were covered in filth and a contained panic seemed to reign in the hearts of all those around. There were more cubicles than I could care to count, but somehow none of them usable.
After asking around, some pushing and shoving, I finally found one that would have to do. There was no door, but I thought it was far enough from the main door to be safe.
The man in the cubicle next to me was not well. But there was not much I could do for him. I pulled out something from my pockets just as another man, with tightly curled black hair and a worn dark green jacket, started screaming behind me, in between the wash basins and cubicles, while brandishing his semi-automatic in the air. I had no time to react before I felt a bullet hit the top of my right leg and the rest of my body hit the floor as my leg gave in from the pain. I watched as dark blood started pouring from the gaping wound. I knew this was not good. I tried to push as hard as I could on the wound but it didn't seem to do much, the blood just spilled from between my fingers. The pain was incredible, but somehow I felt detached. I knew this was a question of life and death, and I knew there was not much hope for me at this point. My mind was filled with options, as the man with the gun slowly walked around, checking how well he'd hit his targets. Should I lay down and pretend to be dead?
I could feel the blood in my body draining out of me, my head dizzy and my body colder and colder. I lay my head by the toilet bowl, to reduce the pressure on the open wound, and to conserve my energy. As found a place to rest my head and the filth covered floor, I heard his calm footsteps come my way and guessed the gun that aimed at my head. I never heard the click that killed me, but was relieved I didn't have to suffer any longer.

We were not really in hiding, it was just a place to be warm and somewhat safe. Our team perhaps 4 head strong, our accompanying group much larger than us. They slept of hammocks, while we'd built ourselves beds from abandoned blocks of wood and carpets. We kept the small TV we'd managed to buy open all day and night, just to be safe. As the reports of further ethnic violence came through, the anxiety within our container could easily be felt. We had no doors to keep us safe, only a make-do curtain we'd fixed onto a sliding plastic frame. We could shut it with chains, but who were we fooling but ourselves if we were to think it would keep anyone out - if they really wanted in. I talked to the head of the group living with us, who would be directly threatened by this renewed wave of violence. I had to stay with them, in fact we all had to stay put, for their safety, and ours.
Not long after the reports came in, two men came into the hangar where hundreds of us lived in these make-shift homes, looking for trouble. They tried to force the curtain open. I went to meet them and assure them there was no one of interest in here. They were surprised to find white people living there. One of the men, the bulkier one with dark sports on his cheeks, met my words with respect, but I saw the machete the other one held in his hands, behind his back. This was not a curtesy call, and they knew I was hiding someone.
I told them I was a lama and was here for peace and that I wished them to respect my sanctuary and my disciples. They paid their surprised respects to me, shook my hand and went their way. As I shut our curtain-door, a wave of worry swept through our little fragile home: I was no lama and would now have to go to town to act the part and keep up the appearances. A cloth of the right colour and shape was found and Paul walked into town to meet my parents with me. We did our mandatory shopping in the heart of the bustling market and made our way back. At the door of the hangar, I noticed the two men waiting - i knew if I went in with them tailing me, they would force the inner sanctuary of our home and kill us all once they found out who lived there. We walked towards the entrance, as if minding our own business, the men went in ahead of us, thinking we hadn't spotted them. As the doors to the elevator were about to be closed, we suddenly changed direction and pretended to return to the market. This was going to end badly, I knew I was in for yet another instance of pain and horror. We walked as calmly towards a big wheel of fortune, hoping that this would draw the two men to tail us and away from those we lived with ...

… I was woken up by crows cawing right outside the window at 3 am. They seemed to be alarmed about something. I was in a state of panic, thinking doom itself was about to happen. I sat up, as silently as I could, looked outside, watched the birch tree that was lit orange by the street-lights waving at me in the dark night. My body was shaking so hard that for a moment I thought that perhaps an earthquake was happening. As anxiety closed further in on me, I lit up the bed-side lamp.
Paul woke up, asked what was wrong. I told him I'd had bad dreams and then burst into tears.

Never before have I had such vivid dreams.
Even wide awake, I could still feel the hand-shake of the black man that had threatened me just before I was woken up. The strength of his hand-shake, the texture of his skin, all of it pressed onto my skin as reality. It took Paul a while to calm me down. The crows stopped their raucous as soon as I calmed down, and flew away once I managed to relax again.
As I heard then cawing in the distance, I smiled to myself thinking that they were off to wake someone else from sticky nightmares, fulfilling their duty as guardians of the night.

It took me the best part of an hour to dare fall asleep again.

View TOXIC: AMAZONIA by VICE (whose embed code doesn't seem to work on LJ!)


So if you have the courage to fight, then fight. Because it's better to die fighting, than not to fight at all. - Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva.
May you, your wife, and all other environmentalists being murdered for profit around our beautiful Planet, rest in Peace. And may the rest of us do our duty to protect our only home in a endlessly cold universe.

I surf the news and fly around the internet like a little banana fly and can't help but feel that I've wasted my Life.

I'm not rich thanks to some amazing invention or idea of mine, I'm not the side-kick to an amazing someone who's affecting people's lives around the globe, I am not a spiritual guru changing people's lives one hug at a time, I'm not a world-empowering activist out to push people out of their shells and into a more genuine form of living, I haven't done anything extreme that would get me the deserved respect, nor come up with some scientific break-through that would impact millions, I am not an athlete pushing the boundaries of human physical abilities; I am, in other words, not newsworthy in any sense of the word.

I have some friends but fail at being a good friend since I am fatally bad at keeping in touch or being interesting enough to be kept in touch with.
I don't have a job that I am passionate about - heck, I barely have a job!
I am not a super-model nor even as fit as I dreamt I would always be.

When looked at from a mainstream I am, in so many words, a nobody.
Just one of us billions, using resources just to keep myself fed and housed, busy with entertainment and information, and mobile enough to guarantee my personal sense of freedom. The world is no better off with me in it - in fact, it is a bit poorer in resources thanks to my basic needs.

This is what I hear every day, as I am subjugated to the news online, in print and (thank god barely ever) on TV.
And when looking for jobs, I am never quite as highly qualified or as fitting into the specified mould than I should be.

I am not a great writer, nor a great photographer, working on an amazing piece of work. I am not an artist or someone preparing yet another awe-inspiring exhibition, show or competition.

Yet I am.

And that, in itself, should be enough.
It has been enough - at least for me, and for a few years.

But for some reason I cannot find fulfilment in simply being anymore. I feel a rush, a tension, a pressure within me, something needs to be done. Something big, but I don't know what. I feel I need to lead the way in one direction or another, but I have become so disconnected that I don't even know where to start.

I feel apologetic for simply being and for daring to dream up crazy ideas - so I do nothing about them, too aware of all the criticism that might, and I say might fall upon me.

But I am full of compassion and full of solutions, filled with ideas and dreams, brimming with the desire to be an active part in something way bigger than any of us could ever dream of being. Yet I sit here, growing more and more morose and less and less secure. Coming up with excuses for everything and failing at all that I put my hand on.
Something's not quite right and no matter how I decide that today is going to be the change I envision I still fail at waking up and doing all the things I should be doing.

It's a day in, day out routine spent trying to climb out of a quicksand pit.
Can somebody pass me the rope, please?

It was a pleasant day.
We were cruising to some undetermined location, my sister in the backseat with her new love and me in the front seat with my sweetheart. We were joking around and messing about, laughing and poking fun at each other. I don't quite remember how the 12 inch maglite made its way into my hands from the messy foot area of the passenger seat but I distinctly remember the weight and texture of it. I've never really liked rugged mesh-like textures on steel… they make my skin cringe.
He told me to put it down but, in a mischievous mood, I resisted and poked him with it instead.
He yanked it out of my hand and then, and then, we pause.

It's funny how abuse doesn't look like it when it happens to you.
It isn't an accident, even though you decide to tell everyone it was just to cover up the shame and not stir up the situation.
No justification, really, can be found for it, even though you cling to even the slightest possibility of one.

As in a slow motion, you're not quite sure that what is happening is actually happening and that the pain you are inevitably about to experience is coming from the hands of the one you call your dearest.

I screamed in pain as the blow reached me.
A pain greater than what I'd experienced even when I'd broken my leg - twice.
It shot down from my knee, through my tibia all the way through my ankle to my heel. I shot frontwards, holding my knee and gasping, screaming with pain.

It didn't drop.
He swung it.
With full force.
With purpose.

I saw his face as he did it and I could not believe it.
What was he thinking? That I was made of steel?

It could only have been a miscalculation on his part, right?
A lapse of reality, a wormhole of broken mishaps.

We never talked about it.
I did not want to think about it.

He didn't just cheat on me and break my heart.
He broke me on levels I wish he'd never reached.

As I lay on the physiotherapist's table tears rolled down my cheeks as all of this flooded back into my consciousness. It turns out that my knee never healed, despite the operation and the reeducation. And it turns out, that when a knee doesn't heal, the body stops sending the pain message and simply adjusts.
What good is it to feel pain when it's become chronic?
As it turns out, the back and hip pain that has developed and taken hold of my life over the past 11 years is not due to some odd twisted body that seems to have unexplainably misaligned itself out of a warped will for ill. In fact, all of this pain started on a fine sunny autumn day in 1999 when a young human being decided to physically hurt another ...

… and that other decided to shift the blame upon herself and carry the shame until she could bare it no more.

I've been through the death of dreams, expectations and illusions before. I've even been through it here in Mongolia before. The two first weeks always seem to be riddled with some form or another of doubt and disappointment that then give way to a serene process of letting go and falling into the moment, allowing the self to simply be in the present.
However, I wonder what is it exactly that I am chasing here in Mongolia.
The quiet peace of uninhabited lands has given way to a youthful spring of noises and consumption. The ways of the past have given way to cultural globalisation bringing with it an obsessive dose of national pride coupled with a dilution of cultural identity. And none of this should surprise me, and all of this I should have expected - really.

When I returned in 2009 I knew it had been a mistake right from the word go. Like a bad sequel, nothing quite fit into what the first episode had promised. But back then I knew that I had returned to avoid falling into the cliché of the one who had travelled once and then got stuck holding onto memories of something that had passed and gone. I turned my initial despair into an exercise in accepting and letting go of the illusion I had come to associate with Mongolia. I let myself grow as a person and discover new facets to myself and those I had come to learn to love and respect.

Yet now, as I sit here with successful studies of this country's people behind me and a dream of a massive project up ahead, I truly wonder what is it that I am trying to make out of Mongolia.

When I came here for the first time, I found genuine hospitality and friendship - or so it felt.
It was as if I had discovered a country that had forgotten to grow cold and greedy like those I am accustomed to living in. It was as if that dream from my childhood found its shape in the form of an Asian country and its beautiful people. But time has moved on since, four years have passed and much has changed. Mongolian people have chosen consumerism and capitalism instead of the values that have shaped them for longer than most like to remember.

I dreamt of a documentary for Mongolian people by Mongolian people about the rest of the world.
But now I realise that the roads are filled with pot-holes and the government fails to have its own way in the face of international recommendations because that is the way things are and the way things are going to be. Who am I to help anyone with my obsessive maternal instincts and my eternal quest to protect those who I deem unable to know any better?

Each bit of the puzzle fits together neatly, sitting the excluded poor with the immorally rich. This is who we are, as a species. We rejoice in the suffering that comes from the extreme polarity we are able to generate through our personal greed and applied ignorance.

I am not special and possess no skills anyone else is unable to do better than me.
It is high time I learn to accept that I will pass through this Earth as yet another leaf on a yellow autumn tree.
Perhaps this is what I have come to learn here this time around.

Let go and let live.
People do as they please, no matter what.

… let us see what the week ahead brings.