2.2 2020-04-21 To P.

2020-04-21

18.35

Hello P.

This is the 8^th word file document that is open in the laptop right now. I have a certain degree of numbness in my hands, probably due to the low glucose level in my blood (31) caused by the fasting; or the 30 minutes meditation that I just did where I got a newer and deeper level of sensitivity: fill your lungs of air, and let the weight of your body rest over the air as if you were being held over a balloon as if you pour water over an inflated balloon. The advantage of fasting is that you weight less, so your proprioception is enhanced, you are more aware of your body, and what is going on around and inside it.

I haven’t answered you for so long, because I haven’t used the laptop much. I haven’t started writing as I should and have to, and I am still focused on cleaning up and organizing this house. Also, I keep on being distracted continuously with technology. Definitely, it is a moment for developing and holding a strict routine. I feel it coming. And this fasting experiment is probably the key step towards it.

About the house, I am starting to call this process a “Karmic Cleaning”. I am not only ordering and minimalizing this place, which is infinitely full of things but also learning about the educative patterns inherited from my parents. From my father, I can see that I have grown a reactance and extremist attitude in most of his views. He used to complain and still does, about basic survival needs. Things like the amount of food we eat (he complains that we eat a lot and he has to go shopping too often); the amount of money we spend (he is always trying to shop only the most basic and cheapest, and writing down expenses); the length of our showers and how quickly we run out of hot water; the timings when to use electro domestics to adjust to the electricity bills and usage… Those things have had certain logic for me, but considering my extreme personality, I have taken them to a new level that it seems extreme even for him.

About food, it is true that I have always eaten a lot, but going frugivore is being as minimalistic as possible on food, at the expense of increasing significatively the amount of produce that one consumes. Besides, this 10-days fasting experiment that I am currently carrying out, is just the opposite of what he complains. Just stopping eating altogether.

About the money, it is not only that I am also checking and recording my expenses to the tiniest detail, besides my already frugal if not stingy behavior, but I have spent a fair deal of my past developing freegan techniques such as dumpster diving, sneaking into public transport, hitchhiking, low-cost traveling, wearing torn off clothes, couch surfing… I take all of this as advantages, since it has allowed me to develop a pretty cheap lifestyle when I can use the money for a more meaningful purpose. However, it is undeniable that sometimes I go a bit too far. Also, minimalism is probably another manifestation of their frugality with their possessions, and how hyper-functional they are, that they have difficulties throwing away used matches because they can light them up again with the flame of a candle to light up other candles.

About hot water and electricity, I have used cold water for more than 4 years already, and being quite conscious and aware about filling my washing machine to its full capacity, and avoiding leaving my charger plugged once my phone is charged (not very good at this though).

I am not complaining about these inherited patterns, but I can see clearly how my mother and father have unconsciously educated me. Although we are economically at ease, I sense in both of them a strong scarcity mindset. One that has taken me years to get rid of. One that is making me organize this house minimalistic ally, so they can realize how dysfunctionally abundant and opulent they are on their material possessions. That is one of my favorite paradoxes and ironies of minimalism, the less you have, the more abundant you feel. Basically, because one learns how to live with nothing feeling that one has everything.

I am also observing my mother’s ADD. She gets distracted continually, struggles to finish tasks completely (closing the circle, as I say), likes to jump from one task to another a bit randomly, and gets stuck into details for a long time without progressing to the whole body of the task. I have all of these tendencies in my own work, in my writing patterns and my continuous project making and envisioning. That is why I am in so much need of a team to work with. However, being here, and being aware and conscious of this, now I am more confident about how to regress it, how to deconstruct these patterns, and build a strict routine around them to conform a solid identity that allows me to progress and achieve all the things I am in this life. Things that as you know, are not a few, not that easy, and not that common.

About the quarantine, I am doing fine. Quite busy with this endless karmic cleaning, not feeling lonely or isolated because I spend time with my family members and little by little advancing in building a successful identity with high-performing habits. I have a friend that is serving as a reference and inspiration. We are retro alimenting each other. He has no secondary education but is doing an online university course in sociology at the moment. He gets inspiration and guidance from my intellectual practices and sources of knowledge. Then, he applies them so seriously and diligently that he shows me how fast one person can develop and grow when motivated by curiosity and passion. So much to learn…

I recently did a spiritual activation of five days with Regan Hillyer. It has some parts that are quite weird and wu-wu at the beginning, but letting it be, with acceptance and an open-mind are always good attitudes to try it out. The first two days were the deepest for me, I had a clear vision of what I am going to do and when, and I got in touch with my numerous blockages. After that, I have struggled a bit with developing and deepening on the practice. However, I feel that this fasting is the very begging of a huge swift. I am even looking forward to future fasting with higher levels of social isolation in a cell completely dark or things like this. Just meditate, a bit of stretch and going deep and deep in the practice of fasting. It is an endless path inside.

Actually, I am not arguing with my family much anymore. I used to struggle a lot at the beginning but on the second day of the activation, I developed the clear intention of “Not losing my cool”, and since then, I barely got any angry or frustrated. I think I am going to repeat that day with different intentions to get rid of more blockages and bad patterns.

As you know my pushing personality, I am able to negotiate, but when I know that a certain lifestyle brings more wellbeing individually or to the world, I insist quite stubbornly, especially in the people that I feel they have the potential to change. In the case of my family, they accept me as no one does, and that is why I can move forward towards the change so fast and so directly, even though there are still certain areas of friction.

About the sentence of your swami:

“Wanting to control everything, and furthermore, wanting others to be and behave as I want is not love.”

I disagree and agree. It is true that wanting to control is not love, since love is based on trust and freedom, and psychopaths are those that crave control over others. However, when one has experienced different lifestyles and has found a way out of the self-destructing ones, wanting to change people towards the better seems to me, the correct and moral choice. Knowing how to make that change without suffering in any of the parts, student and teacher, is wisdom. The wisdom that I still lack. Taoism seems the best pedagogical strategy so far. Anyways, I agree that I can come across as too imposing, or fast changer for many people and that brings problems more often that I would like to. I have downloaded a book on nonviolent communication. I will keep you posted.

About us working together. I approach our differences in style and form as an advantage due to we could complement and learn from each other. Don’t fear me, P. Since fear is the opposite of love and you are a huge sage on this… vibrational state?

My personal professional projects are still on stand-by until the cleaning up is done (at least my room). I have already done two bathrooms, the kitchen, and two inner balconies (galleria in Spanish). Still missing the living room, and my brother’s room which is full of all the extra stuff from other rooms. I planned to use that space as working out, dance, stretching room, but now is a warehouse room where nothing can be done.

Call me when you want to. Home or phone since I haven’t got rid of it, yet… (Hopefully soon).

Love,

Carlos