enlightenment
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a lengthy email to a friend. That email summarized why I decided to make the change I decided recently in my life. Another friend who read the email said that the email was no less than enlightenment moment for. This email was the only complete and (somewhat) coherent explanation to the sudden change of chosen path. Every one else only received bits and pieces of the email. To make myself completely (un)clear I'm posting the email here. Maybe you will understand me, maybe you won't, but you will have the complete reasoning :-)
Over the 36 years I've been living there were numerous signs along the way of what drives me and what I'm passionate about. For years I misunderstood or ignored the signs. Not for/from personal malice, but rather because they would take me down the road of the impractical life (god knows how hard my mother tried ti instill in us to be practical in life), down the road to personal uselessness. To never amount to anything and be labeled a failure: fall down to oblivion. So I developed the notion that my passion and life contradicted each other. But the kid in me never forgot what he's passionate about. I thought that I will one day do it, when I don't have anything else to do and everything else is done in my life (obviously that rarely happens, but one can always dream of reaching it or delude himself that he's on the right track to get there ;-))
I started reading a new book that I bought, titled: "Uncle Petros and the Goldbach conjecture" (to which my 10 year old niece asked her mother (my sister): why are all his books about Mathematics? :-)). While reading the book my mind drifted from the story to my own life. To those signs that crossed my life. When I grouped all those signs together, a full and clear pattern appeared. One that caused the kid in me to smile. It wasn't a simple smile. It was a whole smile (if it makes sense). A smile with full open mouth. The kind that I'm always ashamed to smile (supposedly because of my bad teeth). One that still (for the god know what time today) brings tears of joy to my eyes :-) when I think about it. When I decided to pursue my passion I was all of a sudden full of energy to run and do things. Suddenly my life was filled with purpose. The inner purpose that I always looked for and thought I didn't have. The kind that I thought that for some twisted reason I never developed. It turns out you were right and I was wrong: it did (and does) exist in me. It exist(s/ed) in a place I didn't think it would. In a place I knew interested me, but was so non main stream that I discounted of it.
I initially thought the book is a biography, but later on learned it's a fictional novel. But non the less looking at myself in context with the book acting as a lens, I know now that my eccentricities aren't unfounded and twisted that I need to be reprogrammed. That I need to get rid of the eccentricities. There is logic behind the "madness". There is order in the chaos. There is sound structure in me. I just had to look at it through the right lens.
A friend of mine told me a few weeks ago that she pains the fact that I don't have my own anchor and that I'm still drifting aimlessly in life (the drifting aimlessly in life is my addition). I feel now that found my anchor. I found the one thing that makes me feel safe. That doesn't scare me to expose myself. Be myself for the good, the bad, the ugly or just the plain weird: the 6 year old kid that is me :-)
I just hope that I'm not too late to start (about 18 years late that is) because there is an expiration date on my passion: 35-40 years. I'm just there. I hope that the kid in me is still only 6 year old and barely touched will give me the extension I need.
I wish we could have had this conversation face to face between us because then it would have simply exploded out of me to the real world instead of simply grownup in trying to make sense of the kid in me. With the ability I developed to to listen to the kid in me, the grownup in me accepting unconditionally the conclusions and resolutions that the kid in me is saying, and now he's extending a helping hand to pursue the passion. The beauty of this is that hand that is eagerly accepted by the kid in me. All of a sudden the voices and fears are silent, hiding, no where to be seen (gone?) in the open fields that are around me.
The road is long. The road is twisted. It will be hard. But I can see the road ahead. I like it and want to take it: time to enroll myself to university and study Mathematics seriously :-)
Since I'm a details person I need to be accurate: my passion isn't Mathematics. That would be too general ;-) My passion is numbers. The real and whole kind: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 etc ... and to be more specific: prime numbers.
THE END (of he email).
Over the 36 years I've been living there were numerous signs along the way of what drives me and what I'm passionate about. For years I misunderstood or ignored the signs. Not for/from personal malice, but rather because they would take me down the road of the impractical life (god knows how hard my mother tried ti instill in us to be practical in life), down the road to personal uselessness. To never amount to anything and be labeled a failure: fall down to oblivion. So I developed the notion that my passion and life contradicted each other. But the kid in me never forgot what he's passionate about. I thought that I will one day do it, when I don't have anything else to do and everything else is done in my life (obviously that rarely happens, but one can always dream of reaching it or delude himself that he's on the right track to get there ;-))
I started reading a new book that I bought, titled: "Uncle Petros and the Goldbach conjecture" (to which my 10 year old niece asked her mother (my sister): why are all his books about Mathematics? :-)). While reading the book my mind drifted from the story to my own life. To those signs that crossed my life. When I grouped all those signs together, a full and clear pattern appeared. One that caused the kid in me to smile. It wasn't a simple smile. It was a whole smile (if it makes sense). A smile with full open mouth. The kind that I'm always ashamed to smile (supposedly because of my bad teeth). One that still (for the god know what time today) brings tears of joy to my eyes :-) when I think about it. When I decided to pursue my passion I was all of a sudden full of energy to run and do things. Suddenly my life was filled with purpose. The inner purpose that I always looked for and thought I didn't have. The kind that I thought that for some twisted reason I never developed. It turns out you were right and I was wrong: it did (and does) exist in me. It exist(s/ed) in a place I didn't think it would. In a place I knew interested me, but was so non main stream that I discounted of it.
I initially thought the book is a biography, but later on learned it's a fictional novel. But non the less looking at myself in context with the book acting as a lens, I know now that my eccentricities aren't unfounded and twisted that I need to be reprogrammed. That I need to get rid of the eccentricities. There is logic behind the "madness". There is order in the chaos. There is sound structure in me. I just had to look at it through the right lens.
A friend of mine told me a few weeks ago that she pains the fact that I don't have my own anchor and that I'm still drifting aimlessly in life (the drifting aimlessly in life is my addition). I feel now that found my anchor. I found the one thing that makes me feel safe. That doesn't scare me to expose myself. Be myself for the good, the bad, the ugly or just the plain weird: the 6 year old kid that is me :-)
I just hope that I'm not too late to start (about 18 years late that is) because there is an expiration date on my passion: 35-40 years. I'm just there. I hope that the kid in me is still only 6 year old and barely touched will give me the extension I need.
I wish we could have had this conversation face to face between us because then it would have simply exploded out of me to the real world instead of simply grownup in trying to make sense of the kid in me. With the ability I developed to to listen to the kid in me, the grownup in me accepting unconditionally the conclusions and resolutions that the kid in me is saying, and now he's extending a helping hand to pursue the passion. The beauty of this is that hand that is eagerly accepted by the kid in me. All of a sudden the voices and fears are silent, hiding, no where to be seen (gone?) in the open fields that are around me.
The road is long. The road is twisted. It will be hard. But I can see the road ahead. I like it and want to take it: time to enroll myself to university and study Mathematics seriously :-)
Since I'm a details person I need to be accurate: my passion isn't Mathematics. That would be too general ;-) My passion is numbers. The real and whole kind: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 etc ... and to be more specific: prime numbers.
THE END (of he email).