I felt the need to write down some thoughts lingering in my head, I have some theories and I’m going to share them with you*.

1) Being shy is often a matter of being egoist. You don’t like this? Better. You’re in a room with a bunch of people, one suddendly starts being shy: “Oh, no no, I don’t do that, easy, you go on, I don’t, it’s not a problem”. All you hear is “me, me, me”. I bet that five minutes later, this person inside feels like “Why the heck didn’t I say yes straight away? It could have been fun”. We all want attention, but this way we gather on us the wrong kind of attention… Which bring us to point

2) We all want attention. My personal theory (I’m a regular person with no special titles in this field) is that when mom decided we were old enough to start facing our responsabilities, we didn’t feel ready at all (we didn’t even know about it!) and we never got over it. We went from a moment where we were like gods (you’re little, you’re cute, you deserve cuddles, cute names, adoration and defense no matter what) to the real world, where if you break something you pay for it, where your actions mean responsabilities and where you are a simple kid not a deity anymore.
Of course we all have different childhood and stories: an hyperprotective mother gives you a different childood from a mother that wants to make you independent right away, from the one that wants you to be her minion, to millions of other mothers. But it seems to me that we all share this thing… we all, sooner or later, end a sentence with question, “don’t we?”, or with a little laugh, or we try to keep up with whom seem the coolest, simply because we all want to feel allmighty once more, or at least, since we grew up, we want attention, affection, being accepted (or being right). And this brings us to number

3) Whatever helps you sleep at night. Nervous laughs quoted before, grouping with people who think they’re “cool” (like in highschool? Yes, even if you’re 50), living under a dogma, a philosophy or an idea… Everyone has their little illusion, something that helps feeling whole and less scattered in caos. Whether we know it or not I believe we all have one (oh, Nietzsche, how misunderstood were you…), and yes, this thought that we all have an excuse for the world, no matter how deluded, wrong or deceptive it may be, this thought might be my own deluded excuse. We step now to point

4) Being honest with one’s self is very hard. We waste so much time thinking to other people’s expectation on us. There are so many things i our heads that sometimes we loose track of what’s “really real”. IE? Admitting when something bothers us. Facing the fact that there are things about us we don’t like. Realizing when we’re not good and why. Being able to ask for help… now, in my Erasmus post I’ve just mentioned this point. But swallowing some pride and saying “I can’t do that alone, help me” doesn’t make weak people of you (and why the heck do we have to be always wooden blocks? °°°) it makes smart people of you. The idea of saying thankyou may be shocking, you may want all the credit to yourselves… but what if I told you that asking for help may also help the other one?
[°°° When I was 17 I thought I had to be just one way, always coherent with myself, couldn’t stand incoherence on me and on others… seeing it from now I realize it was just a part of growing and not knowing who I was or who I wanted to be… the sad part of this is that there is still people who behaves like that, and they’re growing old, but they are so fundamentalists in anything they do that they’re annoying!]

5) There’s difference between religion and spirituality. To some of you this may come as the hyper-obvious, for some others may be a little bit more criptic. To me it’s quite old, but this didn’t help to avoid I kind of forgot it. A religion, as how I see it, it’s a closed system of faith, rules and sharing both of them (to say it with one word). Spirituality it’s something we all need. Even though you don’t believe in anything, spirituality might be sitting alone for ten minutes a month to ask yourselves how you’re doing, really thinking what you want to do (because even though Aleister Crowley was quite the character, he wasn’t hedonistic at all when he said “Doth what thow wilt be the law”, because it’s ver, very hard to know what you really want), spirituality might be spending some time doing what you love most, thinking to your goals… I had lost this part a little, now I’m getting it back, and tidying up all these thoughts it’s part of it… plus some interesting books. But

6) You won’t find the answer outside. Those who never had questions left un-answered raise their hands. A crowd uh?! Don’t repeat my mistake: do not believe that the answer might be at the end of a book, in the speech of someone else or who-knows-where. I know, it all sounds corny, but the point is that as long as you think that it’s others who’s going to fix you, you’ll never raise a finger to change the situation. There’s no fairy godmother with a magic wand. I might repeat this ’till nausea, but unless you comprehend it (between knowing and comprehending there’s a huge difference… you may know the colours, but you can’t “feel” a painting) you won’t go very far

* Finding someone who’s going or went through the same thought-milestones I’m dealing with it’s alwasy a great relief, sometimes it also helps a lot. All these thoughts on my own, without any guide at all (because I don’t really trust it, because I’m a little proud and because it fits me better) may be slow, heavy and sometimes timeconsuming. But when you stop and you look back, despite everything, you see a lot of good progress. Can I pat my back on my own? XD

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