Life Clichés (0): Why words instead of images ?

For documentation purposes,  I owe it to myself to plainly understand the aim of spending 4 hours weekly, writing and reflecting on everything that passed me by. 

I decided to embark on this journey mainly to overcome what can be called "la psychose de la page blanche" (blank page psychosis). In every creative process, from a blank painting canvas to a new coding blank page, there's a neurosis that intimidates each of us, and prevails us from contributing to our Humanity and enriching it. And so I was determined to put an end to my disability, and "dig" blank creativity spaces instead. 

I couldn't have had the idea, if it weren't for some books, and talks I came across, where it has been stated as Brené Brown shouts it out since 2010. When I first watched her talk, I couldn't stop thinking about my chicken attitude, and how I was afraid of being shamed for what I write, and never had the courage/guts to display what I did anywhere. I could have done it occasionally on social media, but I would delete it shortly after. I was afraid of being vulnerable and make it known, focusing on the immediate payoff, and ignoring the bigger picture.

"We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time."

- Brené Brown.

Although,  and away from my individualistic aim, this project has another intention and that is : promoting empathy through words. I deeply believe that in a world that is connected more than ever, where we speak roughly some 6.500 languages around the globe, there is still, and so I hope, one unified way to communicate and that is to empathise. 

Empathy doesn't require learning a language, but rather digging inside you to find the oldest language you have ever spoken. Empathy, has its latin origin in Em (in) and Pathos (emotions), it is the ability of seeing  the world from the point of view of someone else. In her article on Aeon, Maria Konnikova columnist at The New Yorker Online, and writer of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes (2013), mentions that "empathy depends on a cool head as much as on a warm heart" and finds a shocking example in the literature, where Conan Doyle went as far as to make Sherlock Holmes see through the eyes of an animal in "Silver Blaze" (1892). (That same fictional character that is labelled nowadays as a SOCIOPATH !) There you go, empathy doesn't make you an over-emotional being, and still there's no harm in being one.

- I do not own this one :) -

In other words, there's a huge need to preserve empathy and cultivate it among us all. And Yes the future is emotional. Accordingly, I aspire through my humble contributions to awaken the empaths inside us. Notwithstanding that it is not going to solve all our problems instantly, but only "a few them can be solved without it" ( Born for Love, by Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz). I hope that the stories in this section can bridge between us and the "l'autre cet inconnu" ( the unknown other), and help us nurture an understanding posture towards others  internal battles and challenges acknowledging our owns in theirs.

My inspiration in this project comes from Dostoevsky's existentialism. Every time after closing one of his books, I come closer to the humane and frail nature of the humankind. This might seem contre-intuitive, as the stereotypical existentialists ( Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus,... ) stand confused in the face of " the absurdity " of the world, I found warm comfort in Dostoevsky's writings, which I tried to ignore by holding dearly to the misconceptions I was fed about existentialism. If one keeps in mind that this term was only coined in the 1940's, whereas Dostoevsky wrote his books a century earlier, then the paradox is half-cleared. 

For instance, where Sartre affirms that "Hell is other people", Fyodor sees it in the incapacity to love. Hence the ambiguity of this "clustering".

“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”

― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

His words hold a profusion of emotions that makes time stand still for quite an eternity.  His genius in my point of view, lays in how he holds his "loupe" and stares deep into his characters minds' beyond their earthly motives and desires. A literary blood fest, where instead of being repulsed and disgusted by what you see, you dare to be amazed by what the confines enclose.

“Love all God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all; and when once thou perceive this, thou wilt thenceforward grow every day to a fuller understanding of it: until thou come at last to love the whole world with a love that will then be all-embracing and universal.” 

― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

In the end, I remain thankful and grateful for any passerby who took some time out of his existence and accepted to share a few words with me. Your words are another heartwarming proof of empathy.