Archive for the ‘Reflections’ Category

Who hasn’t ever wished not having certain feelings and thoughts? Who hasn’t desired to eliminate questions and doubts that emerge in our mind without being asked for?

There are moments in which we would give anything to say, yes, we like to do this thing or go to that place, or being that person… It would be so simple. And, instead, it’s only with a great effort that we can repress threatening thoughts and feelings and concentrate all our will on what we believe others do or are in such easiness.

Just a single speck of difference may spoil everything, a mere oblique look, a smile that didn’t come out right, an uncontrolled gesture and the mask falls Read the rest of this entry »

I had a beautiful bougainvillea. I bought it all in flower, as a matter of fact, I bought two of them, one with intense pink flowers and the other with white ones. They started to climb on the railing of my porch, it was beautiful to see, but they didn’t get to cover it entirely, as I wished. After a while, the flowers fell, the leaves remained and then they also started to show signs of tiredness. Soon I realized that the plants needed more soil, and I transplanted the two of them into a large pot. And the flowering started again. It lasted a few months and then as before the flowers fell and the plant looked balder than ever. I bought vitamins and salts, they helped. But didn’t solve the problem, until they didn’t even help anymore. It was clear that the plant needed more earth. A lot of it. The problem wasn’t its, I was sure it had health and strength to grow strong and beautiful. The problem was the lack of resources. Lack of ground, of basis and the nutrients coming directly from Mother Earth not from industrialized package ready to use. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you observed how much crated we are in pre-determined models? There are molds for everything. Choose yours, withdraw it from the grocery shelf, go to the cashier and pay. Now, you have happiness (because of course you buy it).

It’s true that an economical transaction is part of happiness. But if money is necessary, it’s certainly not enough. Besides money one needs some psychological and social conditions. We like to be with certain people and to feel good with them. But it’s not sufficient having them close by for happiness magically pop up and mainly to Read the rest of this entry »

There are people whose lives seem to be plotted by lucky situations, when opportunities allow the much needed movement forward. When telling their experiences, these people look to others as lucky or special: because they’ve got this or that chance, because they met that guy, received this help and so on. That’s an interpretation of the facts useful to continue sitting complaining about one’s own lack of favorable conditions.

There’s a saying in Italy, which most certainly must exist in English too, “Aiutati che Dio t’aiuta”, that is help yourself, do something for yourself and then God helps, does something for you. The first step is yours, always yours. You take the risk; the leap of faith is yours too; the attitude and the possibility to win or lose, always belong to you. God intervenes according to another schedule and after you have played your cards. Read the rest of this entry »

We have good news. Although our Earth is a speck floating in an endless dark universe, and we, human beings, are minuscule specks walking on the major one we call our planet, we are valuable. That’s right. As far as we know, we still are the center of the universe.

What makes us special is our complexity. Complexity belongs to the essential terminology of who wants to be up to date with the latest about the meaning of life. Complex things, like stars, planets, or living organisms, consist of diverse components bound into larger structures. These structures are patterned in very precise ways.
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House of Sand is a spectacular movie entirely shot in Lençóis Maranhenses, Brazil, between the sky and the sand, and a bunch of actors. Fernanda Montenegro and Fernanda Torres, mother and daughter in real life and in the movie, acted astoundingly in this story that captures one of the most crucial aspects of life: circumstances.

In an endless sea of sand, he two Fernandas, and soon after the granddaughter for Fernanda Torres is pregnant, are stuck. There is no television (it hadn’t been invented yet) no telephone, no books, no music, radio or instrument. Nothing, only the white sand on the three directions, and the blue sea oh the fourth. The daughter, Fernanda Torres, tries to escape in whatever way she has available until surrendering to the inevitable. Her daughter will be able, after three decades, to get rid of the sand and to return to “civilization”. Read the rest of this entry »

Observing the many ideas that come to my mind and their development in long thinking chains and interesting reasoning, I perceive that if I don’t put them into reality when they arrive, or soon after, I end up losing the impetus that would lead to realization. It seems that the more one thinks the more it’s hard to take action.

In fact, thinking too much is unhealthy and produces a psychological perturbation worthy of many psychotherapy sessions. The excessive thinking reveals, actually, a deficiency. The people gifted with agile thinking, the Read the rest of this entry »

Uncle Nino, a 2003 movie, springs from a good idea, the encounter between the ancient and the modern culture in order to produce a chain reaction that leads to a final balance. Unfortunately, the film steps on some trite common sense when it tries to brings tenderness and sentiment into the daily life of a dysfunctional family.

After decades, uncle Nino reappears to visit the gravestone of his brother to whom funeral he couldn’t be present. Landing in amazing “America”, uncle Nino is enchanted by this country so different from his home village, presumably someplace in Tuscany, with stone house, garden, sunshine, flowers and dogs. The original peace is substituted by the cold and distant ways of his nephew and family. Familiar life is there extinct, the husband works only, the wife, like as a patient Penelope, waits for things get better, the children seek solace each in his and her own way, the girl longing for a dog, the boy playing hard music in a band (just for a change).

The family has lost its center. They don’t eat together, don’t talk, don’t relate. In this typical advanced society scenario uncle Nino enters full of the Italian feeling that governs hospitality and Read the rest of this entry »

“The winner takes it all
The loser has to fall”

One of the most difficult things in a relationship is accepting to lose the loved one. It’s not simple for anyone, and it may require years to digest the experience. It’s persistent and varied the range of pretexts that we can make up and that costs us time and energy, while life goes on. Read the rest of this entry »

Differently of what it is used to say, “religion” is not explained by the traditional etymology that associates it to the Latin “re-ligo” (meaning unite, therefore religion is all that unites), but to “attentive, scrupulous observation”. That’s the understanding that Jung prefers and I follow him with that, for if you pay attention (!), what we dedicate “scrupulous observation” to turns into something precious, becomes a landmark in our life, an attractor for choices and preferences. That is, it turns “sacred”, it’s protected and can’t be impudently questioned. Read the rest of this entry »