Adriana Tanese-Nogueira

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Naivety is a natural state of the child’s soul, a spontaneous condition of the beginning of life. Everything is new and has to be explored, because of ingenuity we venture, trust, test and learn. And here lays the final goal: learning.

With the years passing by, naivety should give place to wisdom, which consists in some bitter notes and some sweet ones. It happens though that when ingenuity slips away, it is substituted by sorrow before life and the world, leading to disbelief and misanthropy. This is one of the reasons for people to cling to naivety as a way to preserve their childhood and optimism toward life. In doing so, however, they don’t save the “inner child”, rather they remain childish.

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Conscience is discernment. Having conscience is leaving the blurry vision, the confuse understanding and the misty feeling. Having conscience is seeing with clarity through mind’s eyes, disentangling, dividing and uniting. It’s getting oriented and finding the way.

Conscience in thinking

Mentalities are everything in life, they demarcate the horizon, what one thinks one can do or must do. The decision taken depend on one’s thoughts. The opportunities that one accepts or rejects, also. Believes are inherited from the family, the environment, the media and the friends: how many of them are objectively evaluated? And how many are incorporated as dogmas? Many unnecessary amputations of one’s personality are done in the name of what one believes. Suffering is inflicted on dear ones because of a way of thinking.

Conscience is analyzing what is real distinguishing it from bias. It’s breaking lose from the constraint of antiquated and moldy ideas. Looking closely allows to check the logic in the line of arguments that leads one’s life. Reflecting upon the content of a thought means discovering its faults as well as its strong points, purifying it from the pollution of prejudice. Inevitably, that brings to the creation of new spaces, new actions, perspectives and attitudes in life.

Read about Conscience in feeling, in sensation and in intuition here

Adriana Tanese-Nogueira

You look at the stranger and wonder how to get rid of him, when suddenly you believe you have recognized one or two words. You have the impression that some of his sounds resemble your daily vocabulary, banal words actually, of no great importance. You feel relieved, already preparing yourself to move one and deal with what really matters. You conclude is that the individual is saying foolishness, irrelevant talk. Finally, you can go to take care of your business.

It will never cross you mind that the unknown individual is communicating you an important discovery that will improve your life, or is trying to warn you that you child does drugs, or that you are merging into deep depression and… Continue here

You have been living in this house called Ego for a long time. It has several rooms and you have your favorite spaces. Some corners of the house are constantly illuminated, because you spend much time there and know each detail of them. There are rooms where you only go sometimes, they mean sporadic experiences depending on opportunity and company. Each one of these rooms, with their furniture, sounds, colors and objects, tell about you. And you are accustomed to them.

One day, walking through the house, you notice a closed door. From under it you only see darkness. The door was unknown to you, and suddenly you feel uncomfortable. When passing by, you’ll not stop, but move ahead as if there was nothing there. However, in the days to come, that door will attract your. You’ll not help yourself fancying about would could be inside it. And one day, you’ll hear noises. Strange and frightening sounds. Or intriguing ones. But fear continues and, as a matter of fact, if grows along with the destabilizing curiosity. Now and then, the sounds that come from the dark room seem to be related to what happens in other spaces of the house. But, you’ll not know for sure since the door continues closed.

One day, maybe because of a passionate love or thanks to some drinks, the door is open. It’s really very dark in there, but there is something that makes you have enigmatic sensations, feelings and premonitions. However, the murk keep being frightening and you’ll avoid the room.

Nevertheless, its contents will start leaking. Now that the door is open, what is inside the room will start spreading throughout the house. You can feel all this, but not see, for ignorance reign completely. Times goes by and suddenly you find out another door. This one also closed. Following that, you fancy to have seen a third one, also closed. An uncomfortable feeling emerges in the Ego after these revelations and the lack of knowledge frightens. The Ego will look for help.

The act of getting conscious is turning the light on.

When the light of consciousness is activated you can distinguish what is real from what is fantasy, you can define what you really feel and can do an inventory of the contents of the house. For example, you may realize that much of the furniture and objects of the house weren’t chosen by you but received as a kind bonus from the used shop of the collective plaza. After an attentive analysis, you may conclude that they are not interesting as they seemed to be when the light of consciousness was off. Now it’s possible to make a spring cleaning, renovate the propriety, open the windows and ventilate the house. New horizons are perceived, either at the bottoms of the rooms or through the open windows.

With some practice, the light of conscience tends to maintain itself on, and from the menace and torment it initially was it becomes a precious ally, an irreplaceable tool to face life. Isn’t easier to discern the path if one possesses a discerning light always on?

Limits of time are unmercifully useful. They force us to choose among the many ways we have to spend our time which one makes sense to us, which is better. And, because we are also limited selves, “better” means that we need to receive, not always give, in order to move on, and receiving something that conveys us strength and opportunities. The conscience of the time limitation, if smartly used, lead us to define what we want.

The key questions are: how to use this time? With whom to use this time? For what to use this time? These are precious questions, for in the lasts days of our time on Earth they could return and provoke a lot of pain or saint joy.

Thinking of the limit of life helps to approach with more emotional distance and objectivity the pressing and anguishing issues of the present, such as: is it worth it to be ashamed to do something that we know it’s important to us? And is it worth it to keep up a pride that turns inflexible and stupid, blocking one’s own flow of life? Or keeping the other kind of pride that maintains a person imprisoned in a relationship to show that he or she “was right? How many other things could be done in this irreplaceable time?

And what about fear? This is the greatest lord of all: how many things one gives up for fear? I’m not talking about the fear to plunge from the highest top of the mountain into the ocean. I’m talking about the fear to separate, to change job or career, to say no, to expose and admit a wound in order to take care of it. And there’s the fear of saying “I love you” as well as the other one of saying “I don’t love you.” And what about the fear do to what one feels like to do? And, finally, the fear to simply free oneself?

Because of fear, one lives a bitter and pretended life. But one day, there will not be the “others” to account for, neither past nor future. There’ll not be any fear because there’ll not be life to live anymore. There’ll be only the present. And in that instant we’ll be alone with our life in front of us. And the question: was it worth it?

The fact that there’s an end can and should be used as a lever to spur life on, giving courage and audacity.

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 down attracting embarrassed and constraining eyes upon us. Stereotypes provide a range of variables in behavior, but even so the arch of allowed possibilities is quite limited before the infinite psychological variety. Very little it’s needed to get out of the trail and denounce ourselves, revealing what inside us disagrees, showing that the role we exhibit doesn’t have us entirely.

When we disappoint expectations, we then to anything to wipe out the mark of dishonor and convince people that it was all a mistake, a misunderstanding. We panting assure our fidelity to the stereotype, to the role accepted and we promise its eternal repetition. It seems a question of life or death.

Stereotypes are comfortable, soft and welcoming. They offer conditions for a good sleep and a trip through life without any big shake. They allow avoiding the embarrassing responsibilities and choices of who thinks and talks in first person. On the other hand, the consequences of the responsibilities and choices permitted by the stereotype, even when painful, are sheltered by the common mentality that “comprehends and supports”.

Stereotypes answer to the most diverse human weakness: fear of saying what one thinks, fear of feeling what one actually feels, fear of expressing one’s own vision of things, fear of not being loved and being alone. But also ignorance, pride and laziness. Mainly, stereotypes save us from the effort of having an inner life, of thinking with one’s own brain and of creating and chiseling one’s own reality. Wearing stereotypes we enter the  flow of life without having to stop and think too much. Everything is “good”, anybody is a “friend” and we “like” everybody, and if we don’t, we pretend, which is well accepted by the stereotype, as much as true liking.

By the stereotypes’ rocking, we forget of who we are and let ourselves be shaped according to what the situation requires. We walk life laid-back. And everything would be really perfect if there weren’t those little things that run out of control: a gastritis or a headache, an “incomprehensible” anxiety, an aggressive child, a recurrent nightmare, tears that inexplicably come out while one states that “is fine”, mediocre notes at school and incapacity to concentrate at work.

So comfortable are stereotypes that they get us to forget that we are Human Beings.