Tag: self-awareness

Freedom I Want, Attachments I Need.

After writing on belonging, side talks with a couple of friends, few messages, and comments on the blog gave me a hard time sleeping. Amazing,! It is working! I am reflecting on my reflections in what apparently turned into an infinite process. Yay, thank you all!

These talks set off several thoughts, and one particular pressing idea kept on nagging on me, and still.

I always believed that true relationships are essential to be a true version of myself; to give space for a better version to emerge; to feel safer in the midst of a cruel world (inside and outside); to discover unknown realms of life; to be happier. And I am also aware that these true relationships are embodied through beautiful people, and not in the abstract. Hence, my need for special people, for friends in my life is crucial to love and be loved, all times, everywhere, I mean in general of course. But doesn’t this contradict entirely with the concept of freedom (that I was hailing in my previous post), by which I should not be attached to anyone or anything that forms a condition to happiness?

Was I lying to myself celebrating a deceiving freedom that will no longer exist once I find new “attachments” in my new place? Attachments that come with the new locational bonus, and “physical” presence! Am I celebrating a mere transitory freedom?

Oh, I think I am. Well, this sounds heavy, but I am afraid it is also true. At least it has been true for the past 8 years, where I didn’t enjoy any changing situation I lived through, until I created a “family” around me. Yes, I always used to the term “family”, and today I think I see why. I wanted us to be “attached” for good, assuming that is how families are supposed to be. Then, when lately my actual family fell apart, this illusion disappeared, but the need to be part of a whole never ceased.

That is who I am. So, how I can be free and real at the same time? Can I ever live life to the fullest free of attachments? For now, I don’t know. What I know is that I am waiting for my new ecosystem in Montreal to see light, so life becomes brighter, more meaningful and funnier.

Until then, Canadian winter is the best excuse for a slowly emerging social life. I am just afraid that it stops snowing prematurely.

Blogging to cope with change, through creating further changes!

At the age of 34, I am writing my first blog. Thanks for giving it some of your time. Although I thought of starting my blog few years ago, I haven’t typed down a single word under so many pretexts. So why now?

Coping with change might come easier with further changes, I suppose. They (the new ones) might give further meaning to the original change, I hope! I moved last week form Beirut to Montreal; a step that I have been avoiding for a long time. This was my second biggest move in my life after leaving Aleppo (my home town) traveling to Brighton in 2013 pursuing my Masters.

But this time, I had a new revelation! I found that moving in time and space is the easiest thing in the whole journey. The hardest part actually, is the travel across the different ego levels; from a boosted ego (that I used to enjoy in Beirut) to almost a zero-level one (that I am experiencing now in Montreal).

I think I can claim that I am aware of the trap of this ego shift, and I need to talk about it maybe more later. Nevertheless, this awareness doesn’t make the challenge that it imposes on me in my adaptation phase any easier.

I still have to deal with few serious questions like: WHO I AM HERE, NOW? and WHO I WANT to BE, SOON?

Thus, I decided to start blogging! As you might tell, this is one added change I created to deal with the original – the geographical – one, not as a distractor, but as a stabiliser, as I hope.

I like to see this space as a new tool to face myself with new questions, to challenge it to find some answers, and to park all emerging thoughts and inspirations in one interactive space. Hence, thanks a lot for enriching my journey with your interaction.

From -35c Montreal

Elias