“The soul does not grow by addition but by subtraction.”

Meister Eckhart

I was looking at the lampshade that I was designing as part of my business. I liked the way it turned out. And yet, something made me doubt whether it was ready to go to the client. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was.

Was it the shape? The size?

Straining my mind for an answer, I suddenly felt some unease growing in me. I knew very well what it meant. It usually means that I am frustrated with how things are going and want quick results.

Chuang Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher, told a parable of an archer who “needed to win.” At first, he was shooting just for fun and seldom missed.

When he was offered a reward, a brass buckle, he became nervous. Then, he was offered a prize of gold and went blind – started seeing two targets.

His skill didn’t change, but the prize divided him. He cared more about winning than shooting. The need to win drained him of power.  

I also knew what my mind was doing. It was set on winning. On results. Not on the fun of designing. My unease made me blind – I couldn’t see what was lacking in the lampshade.

I stopped and took a breath. I needed a break. “The soul does not grow by addition but by subtraction,” the famous quote crossed my mind.

It felt counterintuitive – I had a deadline to meet. The project was due the next day. Just thinking about it gave me more anxiety. I was desperately grasping for control.

Sitting down in a chair by the window, I turned away from the lampshade. Do I really need to get it done today? What if I let it go and stay inactive for a while? The thought sent shivers down my spine. I could lose the client if I didn’t ship it on time.

But there was something else behind it all that I feared even more. Deep down in my heart, there was a little perfectionist who couldn’t bear the thought of not meeting someone’s expectations.

It was my self-image, my EGO, I was holding on to. It was my ego that made me so uneasy. I knew I needed to let go. I will stop striving for results and will trust my creative instincts.

Taking the leap of faith, I finished the last of my coffee and stepped out for a bike ride.

For the rest of the day, I was watching my mind intently – it would shoot back to the lampshade again and again. But, after some time of silence, it slowly loosened its grip.

I sat by the window, watching the kids play with a plastic bag that they inflated like a balloon. My wife was busy in the kitchen making pancakes! And then, finally, my mind was empty. For a while, I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular.

Noticing the smells, the rustling of the plastic bag, the laughter of the boys, I was becoming increasingly aware of what was going on around me. And there was peace, undisturbed by any thinking.

The next morning, I walked into the room and looked at the lampshade. And suddenly – bang! I got it. It struck me like lightning. It was a simple solution that only an empty mind could produce.

I added one piece to the shade and immediately knew in my heart that it was it. There was no doubt. Because it came out of emptiness. There was no ME in it.

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We are moving back to our Harvey-flooded house in a week’s time. It’s been a year and a half since we were displaced. I have moved three times in my life, and I have come to a point where I find it more unnerving than rewarding. Not that I dislike adventure and discovery – it’s just that I’ve had too much of it. I like to come back to something familiar, without having to change the entire wiring of my brain over the whereabouts of the forks. I like things to be within my arm’s reach. I like the familiar things to be within my eye’s glance. I like my future to be within my imagination’s scope.

Yet, move we will. Moving things around is like uprooting trees. My couch must have grown roots into my bedroom floor by now, and the poor fellow will probably screech and squeak as I yank it out of its native soil. My bookshelf will look so orphaned without the books, which will end up in boxes. A gaping hole in its heart will be hard to look at for a whole two hours until the books find their way home. The spoons and cutlery will be dinging against each other as they fight over their place in the new kitchen drawers.

Yet, move we will. We can’t do without moving. We can’t do without some unrooting. We can’t do without some dinging and some finding your place under the sun. They say, there’s nothing new under the sun. But when you have been moving around for quite some time, you almost want to say there’s nothing old under the sun. But we will get through and rediscover our old nest. We will send down new roots after some screeching and squeaking. The gaping holes in our hearts will be filled with new and old books. The new place will become the familiar place, but, after a while, our souls will suddenly overflow with the desire for new adventures and discoveries. Aren’t we a strange mix of resisting change and yet yearning for it?

We hate being uprooted and yet can’t seem to settle in for what we have. We want to rest our eyes on something familiar and yet crave for the scope of our imagination to ever expand to new horizons. I guess I will take it easy, and start preparing for my unavoidable move, little by little. One box at a time, one screech at a trip, one ding at a walk.

Once upon a time there lived a giant by the name of Yant. He was so huge that he could easily step over wide rivers. But that’s not what he loved to do – his favorite pastime was to sit on the bank of the river watching tiny boats sailing by. When the boats were passing the spot where he sat, he would often, just for the fun of it, bend over the river, pretending to be a bridge. He would plant his legs on one bank, lean over and put his hands on the other. He loved this game of a bridge and spent hours at it. Often, those who happened to sail by underneath his big round belly, would lift up their heads and say to each other: “That’s a good bridge, no doubt about it.”

The giant did not mind. He knew who he was – a giant, not a bridge. But it happened quite often that, whenever a boat was passing by, the people onboard would hear his stomach rumble after a hearty meal and say to each other: “This bridge is very well built. What an incredible traffic capacity. Hear all this noise?”

Actually, while the giant was playing his game, there were cars, buses and bikes running up and down his back all day long. And why not? After all, people need some way to get over the river. Very soon, however, he found out that, whenever he “was a bridge”, there was a constant flow of traffic on his back – so he decided not to straighten up until the day was over and there was no one left up there. After all, he didn’t want anybody to get hurt. But as soon as it was night, he would unbend himself, stretch his limbs, sit down comfortably on his favorite spot by the edge of the river, and strike up a conversation with his old friend as he watched her quiet waters gracefully flowing by. Continue reading “The Bridge Who Was a Giant”

The swimming pool was teeming with people. Bright luminescent bikinis, squealing children, laughing dads, chattering moms, all jumbled up together in a thick soup of incessant movement, stirring, whirling, mixing, blending.

On one side of the pool, there was a man sitting by the edge of the water with a long pole, fishing. His face was hidden in a thick beard. He seemed totally detached from what was going on around, watching intently the red bobber on the undulating surface of the pool. A guard hastily jumped down from his tower and ran towards the man.

“Sir,” he said with an air of utter amazement, “what are you doing? This is a swimming pool!”

The man didn’t budge.

“So what?”

“This is not allowed!” “This is…,” he stumbled, “you’ve got hooks out there, people can get hurt!”

“Yeah,” chuckled the man, “what did you think? Good things come to those who bait. Just look at this beautiful bait.” Continue reading “Hooked: A Story About Fishing in the Swimming Pool”

No doubt, there is a time when you need to be a parent to your children, but there comes a time when you can become their friend. Being a parent is about exercising control, being a friend is about letting go of control. Being a parent means you attach a child to yourself, being a friend means you let them go so they can come back to you of their own accord. The paradox of parenting is that you bind a child to yourself when they are little, so that you can let them go when they grow up.

When I think about my relationships with my kids, I have to come to grips with one thing – if I wish to be their friend, not just a parent, they must choose me for a friend. Unlike parents, friends are chosen, not given. And this has to be a free choice on their part, with no compulsion, coercion or manipulation on mine. Such is the nature of friendship – it’s a free choice, not out of necessity or obligation, but because a person’s soul resonates with your heart and mind.

C.S. Lewis wrote: “I have no duty to be anyone’s Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself.” Friendship can only thrive when someone’s inner world is attractive to you in and of itself. It’s true that my children are 100% dependent on me, and I could have forced them to “be my friend”. But that’s not what I want. I don’t want to say to them: “Be my friend, or you will regret it.” Friendship, unlike parenthood, is the opposite of dependence. Continue reading “How to Be a Friend to Your Own Child”

According to G.K. Chesterton, truth is often paradoxical. It’s hard to believe that the problem of loneliness is actually rooted in too much interaction.

But this is what Sean Parker’s uncanny insight seems to suggest. Sean Parker is the founding president of Facebook. He explained in an interview why it’s so hard to resist the impulse to constantly check your social media – even while you are driving.

He shared how social media gradually hook you up.

“When Facebook was getting going, I had these people who would come up to me and they would say, ‘I’m not on social media.’ And I would say, ‘OK. You know, you will be.’” Now that this prediction is more than fulfilled, the question is even more intriguing.

Social Media Addiction Engineering

How did they do it?

Sean explains that the founders used basic human psychology – our need for approval. Social media are nothing but a social-validation feedback loop.

It works like this – the moment you contribute some content and people like it, share it or comment on it, you get a little dopamine hit. This makes you want to contribute more content, which, in turn, gives you another hit.

You want more likes and comments. We all like to be liked (who knew?) – and social media provides that.

This fact is not easy to swallow – social media work because we are seeking validation. When we feel lonely, cut off, isolated, we want to get rid of this feeling at all costs. But does “interaction” on social media actually help us solve the problem of loneliness?

Far from it. Of course, we will temporarily feel “high.” Like a shot of whisky, it will medicate the distressing feeling of loneliness for a while. But when its tranquilizing effects wear off, we will feel even emptier than before, craving for more validation.

More likes, more comments, more shares. Our inner void will be growing and gradually become a gaping hole, an insatiable inner monster that gets hungrier with every attempt to feed it. Continue reading “Loneliness – Social Media Exploits Your Need of Validation”