The leopard shoes
Neither the city nor the ocean inspired me to write for quite a while. That is because I was drowning in my own ocean and building my own city. Unexpectedly, it was yoga that made me feel like I want to share my understandings with more than one person again.
Funny enough, around one year ago my era of "enlightenment" began in the mountainous deserted area in the Korean middle of Buddhist nowhere accompanied by silence. Today my morning began in a packed class somewhere in the middle of San Francisco accompanied by American and Indian music. It's also true that if it had not been for that meditation at 5am last year I would probably have not found myself in the US today.
It's even more funny, but one of my most important today's insights is about insights themselves. One should not expect the fruits of a certain insight pop up the very next day. Or in a year. Or embodied as a certain action. An insight rarely brings fruits but it fertilizes the soil. And it is up to you to keep planting or not. But it is more than silly to trace the origins of a certain fact or action in a certain insight or understanding, because all of them are continuous. Because each and every of them shouts: "Don't stop me know!"
And this is another thing that came to my mind today. I am not the one who takes continuous repeatable actions easily. I am just not very happy about doing one and the same thing for a long period of time (I am not happy about one and the same job, hobby, circle and, to be perfectly honest, people), but it took me quite a while to confess myself: yes, I am a perfect seagull manager, but I am a terrible translator into Korean (because it takes you around 5 days to turn the project upside down, while it takes you around five years of non-stoppable effort to at least feel comfortable next to a Korean (if ever possible. I mean, in terms of the language, no offense meant). All right, so here I am, and there is nothing wrong about this. It's just vital to understand it and listen to yourself carefully before taking any long-standing and commitment-rich decisions.
Certainly, to take up yoga could have been such a decision, but today I still I had a certain doubt whether it's worth it. Because the people were doing their own yoga at rhythmical music, laughing and staring at each other. Definitely I easily (again, if ever possible) grasped the method of meditation in the silent mountains but got kind of frustrated by all those destructors wondering if there is something wrong with my meditation or this yoga is a wrong yoga. And you know what? Perhaps, it's much easier to listen to and hear yourself when in complete silence. Because there is nothing sacral about the meditation (read: eye-to-eye conversation with yourself, because I am still pretty careful about the religious terms), it's only about being able to talk to yourself on the daily basis, no more than that. Meaning this is a continuous practice to close the circle and come back to the first insight of unstoppable circulation.
What is more funny is that my day started with me doing yoga while it ended with me buying myself rainbow-coloured socks and leopard shoes (no need to believe it, I still don't believe it myself). It's absolutely hilarious because for the whole past year I was trying my best to destroy all sorts of deep-rooted formalities, boundaries, prejudices and conservative approaches. And then I find myself almost adopted to this amazing family that does respect formalities, follows the boundaries, shares certain prejudices and wouldn't mind a conservative approach from time to time. However, it never stopped my process of growing, it only boosted my exploration. May be, because I am somehow in the most New Edge place I have ever heard of and could imagine: several hundred thousand yoga studios, vegetarian restaurants, LGBT districts, paper bags only, contact improvisation jams and 4 means of recycling.
With my mind being torn apart between these two cultures - the culture of something extremely cutting edge, progressive, relaxed and spiritual-development-centered and this cemented culture of intellectuals buttoned up to their ties and all their formalities, I still feel perfectly fine. But that is may be because in one of the closest people I see just a suitable blend of classical views and brand new trends, which makes me believe in my harmonic future.
PS: I'm not kidding you, guys, the leopard shoes are awesome.