STUDY WITH ALFONS

I first encountered the term „life regrets” in American cinema. Some super hero (or master villain) was blurting out something along the lines of „I regret nothing. I will do everything exactly the same again.” These seem to be the vital components of the Hollywood hero mindset:

• Saving the world (aka life having meaning/purpose),
• smoking or at least alcoholism (being flawed despite all greatness),
• and having no regrets.

Contrariwise, outside of the screenplay, some actors might beg to differ: „I have many regrets, and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret. And if you don’t regret them, maybe you’re stupid.”

Nicely twisted antimetabole there, Katherine Hepburn.

What makes a regret a proper regret? What did a person have to do (or not to do), and how would it have had to be done, to have created an incurable nag, something permanent that continues to suck the life force out of the heart, so strong, that it emotionally cripples, and makes that person unable to live life to the fullest?

Do you have proper regrets in your life? Regrets that stopped you, and continue to stop you, from living your life… from living your life…  in which way?

And, is a really proper regret something bound to time? Does it have to be in the past? Or could it be in the future just as well? Can it be something, that we know we will do (or will not do), that stop us from living our lives now? Stop us from finding meaning, purpose, and act on it?

I need to protect myself. It’s my responsibility as an adult. I need to steer clear of things that damage me, or cause me to have feelings of despair, or anxiety. I cannot go to those dark places anymore. No matter my situation, I just can’t allow myself to go there.

Therefore, I committed myself to not check Facebook. To ignore the Recommended, Trending, and Related sections on Youtube. To not open any News website. Or at least limit my exposure to once a week. News reading on Sunday mornings only. Or something like that.

Instead. There needs to be an „instead”. We don’t rip voids into our habitual fabric. We replace with options. We replace with better.

I put my smartphone aside. I get up from my couch and walk across the room. That’s 2 1/2 steps. I arrive at two of my three houseplants. The one on the right is a Chlorophytum comosum, also called ribbon plant. I run my hands, one by one, over some of its leaves. They are thin, almost like blades of grass. I stop, and hold one of the bigger blades softly, gently between my thumb and my index finger. The older leaves are a bit longer and wider than the newer ones. And their outside edges grew a white border, as of lately. The expression of their genetics. They grow. They develop. They express who they are. I squat down and bring my face closer to the grass-like houseplant. The uppermost layer of soil is dry, but right underneath I can see it’s still moist from yesterdays’ watering. There’s a whole bunch of new leaves. And some of the older ones already became dry and brittle, and changed from green colour to brown, hanging wrinkled and loosely over the rim of the small pot. The plant seems to like its new pot. My eyes are engulfed in this beautiful medley of light green, dark green, mild white and light brown colours.

I feel peaceful and content from checking on my plants. To see whats new. And I feel good about being able to keep these three plants alive. 

Now, finally, after a big detour down the terrors of social media, I understand what my grandma loved so much about her morning routine of catering to her plants.

22 days ago I committed myself to daily blogging. I went through three phases, which I just now named „flush it”, „press it”, and „wait for it”. It reminds me of something I read recently, something about the process of learning:

„The biological prerequisite for the process of seeing is the readiness to receive the light, the willingness to acknowledge fluctuations in brightness, and not actively looking at the objects and trying hard to analyse them.” – Heinrich Jacoby, Beyond gifted and untalented.

Flush it. The beginning was the easiest part. I hadn’t blogged for over a decade, and the first couple of posts where just like opening a valve. The thoughts came pouring out, as soon as I let them.

Press it. After the first 15 or so posts (one every day) the pressure was gone, and thoughts began to drip rather than to flow. I had to search for something relevant enough for me to write about. And for the next 5 days I felt pressure by my own commitment to myself. Every day a bit more.

Wait for it. Then something changed. The pressure of having to write something every day annoyed me, and I said to myself, „Well, I’m not getting paid for this anyways. And since I didn’t install any tracking software, I don’t even know if anyone is reading this. So I could just as well stop.”

I’m in this third phase now (if it is a phase). And this mindset feels oddly liberating. I do not squint. I do not pressure my self. I’m merely receptive for thoughts to appear. And I do enjoy the process of writing something down.

Writing a blog is a funny sort of thing. There’s no „sleep over it”, no „Day 2” to correct and improve the post. There’s no „re-read it a week later and see what survives”. I work on a post, re-read it on the spot, and when it’s posted it’s posted.

Lately I often wonder who I would have been if I had had more money. What if I had grown up in an environment that would have better supported my development? What if I had met people with whom I could have built something. Or maybe I did meet them, but what if I had acknowledged these encounters and jumped in with both feet? Or what if, what if I had pursued a line of business that had monetisation in its center, rather than meaning? Or a business that had both? What if I had invested just a little bit, a couple of hundreds, in Apple, or Microsoft, or Oracle, or Bitcoin, when I first heard about these things?

I wonder what projects I would have created? What communities I would have built? And what I would have contributed to all of humankind?

I also wonder what kind of house I would have bought, and where I would have lived. Which place would I have chosen on this Earth? How would my garden have looked like? What furniture would I have bought, and what art would I have had around me? What people would I have met, and whom would I have married?

What if this? What if that? What if? What if?

I know of several people who seem to be more at ease at night. They seem to enjoy themselves more, seem to feel saver, less pressured. I’m actually one of them.

I always thought that’s because most people around me are off from work at night. The pressure from the collective mind, the human morphogenetic field, is missing. Permission to enjoy the free time. And all that.

But there might be something else at work, or better, off work: solar pressure. Light from the sun is not merely radiation, but exerts pressure on matter.

„For example, had the effects of the sun’s radiation pressure on the spacecraft of the Viking program been ignored, the spacecraft would have missed Mars’ orbit by about 15,000 km (9,300 mi)”, to quote Wikipedia.

Maybe down here on our planet’s surface we can feel that solar radiation pressure too. And when it’s absent, we feel more at ease. But then, after a while, we need it again. In fact, maybe we might only feel at ease at night if we had enough pressure from our sun that day. Or at any some days before.

My plant grew strongly slanted to one side. I’m wondering what made my plant do this. The environment, the light? Or the way I put it into its new pot? Or maybe, is it its character? Would any other plant – of the same variety – do the same?

„The way we think of ourselves, and thus the way we act, the way we eat, drink, walk, sleep, make love, is conditioned in varying degree by three factors: heritage, education, and self-education.” – said Moshé Feldenkrais in his book Awareness Through Movement (I paraphrased).

I could turn the pot around, and watch what my plant would think about that. Is it a plant that seeks the light? Is it a plant that is strong willed, not easily discouraged? Ready, again, to change directions? Does a plant think about itself? And if it does, does its self-image govern its every act? Or is this just a thing we mammals, and more broadly speaking we species with a beating heart and nervous system, do?

Writing a blog post is a funny sort of thing. Throughout the day I scout for relevant, meaningful, communicable thoughts. Now I wonder: what is the style of my blog? Should it be personal stories? Professional information? Or about my creative process as a somatic movement teacher?

All the while I know that – first of all – this is a practice for myself rather than for anyone else – and secondly – every day, the moment I start to write, all my planing and scouting falls to pieces. Right from its start, the blog post develops a life on its own, and demands to be treated as such.

Strangely, the writing always brings forth things that I have not planed to write at all. Does it bring forth things that were hidden? Or things that were actively in hiding? Now drawn to light through the process of writing? How much is hidden inside of me then? And where else is it coming from? The Internet? My immediate environment? Or, does it bring forth things that are inside of you, who is reading this? Is there a magical connection between you and me, some sort of beautiful, quantum mechanic intermingling that casts life into these posts?

Or is writing more like embodied thinking? Conscious and active. A cognitive process that makes new connections and creates meaning? An internal conversation between different perspectives, a give-and-take between mind and „paper”, resulting in an etched out flight of diction, that now lies prey to being read by anyone who stumbles upon it?

It is a funny sort of thing. A strange thing. Delightful, too. More again tomorrow.