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Landscapes of my mind

March 31, 2021

The writer shares a personal reflection on the balance between the mind and the world outside, by looking at the cars on the highway. It seems that the mind is also a world of its own, that should have the space to grow and to be explored. The writer also mentions how we are all connected by some energy, which we can take advantage of to walk this world more easily.

Through the window of my car, I like to spy people in the other cars. I like to think that they too, like a car on the highway, go and go without ever stopping. And while I'm sitting comfortably in my seat, I feel like I'm hurtling through a world that is still, forgetting that life actually goes by very fast. We are surrounded by incessant movement, overwhelmed by the thick, sticky air of haste. 

But life is also flowing inside me, and my body is forced to juggle between two heavy trains, while also having to balance on an ice waterfall. Two trains with two different rhythms: the train of life within me, and the train of life that arises from the unison of all the individual ones, by some mysterious energetic law.

My body obsessively wants to feel part of the world, while my mind obsessively wants to feel a part of the body. But it is often suffocated by this thick air that I breathe. And as I compromise my mind’s need, I begin to chase myself. I stumble over a few stalactites, and so I start the endless climb to the top, again.

Just because the mind is smaller than the world, it doesn't mean it contains less. It's all relative. I, too, have forests of thoughts, deep and dark lakes of fears on which white sails of hope navigate. I have clouds of ideas that are majestic on some days, raining big drops of inspiration. I have dark, distant and unknown caves, like those places that are unreachable even to the greatest explorers. Is it selfish to want others to appreciate my landscapes and for them to water my flowers? 

Maybe I'm not so comfortable in this seat after all. Maybe I'd like to go for a walk and breathe a cleaner air.

What about these people who drive for hours on end? What landscapes do they have to offer? They might be thinking about the traffic; about the house keys they can't find; the shopping list to write; the doctor’s appointment. But who knows what colour their flowers are, how long their thunderstorms last or what creatures fly in their skies. 

I like to think that they are thinking the same about me, peering out their car window, without me noticing. Maybe only then our minds will mysteriously touch and drive this car, juggle the trains, and climb the mountain together.