Still Life

2024.09.16.

I am in a fortunate position because I can afford silence in my everyday life. Somehow, life has brought this: I am quiet in my daily routines, in social gatherings, in phone conversations. I listen, I listen to others, who fill the space that silence creates. They talk. They talk because they need to share their burdens with someone, somewhere.

These are burdensome times.

There are so many difficulties and changes in the lives of those I know. And lately, for some reason, they are increasingly reaching out to me, asking for help in gaining perspective, asking me to share my thoughts, but often just to listen. They seek the attentive silence, the connection that it offers.

And somehow, they connect with me in a completely different way than they did a few years ago. I observe myself in these connections. I observe the people, trying to understand why they come today, what they are seeking, and what that brief time together gives them. I observe what it gives me.

I am experiencing something new.

Something that wasn't there before. Am I filling the gaps of my past with these connections, or am I trying to build my future? I am present, we are present in these conversations, but what is my motivation? Why are they seeking these connections with me, and what has changed in me that I have become open to this? As people come and go in my days, I have started to feel that something is missing.

I used to always be the one speaking. Pouring out words about what I was doing, what I had achieved, what I wanted to do... Is that what I miss? The audience? The fans? Or is it that I want someone to be for me as I am for others? Perhaps I just can't find the direction, or I don't quite feel where this flow between me and others is heading. Or maybe it's just old reflexes knocking, seeking some attention to take control of things. Perhaps it’s control that I miss.

Is the security of control more important than the freedom of flow? I can control. I know I can. I can even manipulate. I have enough knowledge, experience, and willpower for it. If I control, the world will be as I want to make it.

My world, my rules.

But my freedom has always been more important to me—freedom to decide, to act, to exist—than my security. Or at least that's what I've always told myself. But back to connections. What does all this have to do with how I am present today? In this great flow—between me and others—I am now more of a giver than a receiver. When it comes to attention, to support, the flow is mostly outward.

This is a controlled thing.

Is it safe? It is. Because I decide what I give, to whom, and with whom I talk. I regulate it. So, what I am in now is still a world I created, directed, and controlled. These rules limit me. They are safe, but they build walls that make it hard to see reality clearly. All this while I hide behind the freedom of flow. This is what I say. This is how I see it, because I want to see myself as free.

But what will make me free, how and from what can I let go of control?

Perhaps receiving is already freer than giving? After all, I don’t know what I will receive. But receiving can also be controlled. Because I can regulate what and from whom I receive. I can’t let just anything in… can I? Where is the line between safety and freedom? How far can safe freedom stretch, and is freedom without safety even conceivable? Can we exist in such an environment? Can I? That is, could I be present for someone as others are present for me? Do I want that? If I did, would there already be someone?

Is it just a matter of wanting?

Where is the boundary between when I need to act and actively shape the world, my world, and when I need to let things happen, to trust life? Just like a fetus entrusts itself to the mother in whom it grows and develops.

I want to have an impact.

Did the things that happened to me in life happen because of who I am, or am I who I am because these things happened to me? In life’s chain of cause and effect, what is the logical order?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while.

The past year or two of my life has been strongly about giving. Of course, I receive as well, but perhaps my outward channels are more open. I focus on others, because maybe in their stories, I’ll find the path I want to follow. Maybe. Or maybe not, maybe I won’t find anything. Maybe it’s my task to create one for myself. A path of my own. To somewhere. But where? Perhaps that's what I’m missing today.

Direction.

The direction for where this great flow should go. The flow between us. But is that true? Is it really between us? Could it be that this is a mistake? Perhaps I should understand, should believe, that in my life I am the flow, that I move the things life’s storms or gentle breezes bring my way—people, opportunities.

Because if we are the flow, then we understand that this whole freedom versus security question makes no sense, because the concepts of freedom and security become one. Quietly.

And in that silence, nothing can be heard.

Only the flow.

--

The article was translated from Hungarian to English by ChatGPT. Thank you, ChatGPT, for being here.