That way you can stay in this world
Also no looking at world through your head
Look through your heart instead
That way you will know god
There's a wonderful old Italian joke
About a poor man who goes to church every day
And prays before the statue of a great saint, begging
"Dear saint, please, please, please...
Give me the grace to win the lottery"
This lament goes on for months
Finally the exasperated statue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust
"My son, please, please, please...
Buy a ticket!!!"
All right, let me teach you a word
Therapist
We call it "Dolce Far Niente"
It means "The Sweetness of Doing Nothing"
We are masters of it
You can’t learn Italian like this
You don’t speak the language just with your mouth
You speak it with your hands
Dolce Far Niente
A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day
It's called the Auguste-um
Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains
When the barbarians came they trashed it a long with everything else
The great Augustus, Rome's first true great emperor
How could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, would be in ruins
It's one of the quietest, loneliest places in Rome
The city has grown up around it over the centuries
It feels like a precious wound, a heartbreak you won't let go of because it hurts too good
We all want things to stay the same
Settle for living in misery because we're afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins
Then I looked at around to this place, at the chaos it has endured
The way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again
And I was reassured
Maybe my life hasn't been so chaotic
It's just the world that is, and the real trap is getting attached to any of it
Ruin is a gift
Ruin is the road to transformation
People in Bali understand:
In order to be happy you must always know where you are
Every moment
Right here is perfect balance
Right at meeting of Heaven and Earth
Not too much God
Not too much selfish
Otherwise, life too crazy
You lose balance, you lose power
End of day, you do new medication
Very simple
Sit in silence and smile
Smile with face
Smile with mind
Even smile in liver
When I was in Italy, I learned a word - It's "tutti"
With double T, which in ltalian means "everybody"
So that's the lesson, isn't it?
When you set out in the world to help yourself
Sometimes you end up helping Tutti
In the end, I've come to believe in something I call "The Physics of the Quest"
A force in nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity
The rule of Quest Physics goes something like this:
If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting
Which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments
And set out on a truth-seeking journey
Either externally or internally
And if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue
And if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher
And if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself
Then the truth will not be withheld from you
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
During this journey, I have felt exhausted, and have lost the excitement. This is totally out of my default. It seems no difference as in Hong Kong, no passion, no spark... The most troublesome is, with complicated personal relationship in work and live...
However, I still believe in QUEST. That why I re-watch this movie. Thank Elizabeth Gilbert.
