Since I was a kid, I always had the illusion that I would grow up to become a fascinating person. I wanted to be knowledgeable, cultured and sophisticated; I wanted to have a wide spectrum of interesting occupations, quirky hobbies and a mastery of several cool and impressive skills – cooking, sewing and designing clothes, martial arts, for example. Regarding my appearance, I wanted to be stylish, unique and a bit extravagant; I wanted to be one of those people that you remember with admiration even though you’ve only met them – or even saw them – once. Growing up (and even now) I would always look out for people who possessed the traits that I admired or did the things I wanted to do; it could be anyone: an actor, a movie/tv/book character, a model, a blogger, or someone I knew personally. I would pay close attention to them, their actions and personal taste, hoping to find key elements to incorporate into my style and get me closer to my ideal. It is as if my life were my own, life-long, ultimate art project – constantly adding new material, borrowing and modifying, discarding, adopting, and polishing every aspect in a perpetual evolution. Does this sound like you as well? As I progressed into my late twenties I started looking back to those personal achievements and characteristics that I previously thought I would possess at this point, and felt that I fell short of my expectations. That I was somehow cheated and betrayed by my old, lazy self that didn’t do or learn the things I thought she should have. Feeling that my personal progress had been too slow, my life was thrown off-balance and making me demotivated and stagnant. However, in a moment of clarity – another one of my duh!piphanies* – I suddenly realized: it’s not over yet! “Remember that girl full of illusions, and projects, and dreams of the amazing person she wanted to become? You are still her!” Back on those early days, what made thinking of the future such an exciting thing was that somehow I knew that I would become that ideal version of myself; I knew I would get to that point one day. Why does it have to be different now? I believe the key is learning to enjoy the process of discovering and practicing, while doing everything with genuine love and attention, instead of going through life with eyes fixed on the final result. With that in mind, I have recently been going through a very exciting re-discovery of many forgotten dreams, activities and little pleasures that used to be part of my life at different stages growing up. I am recovering some of my passions:
- I have started getting in proper physical shape (better than ever before!) and bringing my knowledge of Tae Kwon Do to practice,
- I am writing more and writing better (or so I believe!),
- Recovering my child-like awe for all things new and wonderful, looking at things with new eyes (especially when travelling),
- Getting back to my project of becoming more like Lara Croft (more on that later),
- Becoming even more knowledgeable on everything related to tea and the art of preparing tea;
- I am also taking great joy on listening to my old music, those tracks I had not listened to in years that trigger glorious memories of happy, hopeful times.
Fueling my tea addiction at my favorite Tea Shop in Berlin.
In addition, I have discovered new passions that have enriched my life: I am slowly but surely making progress into becoming a proficient cook, and making beautiful looking and delicious food fills my spirit with joy these days.
Chocolate ganache tart with caramelized bananas. I went native and I baked this for my birthday! The fact that it was very short-lived among my labmates tells me it was a success...
Unexpectedly, an unprecedented liking for classical music and ballet has arisen in me. And for almost a year now, I have devoured book after book covering anything related to eastern philosophy, consciousness, mysticism, meditation, religion and the occult. Several of these books have changed my outlook of the world, myself and other people in a radical way. I will write about that as well, but you can get an idea of the topics I am learning about by looking at My Bookshelf.
Dressed to kill outside of the Berlin Philharmonic.
Immersing in other people's magical worlds through books. Sounds like the kind of thing that cheesy culture-oriented children's shows use to say to get kids to read more, but it is so true!
Need some ideas on where to start rediscovering your passions? Here is a wonderful exercise from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. The idea is to make quick associations with concepts by answering as quickly and spontaneously as you can, in order to reveal your genuine desires – by doing it fast you avoid censoring yourself – or make some unexpected discoveries; however, you can always go back and add more if you get new ideas! (I added some of my list to serve as examples). Let's begin: 5 Hobbies that sound fun.Cooking exotic food with rare ingredients – Collecting obscure books with interesting drawings and art – Stage imaginative photoshoots and shoot them – Bungee Ballet – Regularly attend screenings of independent/rare films in small theaters.5 Classes that sound fun.
Acrobatic dance – Science in comics and movies – Food styling – Poise, modelling and confidence (something like Veronica Varlow's School of Deadly Charms) – Trapeece lessons.
5 Skills it would be fun to have.
Shoot with bow and arrow – Speak a third, or even fourth language! – Ride a motorcycle – Overall acrobatic agility – Singing.
5 Things I used to enjoy doing.
Making models and dioramas – Making small tea parties for myself – Trying and making my own home-made beauty treatments – Making clothes and accesories – Cultivating Lithops, succulents and cacti.
Lithops, also known as "living stones" are a kind of succulent plant native from Namibia and Botswana. This is a picture of Rocky, one of the Lithops from my old collection in Mexico.
5 Things that you would like to try once.Skydiving – Going to Iceland to see the Northern Lights – Being on a fashion photoshoot for a magazine – Making a painting with watercolors – Eating Fugu and real sushi in Japan.
Now, answer these questions (three examples of each! I'll show only a couple):
What would I do if it wasn't so crazy?
1) Start singing! And trying my hand at painting.
What would I do if it wasn't too selfish? (This is supposed to be an action that you would take to get you closer to your previous goal).
1) Ask Guitar Güero to be my singing coach. For painting, go to the big nice art store in P-Berg and get some supplies, make some space in the flat to work on it.
What does your list look like? Share with us in the comments section! I think it would be very inspiring and enriching.
Some other ideas: - Look for a really old back-up of your computer files, especially one containing image folders and music. It’s like a time capsule. - Go to your parent’s house and take a look at the bookshelves. Do you see anything there that you remember reading with delight? What sort of books attracted you the most? In my case, I couldn’t get enough of my parent’s collection of books about nature – especially mushrooms, butterflies and natural history – full of large, glossy pictures. My favorite one (predictably) was one about Darwin’s journey on The Beagle. Find your forgotten treasures and go through the pages, see what you find! - Look up “Top 40” or “Top 100” song lists from your teenage years, and marvel at all of those great songs that you still love with a passion to this day, but somehow had fallen out of your regular playlist for years. I’m pretty sure you’ll be thrilled and surprised by all the wonderful things waiting to be brought back to mind, and some of them may even spark new ideas for novel and exciting projects and ventures. Take the time to do it, it is really worth it!
Have a great week!
