Loosing a diamond..

..while too busy collecting stones..

Refocusing on getting back the lost time as I did my entire life, I feel I forgot a bit about the important things. Discovering oneself is one of the most difficult tasks a person has to face. To help myself in that process, I got two very popular books that I'm very anxious to start reading: The Art of Loving (Erich Fromm) and Your Erroneous Zones (Wayne Dyer)..


Taking advantage of this half tranquil sunday, I've organized and uploaded some pictures. I really enjoyed to live those moments, I hope the pictures show at least some of what I felt then!

In order of appearance..

The splendour and glamour of some young souls having fun in Madrid..

This tuesday gathering in the same date I was born (different year, of course)..

And a very nice trip to the city of Porto (Portugal) with my friend Libby, whom I spent a great time with! (the pictures say it all)..

MAD in MAD

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!""

by Jack Kerouac

I am my aims

What does a goal mean in life? As I think I commented already in another post, a goal for me is a checkpoint very useful to meassure how much we grew in some topic.

So now, (maybe bc is after my b-day) I think it is a good moment to check my list of goals I had for this year..

* Stability [done!]

I'm leaving in Madrid since about 6 months ago (March 17). Here I'm working at IBM and living on my own in a very peaceful and comfortable place. I also made some new friends whom I spend many good moments with! :) This doesn't mean that I will be stable for a long time.. I just reached a point of certain stability by this time..

* Visit a country I've never been to [done!]

I'm just back from Porto, the 2nd bigest city of Portugal. I was there for 3 nights, which I think is the perfect amount of time for that city. It was very good to know a different european country and its similarities and differences with the rest.. Now I want to start planning my next trip!! :D

* Read > 6 non-tech books [done!]

Well, I can check this one as done.. I was reading some very interesting non-tech books which gave me different perspectives in many areas.. which books? mmhm.. let me think..

"The science, its method and its philosophy" by Mario Bunge
"Eve's_Diary and other tales" by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (aka: Mark Twain)
"The Sickness Unto Death" by Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
"The Zahir" by Paolo Cohelo
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Friedrich Nietzsche
"El perro del hortelano" by Lope de Vega
"Fuenteovejuna" by Lope de Vega
and I'm reading now "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare, which is very complicated for me, so I will take my time to finish it.. ;)

* English certificate (maybe FC) [discarded!]

Nah.. not a goal aymore.. I think I've improved my english very much during this year. I can say almost everything I want to say in the way I want to say it, which is my way of meassuring how much I've grown. Now I'm focusing on diferences between cultures more than the language itself.

* Define job position and growth [work in progress..]

This is a hard one.. I wanted to do that here in Spain, but I found a very tough market and the impossibility to grow as much as I would like in my career. Now that I'm more stable I think is the right time to focus on it more, but for now it will remain as not reached.

* Appartment [done!]

I think I wanted to say here that I would like to have an appartment for just myself, cause in Argentina I was living temporarily with my dad and after that, when I came here, I was staying at my aunt's. Well, as I mentioned before, I got this one done.

I will start working on different goals for the next period (maybe rest of 2008 and 2009)..

Lotus

Lately I was a bit more interested in the Lotus flower (aka Nelumbo Nucifera) and its "misteries".. (did I really say that?).. well, all of that began like this..

Once upon a time.. a guy had pretty good elasticity in his legs, thing that with time and a lack of exercise he gradually lost.. but lately he thought it would be awsome to stretch a bit everyday and get back what he once had or even more.. but as usual, to keep up a routine, a goal is needed.. so he choose to set a very tough one: to reach the Lotus position! (which some men and women can easily do and enjoy while they meditate).

A few weeks ago I went with some friends to a very nice tea house and I had a lotus tea and yesterday I had rice with vegetables for lunch and it came with a yummy lotus flower!

Here some extra info abt it..

"According to greek mythology, a scared beautiful goddess ran away to the forest and ended up in a place called Lotus, where she drowned. The young goddess fought during ages and finally could get away in the shape of a beautiful flower, with long petals.. That's why for greeks the lotus flower means the triumph after fighting tirelessly against failure." [source (in spanish)]

Lakshmi (also Mahalakshmi) is the Hindu goddess of wealth, purity, beauty and prosperity.. she is the consort of Vishnu and sometimes she appears with a lotus in her hand (called then Padmā). She is known to be very closely associated with the lotus, and her many epithets are connected to the flower (Padmā/Kamala: lotus dweller, Padmahasta: One who holds a lotus,.. )

Brahma (Hindu god of creation) was self-born (without mother) in the lotus flower which grew from the navel of Vishnu at the beginning of the universe.

The fruits of the Nelumbo Nucifera germinated after being stored for 100-200 years. Some seeds that were found burried in a swamped area in China (with no oxygen) germinated after 340-430 years. People say that some seeds can germinate after 1000 years of being burried, but this is not yet confirmed..