Connecting dots

Today is Nyepi, the day of silence that falls on Bali’s lunar new year. It is a day of silence, fasting, and meditation, and even the island’s airport is shut down. What a great idea to dedicate the first day of the new year to silence. I wish I was there joining in the silent celebration of the day. For me, today was a travel day, flying from Manila to Hanoi through Hong Kong. However, I did spend time quietly reflecting on my life as I sat in my airplane seat.

Aldous Huxley said that “the more powerful and original a mind is, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.” I reflected today on what it means to have private space where one can enjoy solitude. Private space can be virtual, meaning the type of space we can learn to create anywhere and anytime through our mind. For example, I could sit in an airplane full of people yet experience my own private space.

However, private space can also refer to physical space that is especially created with the idea of celebrating solitude. Part of my dream is to create a physical space that combines a studio with private living quarters with an outdoors bath and a walled terrace overlooking a green tropical valley. A space where I could be both private and intensily creative. Who knows, some day I might be able to realize this dream. I am working on it, actually.

For me, and many other introverts, I need to regenerate my energy in solitude before I can comfortably mingle with friends and acquaintances. One is a condition for the other, is how it works for me. Finding private space and private time become critically important. John Maxwell calls it “growth time”, and he encourages his readers to find such time every day.

Against the backdrop of a spectacular view of Hanoi by night, my discussion over dinner this evening centered unexpectedly on how life is marked by changes, how different these changes are experienced by women and men, and on the opportunities to make these differences work to complement each other’s needs. I realized that unless we learn to know and love ourself more, it would be different to help others. In fact, there is a Vietnamese proverb that cautions against trying to help others before being able to help ourselves.

The more I practice being quiet and receptive in my soul, the more I realize how rich I really am in the universe around me. The dots in my universe are connecting mysteriously whenever I care to take a look. And I am more and more excited to find ways to share this magic with people around me for their benefit. I am glad to be reborn at 50, and sometimes I wonder why it took me so long to find out life’s lessons. Oh well, it just takes longer for men than women, it seems!

Photograph: Wake Up - Espresso cup from Ubud, Bali.