Liberating Love

"Ich hab'ein großes Gefühl für dich.

Soll ich es dir vorbeibringen, oder willst du es abholen?"

(Robert Gernhardt)

www.weheartit.com

Once in my life, years ago, I had an all-consuming love. It was short but so intense that I didn't know that I was capable of feeling that much. My heart was like a vessel overflowed with so much happiness until I felt it might burst. I thought that kind of love will never end, so that when it was over, I had a immense hollow inside that can't be filled for many, many years afterwards and that I actually suffered some physical pain because of it. 

That experience left me terrified every time I wanted to try something new with someone else. When I finally tried, I didn't give all of my heart. Of course the end result was catastrophic, although it didn't kill me. 

One day, not so long ago, someone came to my life, and somehow he convinced me, not through his words but through his actions, that I don't have to be so afraid anymore. So I put myself together and offered him my heart. 

It was liberating. 

Love isn't complicated. People are. If people accept the first love given to them and giving it back, so many of us would live happily ever after and no one will make movies or fairy tales about it. But the thing is, without knowing how and why, you love a certain person with all their flaws and failings, against all odds, sometimes defying common sense and good advice. And the same thing cannot be applied to any other person. It's not a repeat order, a recipe, nor a pattern. Love is, unfortunately, highly random. But I guess from experience I have now learned to just love and be happy with doing it, because I have handed this whole business to God. If anything good will come out of this, I will be the happiest woman on earth, but otherwise I know that I will fall out of love, and find a new one. As Maupassant said, " l'amour n'est pas éternel. On se prend et on se quitte."  

Of course I won't deny that my heart leaps every time I saw him appear in my News Feed.  There hasn't been a day yet where I cross my fingers every time my iMessage beeps and hope that it is him that send me a text, even if it's just a simple "hi". And the fact that I still mention his name in my every prayer shows how much I really want all my feelings to be reciprocated. After all, the greatest thing we'll ever have is to love and to be loved in return. And it's something I pray I'll never be deprived of in life. 

Always More

"To teach is to touch lives forever."

Here's a story of a teenage boy I know. 

He's now 14 years old and in junior high school. Born as middle child, he has that comparison syndrome, which means that he has a big brother and a little brother to compete with, resulting in a lack of self confidence. In primary school, he was bullied for the whole 6 years by his classmates, and his parents were either too indifferent or too stupid to realize this and move him out of that school. He has developed a defensive posture and was constantly tensed that he forgets his normal posture. Now he walks with a bent back, his shoulders lifted, his arms never hang loosely beside his body (they are either folded in front or lifted on the side just above his waist). It's almost impossible to teach music to someone with this kind of physical problem.  

This boy, is a student of mine. He's my underachiever, but I love him dearly. 

He is a sensitive kid and when I put him in concerts several times, he managed to play beautifully. He loves romantic pieces and although he puts a devil-may-care attitude as a teenager would do in front of me, his tormented soul connects immediately to this kind of music and he would sing inwardly and project the most beautiful sound through his stiff fingers and arms and shoulders. But each piece is a struggle, although he doesn't mind working hard and taking my frustrated wrath every now and then, poor boy. Every single session we have is always a mix of music, psychology, dance, yoga, breathing, gymnastic and philosophy lesson. And in every session we only manage to do one piece because he doesn't have enough time to do more than one nor enough motivation and strong will to want to do more.  And as his grade goes up, I feel the hill we both climb is getting steeper.

A lot of times, after an unsuccessful lesson where we both ended up hating each other, I would think he might not be coming the following week, but although he always misses at least one lesson every month, he keeps coming to my studio. Which I think is a miracle, knowing how tough sometimes I am with him. 

If things like this happens to other student, who doesn't have his psychological baggage or his familial background or who is plain lazy, I would have called his parent and dismiss him out of my class. But although I lost my temper with him, never for once I told him that he cannot come to my class again. 

I just can't give up on him. If I do, he will give up on himself. So I'll stick around. And I think he knows that I'll stick around until he won't give up on himself, on anything. 

Many times, teaching is really not about doing the theory and the science. Many times, I feel that it's about teaching how to think, how to feel, how to do things better and how to be good at something. Many times, music comes much later, usually after they solve all these non-musical problems. If we're really involved, it can be very tiring, because it can be very intense, but it can also be very rewarding, because as we do that, we fix something and build human connection, which is a rare and precious things these days. I guess that's why I always go back to teaching at some point. I love building that bridge, and I love getting inspirations from my students (although they also give me headaches!). And teaching always makes me grateful for the inspiring teachers I have had in my life who changed my life for the better.   

No regrets!

"Do you know what the most destructive force in the Universe is? Regret!"

- Agent K

In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take, relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make.

So Said Johnny.

Photo (C) Meirita Artanti Putri

A Good Idea

I've been wanting, hoping, dreaming, wishing and dying for a proper concert venue in Bandung for quite some time. Yesterday my favorite band, Doric String Quartet, posted this picture below while they were visiting Pennsylvania for a concert. I suppose a book store (or whatever store) that hosts concerts can be interesting. Classical music fans can get an added bonus of browsing books while they're waiting for the concert to start, and people who don't really like classical music can hear it while they were reading. We might even get new audience. Also the store can support the running of the venue when no event is taking place. 

  

Now I'm gonna have to find out how to sell this ideas to my friends & the community :-)

The Sufi in Me

One of Sufi's practice known as the "whirling dervishes"

I just finished re-reading a wonderful book about Islam by Reza Aslan. In one of the chapter, he explains about Sufism, which is one of religious branch in Islam which is quite popular to non-Muslims. A lot of scholars and encyclopaedias have explained it, or at least tried to, but I really love Aslan's interpretation about it. I will reveal a little bit about it here, but if you'd like to know more about his thoughts on Sufism, you should read his book called "No god but God" and jumped to chapter 8. These are all quoted and summarized from this book (all bold prints are mine). 

Sufism - the term given to Islam's immensely complex and infinitely diverse mystical tradition - is ... fundamentally indefinable. As a religious movement, Sufism is characterized by a medley of divergent philosophical and religious trends. In their rituals and practices, the Sufis sought the annihilation of the ego, ...whereas Sufism's goal is to thrust humanity toward God. The Sufi path only originates with the "outer shell" of Islam. As the Sufi passes from one stage to another of the way to "self-annihilation" and unity with the Divine, that shell must be gradually discarded. Sufis believe that reason and theology, creed and ritual, law and its commandments, all must be replaced in the soul of the enlightened person with the supreme virtue: love.

This brief outline of Sufism...in no way explains what Sufism is. Nor could it. That is because Sufism is a religious movement that can only be described; it cannot be defined. What is Sufism? It is the love of Majnun for Layla. It is "numberless waves, lapping and momentarily reflecting the sun - all from the same sea," according to the Sufi master Halki. It is the practice of "adopting every higher quality and leaving every lower quality," in the words of Ibn Junayd. The Sufi is "not Christian or Jew or Muslim," Rumi wrote. He is not of "any religion or cultural system...not from the East of the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all...not an entity of this world or the next." Sufism to Islam is what heart is to the human being: its vital center, the seat of its essence. 

Of all principles that the Sufi disciple must integrate into his life, none is more important than the principal of love. Love is the foundation of Sufism. The experience of love represents the most universal station on the Sufi Way, for it is love - not theology and certainly not the law - that engenders knowledge of God. 

According to the Sufis, God's very essence - God's substance - is love. Love is the agent of creation. Humanity...is God made manifest; it is God objectified through love. 

When Sufis speak of their love for God, they are not referring to...spiritual love; quite the opposite. This is a passionate, all-consuming, humiliating, self-denying love. ...the Sufi love requires the unconditional surrender to the Beloved's will, with no regard for one's own well-being. This is love to the point of utter self-annihilation. Love, ...is the fire that obliterates the ego and purifies the soul, and the lover is he who "flares and burns..." 

I recently proclaimed my love for someone. It's my first time. Funnily, against all odds, I felt all right. I wasn't ashamed, and I didn't feel at all degraded. I told my bestie yesterday that I strangely felt grounded, sober, and calm, although I know that my love is unrequited. I probably reached what the book called "ecstatic self-annihilation". I have probably given what the Sufis called "the perfect love - the kind of love that expects nothing in return," although I also told God that I would not mind very much if he loves me back (haha!). But today I know for sure why. 

I don't claim myself to be a Sufi. I'm still so very far from that. But having experienced a deep love for someone, I know that I have been closer to God, and get to know Him a little bit more. There is something grand about it. It's indeed a privilege, because not all human beings are allowed to have this kind of experience. It has elevated me into a whole new level of existence. And it has left me an indescribable but incredible sense of peace.

There's one more thing I know for sure now. Almost everything in the world, when they're given, will make you have less. Money, books, clothes, shoes, everything, except love. Love, I believe, is the only thing in the world that always returns to you after you give it back, and many times even more.    

Hey, you!

Yeah, you.

I could, and would, spend the rest of my life making this for you, if you let me to.

www.piccsy.com

Yeah.

www.piccsy.com

The best cure...

...for heartache is practice. 

Lots and lots of 'em.