Some days – a short, very short essay.

The most rewarding books I have ever found in my life were the short ones, made of fables, chronicles, poems, parables and myths.

The reason lays in the essence of these pieces – they are not written to inform or explain something; they are deep, unwalked paths of self-discovery and perception.

By unwalked I really mean it – a short piece that does not come with instructions on how to read and understand it; there is no intention of convincing, persuading, offering any answer or solution; there is actually an open and empty space for walking about, without purpose, and resonating.

This is, indeed, the very opposite of our modern communication paradigm, based on oratory skills and supply of information flows. There is an omnipresent, omniscient anxiety in knowing more and profusely, showing first, transmitting faster, louder and incessantly, also controlling better the interpretation of reality.

That’s what we call steamroller communication, and if you are not alert enough you end up trampled down in fresh concrete. The mass media and the most valued communicators and influencers of our society are great steamrollers with NERVOUS, narcissistic personalities. They dispute every inch of the dancing floor, every beam of the spotlight, brutally, frenetically and their objective is to shepherd the hordes, without space, time, aim to self-discovery, to autonomous thinking, to original expression, to authentic feelings, to creative insighting.

If you watch or hear too much from them, there is a moment you start noticing a wavy pattern of monkeys with flamethrowers repeating one another, raising heads and shouting louder, alternately. It is definitely maddening.

We use other people to communicate what we don’t want, in a way we don’t mean, to whom we don’t know. What has happened to us?  

I am not talking about making money and the commercial aspect of this communication paradigm. Oh, Lord, no –  it would make this short essay gigantic, too ambitious and pointless.

We are trying to remember a time and a place where we were allowed to reconnect, to deep dive, to discover, to abstract, to poeticize, to freely move amongst feelings, perceptions and ideas.

This is the essence of communication, not what is written or spoken through words, but the gaps in between the lines and the long pauses. To communicate is to offer attention, presence, time for these gaps, for the empty, silent spaces where creativity, originality, autonomy, freedom and love can truly flourish.

As living beings, we don’t really fill the lines or tell the stories in unison, but we share the void, the presence, the silence from where we are born.

For those who understand that the lack and the absence is much deeper, I would recommend a truly short reading. You’ll take less than ten minutes. But I’d like you to resonate whatever it brings to you for the rest of the day, and who knows write or share something about it.

Read the short lines, breathe in and out the long gaps. There is plenty of space and silence for you to open wings.

It is only one reading suggestion, after all, you can use any other written or not written element alike.

Enjoy it!

Inspired by: Some Days – Written and illustrated by Maria Wernicke, translated by Lawrence Schimel.