What is life?

Life is about being in here and now. It is discovering rivers of happiness, goodness, G-dliness, kindness, and compassion within yourself and bringing it forth to the surface, so that the smile doesn’t leave you, and butterflies in your tummy don’t stop their “happy dance”.

My Body

My connection with my own body and physical self has been very present in before, post and during STP experiences. Time and time again I am amazed to have fountains of energy to do things. Sometimes I wonder where this energy comes from. At times I feel like a mother hen over my own body; I tell myself how precious my own body is, and there is an enormous sense of vulnerability I feel for my body when I push myself for difficult physical challenges. At other times I still experience moments where I methodically and systematically abuse myself through food and smoking, and seem to almost rejoice in doing so.

The STP ride was an emotional rollercoaster. At the very start I was filled with a sense of doom, fear, and a strong sense of guilt. All I could think about how last few weeks leading up to STP ride I have been bumping smokes from people, and eating junk non-stop. Eventually I relaxed enough to calm down, and concentrate on the idea that our bodies are resilient, with large reserves of energy, and the most important thing is to concentrate on here and now, and enjoy the ride. And at some point it finally clicked in my head that I have ridden half of the distance, and I was really going to meet my goal. Towards the very end I became aware of passing people whom I saw as stronger than me, and arrived to the stop before they have. That realization filled me with a sense of reverence towards my own body. How good it is to me that even though I have “bad days” as often as “good days”, it is still willing to work with me, and grow strong?

Rain

I smelled rain on my way back home. Its smell is intoxicating to me… It smells of early morning and late evenings blended into one… It has velvety touch, and soothing embrace…

Making Sense

I am utterly lost tonight. Earlier this afternoon I had learned that a lovely girl from Seattle, who took over my project in Mumbai, has been involved in an accident, and is in coma.

I learned about it by commenting on our mutual friend’s Facebook status update. He wrote that he was missing her. My reply was “Why don’t you just call her? I have her number.” He sent me an email asking if my comment was a joke, and did I know that she was in a hospital in coma? I must have read his email 10 times before its meaning has finally made it to my brains… And then it hit me that a stunning Israeli beauty, full of life and energy, who I met for the first time right before leaving for India myself, is in a hospital in Mumbai…

I am locked in a very painful place… I am thinking of how unfair it is that a wonderful girl, who gives up the comforts of the West to help the poor and underprivileged, gets to be in a situation such as that? I am thinking about the pain that her parents are going through as they are catching their flight to Mumbai. I cannot help, but think about Holtzberg’s… How I also met them one week, and they were gone next week…

So I am sitting here and crying my eyes out, trying to make sense out of it all. And not much is making sense right now…

Life….

Sometimes I experience those moments of unexplained and utter joy of just being… right here… right now… Everything stands perfectly still inside my head, and the physical world fades away into nothingness. And for a second, or maybe even less, I quietly enter into absolutely silence… And when I come out, I come out knowing that at the end the beauty wins….

To Give or Not

I have been quite aggressive in my latest attempt to raise money for several different causes that I am supporting through my bike riding. Ever since I came back from India, I have upped my own donations, I constantly bring up the subject in conversations with just about anyone, and find myself being willing to hit up anyone with the request for a donation in any way or form.

The idea of helping others resonates strongly in me. One of the reasons I love Judaism so much (despite frequent headaches it gives me) is the importance it places on the good deeds, charity, and general idea of helping and giving. My family donates generously on regular basis, and we try to volunteer as much as we can. A side point, within my own family we don’t always have consensus on our causes, where to volunteer and which organizations to volunteer for, but we are united in the belief of helping via monetary and non-monetary means.

I don’t think the desire to help is inherent to mankind. If it was intrinsic to us, no major religion would mandate obligatory donations. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity command its followers to donate. I think the fact that these religions not only mandate obligatory donations, but also specify how much people ought to donate, is a further proof that unless forced somehow, a person isn’t necessarily going to help others.