PERSPECTIVE

I have been silent for many weeks, overwhelmed by what is happening to all of us… I received dozens of emails from friends worried about Diana and me , wondering why I have not been writing… Please be reassured , we are doing fine , staying at home for more than 2 months and going out only for necessities…And we know that this situation can go for many more months or years, and we know that life will be another way of being for all of us….                                                        

 We are living very difficult times, most of cities all over the world live an incredible period, the equivalent of the Bubonic Plague is back, but with no immediate solution!  And with it, we have to learn new ways to survive , new ways to function , new ways to think, new ways to be….

I am keeping busy, working on my next novel, revising the libretto of the new Opera JULIE ET MAO, it will open in Germany March 2021… and recently I had my last two books published, Cyrano and second revised edition of The Shattered Sky…

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about fear and Freedom, proclaiming my total and intense freedom not even imagining that some aspect my Freedom could again be robbed from me….And it is now happening, and what I believed was an important strength of my life is now taken away from me…

My freedom many times in the past, you have been incredibly threatened, but now with the events of the pandemic, you have been wounded again. Now most of people are suffering and are living like some of us have been for a time, in loneliness and rejection from others.

I have to say that this new way of living:  quarantine, social distancing, home staying, and solitude have been most of my new way of life for the past 2 years…

BUT I tried to keep the freedom of my thoughts, of my feelings, of my emotions and we all have to do the same.

How much I understand better the theory of Brecht about DISTANCIATION in the theater… Creating the EPIC THEATER,  Brecht was asking the audience to see the world as it is and not to suspend the disbelief….

These difficult times put everything in PERSPECTIVE!

For a lot of people the last few years in our spoiled world and spoiled society have been spent with not enough concerns about real dramas and real tragedy. New ways of suffering had to be invented and promoted in order to feel totally alive and useful to this imagined new world.… And we have been too often ignoring the real dramas all over the world and concentrating on our spoiled life with small and petty events.

The world has now changed and WHAT A BIG CHANGE!!!!!

Yes, and this situation gives us  PERSPECTIVE….

Some of us have seen just about everything that can happen in the world, war and loss of family, forced to leave their birth country and becoming a refugee in an adopting place, terrible diseases leaving you destroyed mentally for life, racism and being always seen as a different human being, and so many other awful events happening in life. When people have made it past 80 years old, beyond the official life expectancy , they very often show a resilience BUT THAT IS IN NEED THESE DAYS FOR ALL AGES IN THE DRAMA WE ARE LIVING …

In the past decades for many people in our spoiled society the most important in our life was to acquire and even demand everything immediately, without real sacrifice. We were owed everything.                  If only we had known earlier the drama we are living now and its consequences, maybe we would have acted and behaved differently these past years! This pandemic is an incredible and non-possible event for us….

Are we still capable of seeing what the world has to offer?

YES PERSPECTIVE.

With this terrible experience we are living, are we given an opportunity to take stock of our situation in the world, our destiny, our role in society, and to try to understand who we really are, what we really want , where we are really going in our life? It has been announced recently that hair salon, Gym centers, Tattoos parlors and Bowling alleys are authorized to open, GREAT !!!!!! They are so important in our society and the basics of human relations, what a joke!!!!! Is that really what we are hoping for our life?

 Are we these days returning to real thoughts? To a more decent approach to what the world is, and what right we have to demand and to expect?

In the past years it seems that complete different values became rules,  and it could be very difficult to really understand it … What happened to our dreams of happiness for an equal society full of life and aspirations? We were supposed to reach the NIRVANA, this imperturbable stillness of mind after the fires of desire, aversion and delusion have been extinguished.

What happened to the time when we decided to rebuild the world for total harmony and total understanding of others! We were working hand in hand using the knowledge and the vitality of each other. We made plans to bring to society balance, equality dreams and happiness. The sky has changed sky. We thought we had reached a stage where the young generation will not dismiss the old one and the old one will not look at the young one with a smile of disdain or even disgust? Knowledge will be respected, and young minds will be admired!

Imagine a world where the knowledge and experience is used by a young mind with his energy, invention, and sense of discovery? Imagine a world where the creativity is guided by knowledge.

It seems that it is yesterday that I was twenty years old, I was not thinking of passing time, and I was playing with life and with possible future… I was full of ideas, full of desires, full of projects and I was living from day to day… Whatever happened to this young mind so alive? I had so many hopes and so many projects, many disappeared in the fog of life, but many were finalized, and brought me so many joys of achievements…Yes, life is never at the end, and we have to continue to dream and to build the next step, nothing should stop us , nothing should make us clueless…Yes, It seems that it is yesterday that I was twenty years old and I was wasting time running after the present ignoring the past and the notion of experience… I was criticizing the world , believing I knew everything better than anybody, and was wasting my energy, acting sometimes like a fool … Time taught me how to really be alive and think…

The surrealists made the attempt to bridge together reality and imagination… Surrealists seek to overcome the contradictions of the conscious and unconscious minds by creating unreal or bizarre stories full of juxtapositions.  The world and reality are chaotic and unforgiving and usually do not make sense.Sometimes artists want to take the chaos of the outside world and attempt to make it appear real. Fighting this chaos to make reality normal is what Andre Breton was fighting against, take the absurd and run away with it.Madness could be considered genius and boring and dull equal dumb. Yes it seems that we are living a time of Surrealism, let us connect reality and imagination of what will be left tomorrow at the end of the actual tragedy, let us be twenty again in our mind and let us dream about desires, projects, ideas for a next chapter.

                                                                                    

Yes , I know that in everyday life, too often we are forced to contemplate the next step of our development ,but we should make the constant effort to stay in contact with the ones who contributed to make us who we are….

These past few weeks I have been contacted by many persons I had no news for a long time, many talking about the friendship we had, the creativity we shared, the affection sometimes we had for each other… I was and am very happy to have these conversations with these people who had been so important to me at one point….                                                                                                                           But PLEASE let us not  wait for a drama invading us to realize the importance of some people in our life.  

                                         

WHEN ENOUGH…WILL BE ENOUGH!!!!!!!?????????????

I wrote recently a blog called Fear/ Freedom...

Here is an excerpt.

“"My freedom , they have been trying to take you away from me, to throw me in a world without freedom, to make me another piece of the puzzle of life, but my freedom a long time ago you made me believe in new ways and I have it forever with me and it will stay with me forever.

Fears you will not enclose me in the silence of the semi-death or the silence of the frozen old age, the silence of the false peace of the soul … I have My freedom in front of me as the guidance of another new life, as the witness of the attempt to cultivate forgotten sides of my being and  helping me to bring it back to the surface…"

But can freedom have real limitations?  Or was I totally unrealistic and probably in dream land?

Sometimes and especially these days I wonder…

The panic is growing every day all over the world with the corona virus  and we certainly did not need that on top of everything we are living in the past few years.

WHEN ENOUGH…WILL BE ENOUGH!!!!!!!?????????????

What can I tell you? It is more and more difficult in this world to stay optimistic and have any kind of  hopes for the future, it is even difficult not to be totally depressed in these surroundings!

But we have to try to overwhelm it,  to continue to be, to believe, to struggle and to try to find some kind of peace and creativity . Despite the incredible circumstances  of our world....

Incredible circumstances  ?

Unfortunately this time it is much worse than just Incredible circumstances!!!!!

Almost 2 years ago, I lived a personal drama and it changed my life totally…Even with all the dramatic events I had to go through during my long life, I was not ready for this kind of attack because I had no way to fight it! How can you fight and deny people the right to talk, to judge you even if they do not really know you or even met you!!!!

Unfortunately many of the people I thought were friends disappeared in the fog of rushed judgement, not a word , not a sign, not anything from them…. They just vanished… May be they were  not interested anymore to call a friend somebody who could not do anything for them….And in my total disarray some of the “friends” joined the pack of the accusers !

Sometimes it looked like some of the “friends” were waiting for a possibility to destroy the one who had been so present in many chapters of life. And I thought before that I was liked by many…. Since in my mind, I had been fair and giving to so many people around me….

So loneliness invaded me and became the new rule of my life. Loneliness is a very serious and dangerous  condition, especially for a person whose life has been to be in contact with people all year long, whose job was to be dealing with others and had very little time alone….

We can try to compensate this new way of life by inventing new activities, new interests and even new professional occupations but too often loneliness is still the center of this new life and everyday becomes a challenge, even if we want the world around us to believe that we are doing fine , that we are in great shape and totally adapting to this new life.

I do not know what would have happened without the support and the love of my family, my wife Diana and my daughter Vanessa…. But also a few friends…. I will not forget it!!!!

Today, with the tragedy we are living , almost everybody is plunged in some kind of loneliness, and most of us have or will have difficulties living with it…. Loneliness is hard to deal with.

But we have to manage this condition and  try to avoid being overwhelmed by it….

Please stay in touch with the ones you call your friends, do not ignore them, they need you, even if you have no news for a long time!!!! It is the right moment to be in contact again , to care for them , to ask questions , to be there, to ask if they need anything you can do for them.

YOU HAVE TO BE THERE FOR YOUR FRIENDS...                

We have to turn the page of former misunderstandings and even if we had been hurt by some actions , we have to try to forget and communicate again with everybody who was at one point close to us….

 ENOUGH BAD FEELINGS, TIME HAS COME….

Every day we hear that somebody passed away, somebody we loved or liked or admired, , and they go while we have not been with them or exchange anything for a long time… Yes I know at my age I know an incredible amount of people and the chances that somebody will die are bigger than when I was thirty or forty but....But very often these people passing away are in their thirties or forties... How can we just turn the page when somebody we called a friend at one point disappear when we have not exchanged a word for so long??? Yes , I know life is life , and we cannot be always present in the life of others forever, but…Let’s try to minimize ignoring the people who were close to us…. They made who we are, they were part of our development, they should be forever in our mind and heart.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!

Every day we are assaulted by political craziness around us and most of us do not know where to turn in order to find a satisfactory or even a possible solution,  for the past few years the world of the arts is falling apart and the decadence of the traditional culture is accelerating to a point of no return. Yes, the needs of society and the meaning of culture change all the time  but let’s be sure it is replaced with something worth it….

Every day we hear about new manifestations of racism, and most of us are afraid to become a victim of it, because we are African American , Jewish, or born in another country, or raised in hell… I remember when I had the position of general director in Montreal, somebody wrote …”Why do we need a French Jew at the head of the Montreal opera…. “

And that world of hate is even worse and is manifesting itself almost every day… And we have to deal with it, and use the freedom we have to judge it and to act if necessary…

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!

The world we have created and we have to live in ,because of new ways of behaving and all the calamities, became a circus where we should live like if we were already dead… Not enough people want others to really think, create, or even exist…Or share friendship with others….                                                       

Despite all these concerns we live in a country where we should still be capable of real emotion, and we have to continue to be, to believe, to struggle and to try to find some kind of peace and creativity .

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!

EVEN WITH THIS NEW CALAMITY ENGULFING US….. CORONA VIRUS…..

Yes social distancing is the new rule, but let’s do it with caution, it does not mean stop caring for others, not giving news, not asking questions about their state, not BEING THERE FOR THEM….

Freedom has still to be always the rule of our life, even if we have to adapt our freedom to new rules because of dramatic events, we can still be free to think, we can still be free to feel, we can still be free to take care of friends, we can still be free to control our fears if we have to….We have to learn how to use our freedom the right way, try not to plunge too fast in judgement and create loneliness for others….They very often do not deserve it…

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FEAR/FREEDOM

 WE are living an incredibly difficult time in a frightful world !

Yes, of course all of us had and have in our lifetime extremely dramatic moments  , bad experiences and challenging events, we had to deal with the death of loved ones, loss of our job, diseases attacking us, wrong choices creating pain, betrayals of people we believe were friends, etc...

But it is part of a normal live and we had to overcome these unfortunate events,  we had to go on and try to learn from it, growing to the next step  and the next chapter of existence.

But times have changed, it seems that we are living in a world of constant fear…

Reasons for fear are surrounding us daily, and it seems that there is little we can do about it…

Fear created by the political world surrounding us, fear from the tensions in this world; every day we are aggressed by the so-called news learning about the disasters in  world , the changing climate destroying the planet, the social disruptions and the violence in every city or town,  the mass shooting everywhere, the racist attacks,  the death of somebody we knew, the advertising of medications with their fatal side effects,  it is always bad news about everything.                          

I dream of a tv station called OGN , Only Good News, where the world will be presented to me with only good news…

Add to this the relatively new fear of what we are going to discover about us, on Facebook, on the internet, and all social medias where people have the right, almost the invented duty to talk about others, to judge others, to comment their actions,  to expose their feelings, their impression with no restraint or pudor , and it  becomes the truth for a majority of people eager to hear gossips and possible  failures of people they know or even do not know but hate anyway…

Fear to fall asleep and to wake up seen by the world as a different person that the one we believe we are… Today what will we find about us we had no idea we had done or thought?

Fear about life in the next 10 years, 10 months, 10 days, tomorrow…. What will happen next?  Should I leave but where will I go?  It is the same everywhere!!!!  What will I do? Are the choices I made really what I want to do?

Fear to make enemies by giving opinions, fear to talk about our feelings, our ideas since we could go against a new current of ideas, a new definition of truth , new ways of being acceptable…. And these new ways change every day…                  

Yes , the world and society always changed in the past, but not at that speed, nobody anymore can really deal with the speed of the changing world, of the new ways of being a person with the good and the bad… 

Where is the FREEDOM of thinking, of behaving, of building a life, of the choice of social and human relation?

My FREEDOM, for a long time and most of my life I looked at you like a rare pearl, and most of my life I kept you near my heart and my thoughts like the unique rare pearl that I could ever find in this world. You were the one who permitted me and helped me to break the ropes attaching me to habits , to ancestors, to false belief, to the education of another century. You were the one pushing away from me the  wrong feelings and the mistaken sentimental attachments. You were the one who showed me that I could be in a wrong path of life or taking the  wrong decisions, and sometimes living the wrong way.                                                                                                                               

But today my freedom you are denied by the world imposing fear to us, and the fear surrounding us is not attached to the consequences of life , like becoming older, or going thru difficult times of choices. It is the way this new society is built and the way we have to relate to others…

BUT I CANNOT AND WILL NOT RENOUNCE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My freedom you are the one who made me go to the end of the possibilities of the gifts of life, and while I was  dreaming about the results, I could pick up the impossible dream of success, you help me to be on my way to the next dream and then cultivate the possibility of new and fulfilling adventures.

You have been very demanding of me and I gave you all of me , even sometimes a last whisper. And many times I suffered immensely to be so vulnerable and naked in front of the world, without defense,  in order to satisfy your demands and your needs… 

But it was a much better choice and way of living than this perpetual fear of everything freezing us every day….

My freedom for you I changed country , I changed life and I changed my way of being and even thinking,  and many times I lost my sense of reality in order to satisfy you , gain your trust and keep you as my leading guide …

Did I forever lose great opportunities because of your exigence? You knew how to defeat my bad habits and make me a new man each time , but very often destroying everything around me, bringing me remorse, loneliness and sometimes pain. 

But I was free to choose ways, free to think, free to behave, and not a prisoner of fears of a new world… And sometimes I had to love my loneliness, and believe that it was a way of being, and even becoming used to smile when considering a possible new adventure. And now, I can rarely consider new adventures because the world around me forbids it , judges all my actions and build fears around everything….

My freedom you protected me when I was hiding to take care of my wounds, trying to find the good and you were always  there to tell me to think about the next step of my life and not to become a product of a painful period of life. Today most of the time, wounds are presented like final attacks of a negative world and the fear takes over….

When fear invades me and prevents me to think, I am tempted to leave my freedom,  and go another way , and become another one of the lost souls overwhelmed by fear…I remember that night of winter when I decided to leave you to follow another path …  

But how could I think about leaving my life of freedom  to go on the path of easy success and fall in the well of a jail of banalities…Your strength put me back in the right track, thank you, and the fears did not pull me in their world…

My freedom , what will I be without you who came to meet me at the beginning of my life? 

Who was I when you came to my encounter? 

Was I only a sleeping heart ,a tired soul falling in the trap of fake success, the product of the  decadence of an old way of living? 

Without you taking over my being,  will I  be just an attempt to be myself?

Will I be only an attempt to stammer? I learned everything from you about human treacheries and about human mishaps. And I was able to see a new world with you next to me… 

Yes, what will I be … ???????????????                                                                                                                           

 I was lucky since fears of today’s world were not overwhelming the world yet. That is why I have to try to ignore all these fears !!!! 

I learned everything from you about human behavior, even the bad elements, and I started to look at the world with you always present in my mind , my heart , my soul. 

I discover the world and the behavior of so many people, with you giving me the right to judge when it is so many times today considered a fault to do so.

My freedom , they have been trying to take you away from me, to throw me in a world without freedom, to make me another piece of the puzzle of life, but my freedom a long time ago you made me believe in new ways and I have it forever with me and it will stay with me forever.

My freedom  with all these fears they are now  trying to  chain me to their world, to make me fall in the traps of these new ways of being, to become another ME, but thanks to you I will say no and continue my world  with you as my safeguard.

Fears you will not enclose me in the silence of the semi-death or the silence of the frozen old age, the silence of the false peace of the soul … I have My freedom in front of me as the guidance of another new life, as the witness of the attempt to cultivate forgotten sides of my being and  helping me to bring it back to the surface…

YOU will tame life and will not let events and fears guide me by the tip of the nose.

My freedom , I love you, YOU can be a danger if you are not under control , but you taught me how to deal with you , how to create boundaries for you , you are part of me , you are who I am , who I was, who I will be.

REDEFINING ….

This week in New York, Diana and I are launching new books published by a European Publisher…

''Diana Soviero, 55 years of career in images 1964-2019''This book retraces the gigantic career of Diana, in over 280 pictures from productions all over the world and her new career as a voice teacher;

 ''Cyrano'', a new book by Bernard Uzan, about the creation of David Dichiera opera.

 ''Le Ciel Eclate'' and ''The Shattered Sky'', SECOND REVISED EDITION, by Bernard Uzan. Novels of tragedy and redemption.

This year I also wrote a libretto for a new Opera in Germany  with opening in the spring 2021 and I am working now on another novel.

                                                                                                            The past year has been very busy in trying to find new ways to redefine myself….  Quitting abruptly the opera world was not and still is not easy after 40 years devoted to it, producing , designing, directing etc...

What was going to happen to me? Will I be able to go on ? Should I register to a club for old men and play cards, should I join a French association and talk for hours about the past, and the achievements of our life and sometimes about the failures when we feel confident with new acquaintances? Or may be should I join a golf club, but I do not play golf, maybe miniature golf?

I wrote many times in different posts or in articles about acting:  “When we are on stage we do not need to act and we can completely be ourselves since we are protected by the character…”                                                                                      

Yes the character protects us and we are totally free to  let our private emotions, our deep buried traumas express themselves, and  this  is valid for actors, singers, conductors, directors.          

As a director, the understanding  of the music and the text is always influenced  by  all the experiences of our life, by who we are, what we know … We feel the music and understand the text with all of our knowledge, all our experiences , all our life past and present , and the result is an interpretation.

Actually, this is valid FOR ALL ARTISTS, their art is the best way to express who they are , what they want , what they dream , what they miss, what they understand well, what they are successful in , etc….

Artists ,ALL artists are very often seen and described as difficult people! Only the practice of their art gives them some peace, some moments of pure reflection and most of the time some balance in their difficult approach to life…. I have met many artists, painters, musicians, writers who were two people or even more than 2,  they are one personality when practicing their art and another personality when they are not…

So, how to survive when your art is taken away from you? How can we  confront the perpetual obstacles of the world when the most important part of us is taken away?? How can we continue to have a life? How can we really function???                                                                                                                         

 Life has to be a perpetual redefinition,  an attempt to approach  all possible ways to find some kind of peace.
Does that explain my need to write more than ever?
Am I finding some kind of balance  in this approach ?
And more serenity despite  the loss of the practice of my art and even if I really cannot forget, may I find a way to deal with it …. 

Yes, artist have to find new ways to express themselves in  the different paths of life….The retired people from their art have to find new art forms in order to continue to function  and to be themselves or at least to be close to who they really are …
I always felt very sorry about artists who could not really express themselves in their art form because of bad timing, bad luck or lack of total dedication… 

Their life is miserable, I imagine spending a life not able to really express who I really am!!!!! And consequently become and be a very  difficult person to be with!!!

So, Let’s go for it>>>>

I recently went back to acting , going to auditions for movies and television.

Except for Mozart in the jungle, I had not been to an audition since 1972…

Result of these auditions: I was hired for 4 movies or series … Not for an important role of course, I do not even know if I can be seen in the movie…                                                                                   

Two are already done , and I had an incredible joy! I found a new peace with myself, I was happy to do it, to participate, to be in it…                                                                                                                                          

 I felt rejuvenated, by just exploring corners of myself hidden for years. Even if what I was doing was totally irrelevant with my training as an actor: I studied Stanislavsky and Diderot, and was a product of Shakespeare, Moliere, Racine , Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Beckett, Sartre, Pinter, Pirandello, etc…
To be a small role or an extra in a tv Serie does not demand a knowledge of an acting method, but I still used what I had learned for so many years, and found such a calm in my soul because I was able to be totally myself, behind the mask of a background Character…                                                                   
Nobody, not even the director, I am not even sure I met him or even saw him, asked me to be somebody specific, so I had to invent all of it by myself, and create situations and use my experiences in the given scene.  By using my buried experiences, I relieved so much pain inside me…

And I met young actors full of desires to make it, asking the old man ( me) questions about the business and acting and life…What a treat to talk to these young artists…I left the place with a lighter heart and some kind of peace invading me….I was again the young actor leaving the “Theater of  the Wooden Sword “where I met for the first time my  Acting teacher Tania Balachova…

 I will do it again any time, if they want me.

Yes, we artists , we have to find other ways to express ourselves and to find a new balance when one chapter of life  is ending, by choice or by other peoples’ desires to see us volatilized …

Writing gives me also this possible peace and working on the new edition of Shattered sky and on Cyrano was an incredible relief to my deep pain and memories and anxiety to have lost my way of expressing my MOI.                                                                                                                                                      

With Cyrano , I was again with my dear friends who died in the past years and reminiscing all the wonderful creating time we had together and I was able to be myself totally with no fear of other people judgement about my ways of functioning.  

Cyrano, how many joys you brought to me, David and Mark you are with me all the time and part of who I am today…   Life is a perpetual struggle to find a balance between reality and dreams , but artistic adventures make them go together….But some of us need to practice it… We need to be in that situation where art, dreams, and reality find one totality…                                                                                                                                                                        

With the  revised edition of Shattered Sky, I let my imagination and my deep buried Bernard under the cover of the name of Julien act and go from one adventure to the other… The biggest comment I always had about Shattered Sky was always “ Is it true? What you are saying in the book , is it true? Did all this really happen?   Is it autobiographical?”  With the revised edition , I continued to function the way I always did , as an actor, or a director … Just let my deep Moi create, mix reality and realities of the subconscious, mix reality and dreams and fantasies, after all dreams are part of reality.  
Yes everything in Shattered Sky is true because it comes from my deepest desires to be…. 

Another great example I have is Diana Soviero…While she had a great career as a singer, to stop singing could have been a big problem with her as a human being , since singing was a way to be totally herself through the interpretation of characters . Diana found another way, she teaches voice with the soul and the giving as a total human being she had as a singer associated to an incredible technic…. All this is a definition of a real artist…                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      


Finding again the balance in life, having the courage to confront new challenges thanks to  an art form is an incredible gift of life, and we should be thankful to Nature to have given us these opportunities…

Is it possible?

In a few weeks I am going to be 75 years old, how can that be possible? Where did the years go? It seems that yesterday I was walking in the streets of Paris as an aspiring actor, dreaming of success and achievements, hungry like a young lion lost in the wilderness. Wandering and wandering with in my mind the lines I had written when I was 20, these lines invading my memory  and my thoughts again and again:                                                                                                                                                        “ I had only one friend and he died, he was more than himself , he was also me and I cry at night but nobody knows about it. He was my friend, he was my brother , poor brother, I can see again your face with a generous look on your face, and we were happy . Brother will I never see again your generous smile in the immensity of life…I listen to the songs of life and the songs of death and sometimes the wind wants to comfort my tears, and I know that I have to keep hope alive because the ones who have built a universe together will find themselves again…My friend , my brother, I talked to you at night and your silence sometimes is so heavy and so cruel that I invent you next to me and I can finally see you.”                                                                                                                            For so long these lines were present in my mind but life taught me how to deal with loss and to continue to grow and  while the memory was still present ,it was not anymore an obstacle to the next chapter.

Yes, it is the last chapter of a very busy life , full of surprises , incredible events, joys, great memories and of course failures and dramas.

Yes I know,  I could go on for 10 or even 20 more years , but that will not change the fact that it is the last chapter of my life and these past few weeks I have been thinking a lot of all the years behind me,  while the incredible journey of what I call my life is so present in my mind and open questions.

Sometimes I wonder if Is it possible to have lived an entire life and arrive to the point where everything is a memory and every event can have some importance… 

And how to keep track of all these events? Are we totally responsible of all the choices we made or are we just the result of fate or destiny? Were all the choices made by necessity or just a need  for survival? Maybe it was pure ambition or desire to achieve and need to advance? Can it be that sometimes it was  just instinct or lack of thoughts?

In life we encounter people  who love us , admire us , think of us in difficult moments but we cannot make a rule of that , the opposite can happen… 

Is it possible to accept that sometimes in our life we did not realize that people around us can have their own needs and their own dreams and their own necessities and we have to respect it?

WE NEED SO MUCH COURAGE TO  REALIZE THIS AND TO  DEAL WITH IT.

 In life Courage has to be the definition of behavior, every day we need courage to confront new situations, new people, new events , new challenges etc.… but are we really ready for it? How can we use courage to face ourselves and others in the possible negations of everyday life. 

Sometimes I wish I could be born again knowing what I know now and not be any more in the fog of knowledge, in the antechamber of wisdom and the darkness of ignorance and go on every day with decisions to make.. 

And how strange it is to know that some people look at me as if I am knowledgeable , almost a sorcerer when in reality I am not even an apprentice sorcerer… 
Too many times, very confusing thoughts make us dream even if dreams are only a hidden truth, the truth of the irreal. 

I often dream that I am loved by everybody or hated by everybody, sometimes I am the protector of everybody or protected by everybody.

Yes the challenges of everyday demand COURAGE in order to continue to function or even to survive….

Too often COURAGE is buried in our soul or our heart or our education because at one point we were told not to use it and  to hide it because of  possible repercussion in society and we should try not to express loudly what we think , what we feel, what we want.

But we need COURAGE to accept the events of our past life and its consequences since it is part of our own life and become the present…

Yes we have to digest the difficult moments and see the consequences and learn from it, and grow , and teach others what these kind of difficulties can create. 

Experiences of life can be the best teacher for the next attempt , the next experience… Especially today when rules have changed, and we function completely differently…

Is it possible to find the courage to know that we know nothing?

 Did I always accept that I did not know enough about a new chapter of my life and just plunged into it without thinking of the bad possible effects on others and on myself; Yes I did, no wonder that some people could not accept it and decided that I was a possible danger for their profession, but sometimes we have no choice if we are not given opportunities by birth or family or connections,  so we have to pursue and we have to create the new chapter!!!!!!!!!!. 

And deal with it in order to survive and to be....                                                                                                                           

With time I started to learn more before trying to…No, in fact I did not… I pursued this way of functioning all my life and added more enemies. Oh well!!

Is it possible to be able to say NO to new adventures or to new possibilities ? It should be. We have to learn how to say NO. 

NO to artistic openings when we know we are not ready for it or not even ideal for it…

NO to offers from some people to be a close friend when we know we have nothing in common…

NO when we do not feel we are strong enough to deal with novelty.                                                                                               

EVEN IF IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO SAY NO….

Is it possible to accept what is REALLY important for others? Even if for us it is not a priority or a necessity? 

Yes , to accept needs of others can be a major key in being respected in our world, especially today when everybody knows everything about every detail of our life…. 

For example, in the arts, we do not always agree with the success of one person, but if that one is celebrated by a majority, we have to accept it, we have to respect it and not deny it and go on with it ….

Is it possible to forget and forgive?  Can we really forget somebody who has been detrimental to our life, who has tried to ruin our life , our hopes to reach another step…

I do not think it is possible to forget, and to forgive  I will let everybody decide for himself….

Is it possible to know when creating is over?  Or should we decide to change the tools of creativity and adapt our mind , our talent, our impulse to other domains and continue to invent, to build , to grow in a new path?

 Creating should never be denied in our life but we have to try  to find what is still acceptable for others and possible for us.

Is it possible to know the role of each person in our life? Who is really what? How can we REALLY determine who is a friend, or a supporter, or just another soul who just want to know us? We change all the time , so do we have to rethink our relation with others all the time? How can we continue the friendship with some people when WE are or THEY are totally different of what we knew? Do we have to question the trust, do we have to demand all the time proofs of the friendship and acceptation of others?

 Is it possible to accept changes in ourselves? How can we deal with passing time and what we become from decade to decade? By looking at pictures of our youth or reading what we wrote in the past?  I do not think so!!! Denying passing time by ignoring it and continue to live like nothing happened? 

Is it possible to accept the judgements of others who are refusing to deal with us or are just dismissing who we were,  who we are  and who we became?

Is it possible to accept that life could be in the last chapter?

YES BECAUSE THERE IS ALWAYS ANOTHER POSSIBLE

 AND FASCINATING NEW CHAPTER