Days go by

"If silence is golden, how wasteful of this treasure fools can be" -Boris Amar (a paraphrased quote from the Talmud.)

Literature inspired in Buddhism, from the German Arthur  Schopenhauer to all the pseudo-scientific, esoteric works of so-called spiritual gurus, has led me to this path of self-realization, seeing every inherent detail filled with abundant beauty and poise, the trees disposed of their green foliage, its leaves tattered with pale tones heralding the long winter ahead, the Long Island railroad train oozes through the misty tracks under the bridge on my way to work. Manhattan greets me with its multicultural undertones and colors, stunning women everywhere, no matter the hour of the day there are always crowds, night-owls, early-birds, and all that falls in between. If it rains, there's always people out there, infusing the economy with their last minute Christmas shopping; sunny days have longer waiting lines, and everywhere you go there's a ceiling, so if you come from one of those cultures that actually celebrate the rain as nature's A.C., then you pay little, if any mind, that it's raining. And when it rains, the best kind of people, those who do not let something as trivial as the weather get in their way, are all out there. Instead of packing yourself like a sardine on a nightclub, go to a coffee shop, take a stroll in the park, do the laundry or make for friends/relatives, read a good book or article online, see my boys through Skype or travel and see them in person (I don't pay to fly). Last night I had a few drinks with a friend of mine, had in mind to go to my cousin's birthday party but changed my mind, and spent the night home as usual. I don't feel like sacrificing sleep to go out and venture into the night with people I only see whenever there's a birthday or a particular holiday, but I ought to change that, break out of that comfort zone that keeps me shut-in, domesticated, blindfolded and confined to these four walls. I like it fine, here I cook, I fuck, I drink, I smoke; this apartment is my small piece of residential heaven. Here, my second son was born, and here I fell in love countless times with just a handful of people. 

I have witnessed but refused to believe in a world beyond my eyes. The unseen world is for my eyes to discover once my mind is open; there's no way of seeing what we have yet to experience. This possibility is within anyone's grasp, that this fleeting moment is all we really got and that choice by choice, brick by brick, we build the world of our vision. The universe and all the stars, are just add-on bonuses. In Buddhism, we uncover the hidden minute truths that this existential riddle called life bestows upon us, as if the limiting blindfold of our conditioning -or limiting beliefs- had suddenly fallen off our eyes. We need not go searching for new horizons out there when there's just so much uncharted territory within.