Image by Benoit Gauzere on Unsplash

   My (R)evolution, part 10

When I first wrote this it had been more than 7 weeks that Nicaragua, my country of residence, had been in a state of social unrest, political upheaval, or let’s just call it a revolution.

I’d been blogging almost daily for a while, feeling a strong urge to put my thoughts to paper, since there were so many, and sometimes it was so hard to make sense of my own mind.

My thoughts were swerving back and forth, left and right, sometimes like a drunken man winding his way through an empty street. At other moments more like a puppy, or a kid, always out to explore and figure out the world through play, trial and error. There’s a philosopher in there too, asking questions and giving smarty-pants comments. And an eco-warrior, never letting up her drive to improve the environment. Every now and then (but thankfully not very often), there’s a hunted deer, frozen in its fear.

I gave all of them free rein, letting the drunkard sway, the puppy and the kid play, the deer startle, the philosopher muse, the eco-warrior dream.

I let my thoughts unfold.

I watched them with curiosity, allowing questions to surface, even though some of them are scary. Others are downright hilarious.

Here’s an assorted sample of them. 

Photo by Eddie Kopp on Unsplash

  My (R)evolution, part 8.

Since April 18 of this year my country of residence, beautiful Nicaragua, has been in a state of “social unrest” as the media still like to call it, trying to be politically correct, or maybe just afraid to put oil to the fire by calling it a revolution.

The events have triggered an unstoppable stream of thoughts in my head, that I have started to record with curiosity.

Although there is quite a bit of violence going on on the mainland, the little island where I live is still peaceful, so fear is not on my mind.

There has not yet been a moment of real panic in which I thought I’d better run now, before it is too late.

It’s hard to gauge “too late” anyway, before it actually is too late.

But it is very interesting to observe the shifts that happen in my mind and in the minds of people around me. It is not much of a linear and logic process, which makes it even more interesting to watch and see unfold.

Right around the time when the upheaval started, our little island community was gearing up towards a major push for sustainability – a green revolution about to begin. 

Image by Luc Galoppin on Flickr

 

My (R)evolution, part 7.

There was a time, that in the eyes of most people I was “living the dream”. I always contested that, saying I was just living my life—making a living, dealing with problems—like any other person. The only difference being, that I was doing that on a beautiful little Caribbean island.

I’m not much of an achiever, so I’ve never bothered to “tick off” things from my bucket list. I’ve never had a bucket list to begin with (Living the dream, check. Opening my own yoga studio, check. Starting a blog, check).

Nor have I ever checked my life against Maslow’s pyramid, to see how well I was doing in terms of personal fulfilment and self-realisation.

But the other day that pyramid popped into my viewfinder, and I started thinking about it.

Maslow’s pyramid looks at the different levels of fulfilment in a human life. At the bottom it is about the very basic needs, that have to be fulfilled first before we can start thinking (and worrying) about the next level, and so on. The theory is, that ultimate fulfilment (the top) leads to real happiness.

I have been very happy in the past 13 years that I have been calling this little Nicaraguan island my home.