This week was no work without an author

This week was, and I do not mean to sound pathetic, but it was not much of a great week.

Nothing happened. Nothing beautiful, at least. The week was not showered in love or even in random acts of kindness.  I feel a little disappointed and tired about this week. You might call me a person with a very low threshold to boredom, and you would be right.

I sit and think about all this. I mean, I could be grateful. Nothing happened, after all, also includes: nothing bad happened. My children are well. I am well. I have great friends, a more than o.k. job, I have an apartment in the middle of Berlin, where tons of people would like to live, I am going to Rome next week.

But  I am not grateful. I feel a little bit sorry for myself, while I sit and think about the week, and than, I have an idea, which instantly makes it impossible to continue feeling sorry for myself: maybe, this is exactly the point. Me waiting for whatever greatness to happen is the problem. Has been the problem all my life. It should be: me doing great things. Is it so easy to have a great week? Maybe it is.

Today I read somewhere: Instead of asking: what does life do for me? Do I get, what I want?

I should ask: What does life want from me?

It is the much deeper question.

I am free. As free almost as twenty years ago, when I met my now ex-husband and things happened so fast, that I could not control anything anymore. I became pregnant like: a week after we met. Well, probably three weeks, after we met. And we were the most courageous people on earth, because we decided, to have the baby and dare everything involved, without knowing, what it involved.

I threw myself into the arms of life and I trusted this life so deeply, that I didn’t expect anything bad to happen to me, or the ex husband or the baby. I trusted life with my entire existence. I found out, that you can do that. You can trust.

I had the most beautiful daughter in the world. So life showed me, that it was a good thing to trust and throw myself. Things happend, and it was not about control. Of course it is about yourself being courageous enough to jump into life. I had another very very perfect and beautiful daughter, all the while the marriage was deteriorating. Which I felt sorry for. The marriage, myself, the ex husband. Most of all I felt sorry for the daughters, those perfect and precious beings, which I had thrown into the arms of life, and now, I was about to destroy their lives. 

But maybe, it is also about control.

The way, I jumped, was usually thoughtless. I jumped, hoping that life would catch me and present me with all the perfect stuff, I dreamed of. I never had the deep trust in myself, that I would just walk consciously into life, take over control and do the great stuff. I rather jumped off a cliff and trusted all the way down, that nothing could shatter me, not even, when I didn’t know, what I was doing. Which was, by the way, true. I think, my life so far showed me clearly, that I am very strong, that I am not to be destroyed. I am soooo strong, that nothing will shatter me. I mean. Thats not a bad thought. Not at all. And its not a bad legacy to present to your daughters, after all, after you kind of changed their family, which a lot of people would call: destroyed it.

But, I also want to create myself. I want to walk, or jump consciously and not wait any longer for good stuff to happen randomly. I want to create the good stuff. I want to stop to be desperate. I want to stop waiting for salvation. I want to be strong and conscious and in charge. I want to be courageous, but not naive.

Taking over control. Trust. Trusting into myself. My capacity to create and do things, my capacity to love and open my mind. There is actually no boundary for all this. And its heroic.

Jumping off a cliff, hoping to be caught, I wonder: is it heroic too? Is this two different kinds of heroism?

Jumping off a cliff, again and again, the way I did it was, in a way, an act of cowardice, though from the outside it might have looked pretty daring. Deep down, it was pure desperation. I wanted life, I wanted it badly. I wanted to get to the center of meaning and truth and love – without having the slightest idea, how to get there. I denied to be in charge. Somehow, I didnt know, how to be in charge. I let things happen and tried to cope with whatever. One could call this heroism as well, I suppose. But I wouldn’t anymore. Or rather: its not the kind of heroism I aim for any longer.

I threw myself into life’s arms, hoping, it would save me: from my past, from my fear, from myself. Hoping it would fill the empty gap, that was my inner self. An abyss, so vast, I feared to vanish in it forever altogether. What I found was this: the inner gap is beautiful and only I can fill it – with nothing. Peace of mind, maybe. Is it this, what life wants from me?

I saw a movie last night, about the german painter Gerhard Richter. The movie is called „Werk ohne Autor“ which means as much as: work without an author.
This title is one of the most beautiful descriptions for what I feel, life wants from me. Somehow I have to overcome myself and my petty limitations. I have to stop to be in the center of my own attention. I have to turn every day into a work without an author.

In the movie, there is this scene between Gerhard Richter (since the movie was not thoroughly biographical, the painter in it was called Kurt Banert) and his teacher Joseph Beuys (who was also not called Joseph Beuys). The teacher looked at the students' work and was not convinced. So he told him the story, that had forever shaped him and his life, and was forever the content of his art. The story, that had made him. Afterwards he asked the student to find out, what that was for him.
Who are you?
What made you?
To be born a human is such a miracle. Most of us do not look through the veil of the unkown. Who are we? Why are we here? What does life want from me?

This scene was very magical for me and I almost cried. Because I knew, that this is exactly the question, I need to answer with the rest of my life. This or nothing. It is a question, for which the answer will always go beyond anything personal.

What does life want from me?

Oh, and by the way: to tell somebody the truth, could be the deepest sign of respect and love. It is actually a great compliment, though many people do not want this compliment. They turn away from it.

To live the truth is also a great compliment for everybody around you, including life. It allows everybody around you to live the truth as well, including life. This daring, beautiful life. It deserves to be lived in truth. It also deserves to be trusted. We only have this one.

(c) Susanne Becker

P.S. A few years ago, I saw this wonderful documentary about Gerhard Richter. It is, of course, called Painting.
There is also a great movie about Joseph Beuys Beuys 

This text in a former, but almost identical form, has been published last week by wonderful Valley Haggard on her website lifein10minutes. Thank you 💚