Nankurunaisa

It Will

I’m in a difficult period of my life. Many challenges. Many changes. Even though I try to put on a confident face, never letting my mask drop too low. It’s a tough time. Not just for me, but for everyone.

I can’t explain it. But I feel it. I see it in people’s faces. I feel it in the trembling voices. I see it in the postures. I feel it in interactions. Expressions betray feelings. The world is suffering. The heaviness of existence seems to weigh down on our beings.

In this hostile universe, my good routines implode week after week. All those years in the self-improvement loop. Almost a hundred books were consumed. Thousands of motivational videos were watched. And I still seem to lose my way. The only good habit in my routine that has survived is writing.

The good thing about the passing years is that we understand how we operate. We get to know ourselves. The internal enemy is identified. We know his patterns. We know his angles of attack. We know what he feeds on. You know when you’re in danger.

Sometimes I hear: “But if you don’t feel like writing, don’t.” They don’t understand that writing is the only thing that keeps me in any semblance of order. Writing is the last habit that separates me from “Hello Darkness my old friend”. A script I’ve known. A script I’ve lived through. Behind the cessation of writing lies for me the sound of silence.

I couldn’t really explain why my habits blew up. My best guess would be a random succession of events called life. We’d like to live the perfect life. We write it down in a notebook. We plan it. We make to-do lists.

We imagine that all we have to do is read the list every morning. Take a deep breath. Gather your courage. And get on with it. We forget that we’re human. Not soulless automatons. That every day has its share of chaos that will upset your emotions.

We know what we plan to do, but we don’t know what’s going to happen. The people we’re going to meet. Within the scope of our control. Or out of our control. Good and bad surprises will follow in an undefined order. Life will bless us. Then punish us. And it only takes a few weeks of intense chaos to derail you from your goals.

We huddle in the eye of the storm. The only urgent concern: survival. When the environment finally calms down. When we can finally open our eyes and take stock: time to assess the extent of the damage. We realize we’re a long way from our destination. That we’ve gone off the road. Worse, we didn’t even realize it.

In between procrastination sessions last week, I was reading some philosophy. The good thing about reading is that you’re only one line away from changing your life. Simple words that, for mysterious reasons, will resonate with your entire being. That’s how I felt when I read the cryptic sequence of letters “Nankurunaisa”.

Hard to give the exact meaning, because I’m not Japanese. And because there seem to be many translations.

This expression could be interpreted as: 

• With time, everything will be fine

• All will be well

• Don’t worry, it’ll be alright

• Everything will be alright, one way or another

• Time fixes everything

While emphasizing the temporality of the expression. A way of saying that “with time”, everything will be all right. Today’s pain is only temporary. Time will make it disappear.

Through these words, the universe wanted to send me a message. “Breathe, relax. Everything will be fine.” These words allowed me to unzoom from these little worries. To refocus on life’s big goals. By Monday, I was back on track. Back on the road.

Traveling from East to West, this expression reminds me of one of my favorite quotes.

“Sadness flies away on the wings of time.”

A line from Jean de la Fontaine. From “The Young Widow.”

The fable tells the story of a young widow who can’t seem to get over the loss of her husband. Her father knows it’s pointless trying to console her with words. When the pain is burning hot, the torrent of emotions is too violent to be stopped by words. Her father knows that the only cure is time.

The moral of the story is that time heals everything. Even the most painful scars of the soul.

A recurring theme among poets. Certain pains in life often seem insurmountable. Then the seasons come and go. The poet himself is surprised to see his pain, once insurmountable, wither and die under the weight of time. 

He finds himself smiling, he finds himself laughing. One morning, he begins to appreciate the scent of life. The simple joy of a sun caressing his cheek. His years of suffering seem to have faded into the distant past. 

The insurmountable has been conquered.

If today life is difficult. 
If chaos has crept into your life. 
If you feel pain.

Close your eyes.
Take a deep breath.
Dare to be optimistic.

Nankurunaisa