One of the lovely things about getting older is that there is a steep drop off in caring what ppl think about me or themselves and, therefore, I'm able to meet others with greater equanimity. It doesn't happen all it once. There's levels to it. I remember being so fraught with self-doubt and neurosis in my teens. There was a little bit less of that in college and less in my 20s. And one day in my early 30s, a colleague asked me 'aren't you concerned what BLANK thinks about you?' I paused for a second and scanned my mind. I realized that the space where I usually placed all my neurosis about these particular set of ppl was now...completely open. In place of neurosis wasn't anger or reactionary 'i don't like them either.' It was like someone opened a window and there was just a light breeze. I really didn't care...and not in a mean way. I just didn't give a flying f***. I had been freed of this burden. There were so many rooms in my mind where I stored other ppl's opinions. Hoarded even. I had to move around boxes and crates of judgmental looks, sneers, whispers, gossip. And then all that junk just starts getting removed.
That's what getting older feels like...decluttering opinions. There's more space in this house for light and love. I talked to so many ppl while traveling. People from diff cities and countries who would just open up to me, share childhood secrets, reveal their worries, one person in South Africa even remarked 'wow, I don't know why I'm telling you all this stuff.' I knew why: because I didn't care what they thought about me, nor was I judging them. There was no angle. I was just listening and only asking questions that sparked my curiosity. In Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Bordeaux, Venice, Rome... I got into so many random conversations with strangers, usually triggered by them. And that's a great gift: to use those newly decluttered rooms to invite guests in, party, talk...and then tell them to leave and take all their opinions with them.
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