Sunday, November 28, 2010

Eleven Minutes

If I were to tell someone my life today, I could do it in a way that would make them think of me as a brave, happy, independent woman.

Rubbish: I am not even allowed to mention the only word that is more important — LOVE. All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that’s a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly. And the person who loves wholeheartedly feels free.

That is why, regardless of what I might experience, do or learn, nothing makes sense. I hope this time passes quickly, so that I can resume my search for myself –in the form of a man who understands me and does not make me suffer. But what am I saying? In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel. It hurt when I lost each of the various men I fell in love with.

Now, though, I am convinced that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.
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from my favorite Paulo Coelho

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