State: unaltered

Last night Óscar came to give me back the tupperware in which I had gave him some food. He was distressed. It all came blurting out at the same time… work, friends, state of life. I told him that I would grab a snack and we head out to the park in front of us in order to chat.

“That damn neighbor is saying bad things about me”, well, what is he saying? “That I screamed that I wanted to kill him, but that was months ago”. Yes Óscar, you will have to deal with this all your life. When you change, people think you are the same as always, it takes them time to notice and accept that you have changed.

He was tense and full of different demons pulling in all directions, so I told him “Óscar, do you remember when we stayed at home instead of going partying? We should do a meditation like that, to calm down. He sort of sulked and I felt like I had said something wrong, like I didn’t accept him while angry. So I added: perhaps you ought to let it all out before calming down, but he didn’t quite get it.

I realized he was out of cigarettes because he didn’t smoke in all this time, and because I am quitting smoking and I wanted to bum one off from him. But this made me realize: a large part of his distress came from the fact that he hadn’t smoked, or at least his emotional state would vastly improve after a smoke, so I told him that we should go inside my house to fetch my wallet.

While we were inside, Óscar seemed restless and said that he would do his meditation. “Sure, I’ll follow you”, I said. He dropped to his knees in front of the The Virtuegraph and formed a triangle with his hands, which he then put on his forehead. He was really into the ritual and I followed him, feeling tingles of excitement, I’m not sure why.

We went through some ritual motions, which all seemed adequate for a meditation like the one Óscar was doing, and then he prayed Our Father twice. He finished the meditation and came back into himself, being much more relaxed.

Then, all his problems seemed to fade away. He begun chatting not about his problems, but about the goblins and creatures that supposedly inhabit this neighborhood, in his child-like imagination. Óscar, the more I know him, the more complex he is. He has very good spiritual intuition, but he is as dull as a butter knife. This is wonderful in its own way: his lies and deceit are transparent. It is possible to learn much from him, as long as you don’t attached to rescuing him.