(2) Countless Pillars Of Our Satisfaction
Countless pillars of our satisfaction. Ordinary ones such as good job, regular income, loving husband, cheerful kids, a new car or a new roof for the house. But even the extraordinary ones. For example as Marina is still single and childless, the neighbor’s roses, otherwise the exhibition pieces, got aphids this year and the unsuccessful year of an otherwise successful winemaker can also please certain people. Although people didn’t realize it, but if even one of those reasons of their complacency would suddenly disappear, it’s like taking one brick out of this fortress and disrupting the whole static of the building. Either way, satisfaction wears off like the smell of cheap cologne when it’s based solely on bricks of justification, and when it doesn’t stand firmly on the stone of gratuitousness, — Marina thought victoriously. Confirming her joy and gratuitous happiness started to dance to Rod Stewart and his Do Ya Think I’m Sexy that just sounded on the radio. From her joy, she put the volume up and sang loudly.
If you want my body and you think I’m sexy
Come on, sugar, tell me so
If you really need me, just reach out and touch me
Come on, honey, tell me so (tell me so)
If you really, really, really need me
She was moving really well and in the rhythm of the song, and if it hadn’t been for her boss’s unexpected visit, she would have gone on.
“Ah, Roman, how are you?” — she stammered and quickly muted the radio in a clever move.
“Here I am, here I am Marina, I brought some kids books we’ll start to sell from the next week on ,” he said with such calmness and indifference as if he hadn’t seen anything. Roman was a great man and a good boss. Marina liked him very much. He was the kind of indifferent good guy through whom life seemed to just flow but leaves no impression. Married, two children, a wife — an anxious creature, as if by fate, met this balanced and peaceful man who seemed to live only out of habit. Marina never saw him upset. The only time she heard him raise his voice was when little Michael, a permanent marker, painted expensive leather car seats.
And here comes Martin. Unhappily in love with a colleague who did not return his feelings and before he goes to work, he buys Horoscopes for June because he wants to know what love chances he’ll be given fate this month.
“Hi, Horoscopes, please,” — he blurted out eagerly.
“We don’t have the June number yet, we don’t think it’ll arrive until tomorrow,” — Marina replies with a smile.
Martin was a very handsome young man in his 20s. A slender athletic figure, gorgeous facial features he probably took from his mother and large brown eyes that lined almost girly eyelashes. Tanned soft skin, this fresh complexion seemed to be screaming into the world its young age. Marina liked this young man but she never allowed her sinful mind to go so far as to fantasize rudely about this young boy.
“And what did you want to know? I’ll give it a go,” she joked.
“Hahaha, so you’re going to tell me what happens this June ?” he laughed out loud, revealing the perfect shape and white color of his teeth. Mmmm, nice set of teeth, — Marina thought and for which she was immediately ashamed, because it reminded her of the scenario of a vet inspecting the health of the horse.
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“Yes, I will try. What’s bothering you? What such a young person would be interested in his June fate, after all, life is ahead of you!” she said, as if in a positive parish priestly sermon she knows from the church, for which she was immediately angry at herself because she did not want to act as a boring and old counselor for the young.
“I want to know how I’m going to do in love this month, because I’m in love with someone who doesn’t quite reciprocate my feelings,” he concluded with a smile, and while Marina was about to respond he was able to add. ‘But it’s not like unrequited love, I just think he’s scared. So what do you say, how does it unfold in the month of June?” he asked with a keen expression on his face. His big brown eyes staring with the question at Marina, as if intersecting her, even more so as if he was looking into her soul and completely had her crazed. The gently open lips, fresh as the first strawberries, for a while completely deprived Marina of her ability to think. In the end, completely out of the senses, infatuated by this moment, only managed to say something she remembered from yesterday’s Mass.
“Young man, I’m just going to tell you so much. There is an ordeal of unrequited love in the world, yes, but there is also a lot of joy in it. You have to take it all because there’s no love without suffering. It’s worth it, believe me, because there’s no one without the other.’
And that’s when it came. It’s like time has stopped. This strange person with funny haircuts, joyful and positive face, whose breath smelled of coffee, suddenly opened up new dimensions for him. There is no love without suffering, there is no love without suffering, he repeated in head over and over and over again and slowly. Without saying goodbye, completely stunned, he wandered to the other side of the street where he sat on the bench. Leaning his elbows against his knees he glanced at the light mosaic on the pavement. He then looked upwards at the tree crowns of densely planted maples that vaulted over like a bridge and through which the sun was penetrating. A game of lights and shadows, — he thought. There is no light without darkness in a way that there is no darkness without the sun, he concluded, feeling suddenly strangely calm. Relief suddenly seized on him after all the anxieties. It’s like all of a sudden everything that’s ever bothered him forever is lost. There’s nothing left but this strange peace.
And so it wasn’t for the pleasant days of summer. It wasn’t even the first paychecks, the joy of a young person finding out that they could make real money through their work. That freedom and those possibilities, the knowledge that he’s never going to get lost again because whenever he wants he can simply work and get paid. There’ was no more dependence on parents and no more school too. And how powerful it feels to know that a man’s hands can earn money. It’s a great feeling when a young man’s hands have earned him his first money, how much joy and what freedom comes with this fact. The first money for which he quickly runs to buy things long coveted. New sneakers or sports kit? Not a problem! Oh, how he could go and walk around the town, what a joy to get into trendy dresses and those new sneakers, yeah, the feel like soft slippers. People are going to stare and my friends will envy that too as I’ve moved somewhere else, somewhere higher than them. However, today, it was neither of these things that caused Martin happy. And it wasn’t for anything material that could he distinguish himself from the others, throw his success right in their faces. It wasn’t even for the beautiful young life he had in front of him, all the myriad possibilities that open up to a person if he’s not afraid to try. It wasn’t for anything concrete, it was an extraordinary sense of overwhelming satisfaction that flooded it that day like a pleasant wave of water in times of greatest heat. A sense of satisfaction that had no basis in the material world and its safety. This was something else. Pure genuine joy of life that was conditioned by nothing. He felt freedom. The existential enjoyment of life as such. Since then, these feelings have been repeated quite often with him, no matter what material situation he was in. Therefore, he believed that his satisfaction has no reason, his satisfaction simply is and exists across everything. He started calling it positive thinking. Since then, he has been able to evoke this feeling of absolute happiness, joy and satisfaction whenever he wanted or needed. Later, he realized that the trigger for this feeling was a real and profound belief, a kind of inner love that he discovered in himself thanks to the tragedy. The ever-present hope that things will always turn to good, and also the immense humility he somehow found in himself, gave him a sense of security. Humility and admiration for creation, as well as the effort to work and succeed in life and in this great world, constantly gave it strength. Yes, Martin believed. His own consciousness, that faith and conviction caused him an unexpected influx of happiness that day on the way to work. It was a simple realization that everything was fine, that everything was as it should be. It was a wonderful moment. Nothing like this has ever happened to him before, unless, of course, we usually count the child’s joys, but there were woefully few. He liked this amazing sense of satisfaction. It was something new, it felt like he was discovering America or some powerful weapon against evil. He felt extremely safe. He realized he’d found something that would carry him through everything that people tend to worry about in life. He felt like he had found the God he had been looking for for so long. He realized that he had discovered his own individual and very personal faith, not the one to which he was often invited by various churches and associations. He found eternal hope that didn’t, and not to turn off, and the love that was on the inside — a kind of omnivorous love that glowed like that sun through those maples, and that’s when he first sensed what it was like to lean on God. He realized and believed that God was right there, with him on the way to work, there everywhere, in the sunshine, in all of us and everywhere around. He realized how much power he was hiding in this knowledge, he discovered the power of faith and conviction.
Martin’s childhood and adolescence were lousy. Fortunately, children have an amazing ability to absorb wounds and pains and quickly forget about grief. They can enjoy for no reason and are mostly carefree. However, during adolescence, this ability somehow fades and gradually escapes. It’s probably because of the growing expectations that come at any age. At 15, Martin was going through a very difficult time. He faced his first depression that engulfed him quite unexpectedly. It happened after he started experimenting with marijuana with his peers. It started one sunny day in the fall as he sat in the garden of his parents’ house. He was overwhelmed by anxiety he’d never known before. A huge unknown fear that squeezed his chest and forced his heart to beat tremendously fast. Since Martin didn’t know what was going on with him, he got even more scared, something like a panic attack that he later explained as fear of fear.
Martin was always a cheerful and very lively child. Despite the difficult conditions in which he grew up, he never knew true fear. Pains or painful events and unpleasant experiences always seemed to pass through him. In and out without any major harm. This kid really could take a lot. A little survivor. Even though he’s been getting a lot of grief and disappointment in his life, he’s never really become bitter. Even today, it’s still that cheerful little Martin, full of energy, joy, passion for life and discovering everything new. It’s like nothing’s changed. It’s unbreakable gypsy blood, the little bit of which must have gotten in from grandma’s side. Martin’s mother has consistently denied this, and the grandmother never wanted to confirm either. Every time Martin asked her she didn’t answer, she just took a ridiculous look and started complaining about ill health and where she was hurting. She was persistent. When Martin returned to the original question, she shouted to him that what the stupidity was that she didn’t know anything, she never knew her father. “I don’t know who he was. I never saw,” she said in Hungarian dialect. The roots of the family from the mother’s side and further from her mother’s side, drag themselves down to Lučenec and below to Fiľakovo and then even lower to the Hungarians. The family said it should be an unknown Hungarian gypsy found in the bloodline. He was said to be a handsome guy. Martin’s dark complexion, temperament, passion for life and big brown gypsy eyes just prove it all. The same way a crossed breed puppy that comes from the combination of a chihuahua and a dachshund can’t be denied. It’s a really funny story. Martin lived on Dunajská Street in Bratislava at the time. The offices he worked at were literally just across the road. He found the advert on the company board. In a huge old town apartment with high ceilings, he rented a large room with a double bed and a large window through which the sun tickled into his nose every morning. The apartment was really nice. The floor of the large hallway was paved with marble, clever spotlights accentuated the admirable shiny marble tiles, and also massive oak furniture gave the space a luxurious look. There was also a big picture hanging on the wall. The painting of a landscape. Original from an unknown artist in a nice frame. There was an American fridge and built-in appliances in the kitchen. The kitchen was made of natural wood, and made bespoke. In the living room, wooden floor, a posh black leather sofa and two armchairs of the same kind, a huge palm tree under the window, dark furniture with a large library and huge TV only reinforced the fact that it was a higher-standard apartment. There was a large walk-in shower in the bathroom and the walls were tiled with a Moroccan pattern. The rent was surprisingly low, and if it wasn’t for the mad roommate who was the son of the owners and the heir to the apartment, he might have been there to this day. His parents were wealthy, his father was a former ambassador and dean of the prestigious faculty, the mother of a doctor. David offered a room in the apartment to reduce his costs. Freshly graduated engineer David was not very used to working and his parents were already refusing to pay for the apartment because a man in his twenty-eight is expected to be independent. David was kind of broken by excess, he had all those familiar ailments of comfort, and so often he searched for the other side of things. Of the parental savings, he went on long trips around poor parts of India or often just needed a get away adventure so he went somewhere to a farm in Germany, which the very purpose was working for food and bed. This modern concept of learning humility has proved to be a cure for many, especially for the spoiled brats. However, it was not at his will and after an argument with the farmer he was back home in a week. Bored and jobless, he often wandered onto strange forums that inspired naturalism and a kind of connection between man and nature. Perhaps it was for this reason that one day in the kitchen he challenged Martin that from now on, the rule would be to walk around the apartment naked. Another challenge was to stop flushing every time, but one had to wait until it was necessary. Martin laughed at the idea that he should walk around the flat naked but when he, one morning, found a note on the toilet door that said, if it’s yellow let it mellow if it’s brown flush it down, he started to worry a little. Martin was tolerant and adaptable. For the peace of the household, he stopped flushing the toilet every time, and one day he even had his breakfast completely naked. He only left the apartment after David had procured a cat and placed her toilet in the kitchen under the dining table, arguing that the natural smell of cat stools should help good digestion and stimulate appetite.
Well, and it was at this address where the chihuahua Johnny had long planned that it was time to get rid of the virginity. The bitch dachshund from the third was never too picky, she also had an affair with a poodle. The owner was an elderly lady, living alone just with her beloved Jackie. One day, in the park, the natural smells of desire called Johnny to the service and so he did not hesitate for a minute. The dachshund owner nearly jump out of her skin. Usually a very polite old lady, suddenly turned into a raging demon. The long connection only prolonged the agony and the elderly lady had to call herself an ambulance. “You’re a slut! That’s second time you did it. Don’t you remember last time you were pushing that poodle puppy out ? You nearly died, you silly cow! Did you even know how worried mommy was?”- she talked to the dog as if it was human. “I’m going to have her sterilized!” she raved to the nurse, who measured her pressure at 180 to 110 and urged her to calm down. I will drown little bastards myself! I will hold them down the water with my bare hands,” she gushed in an ambulance. She didn’t do it though. To the glory of Jackie that she loved above all else, as if she wanted to stand up for those bad manners and also celebrate Jackie’s rebellion, she kept one and donated the other. Strangely enough, she kept little Bessie who wouldn’t really deny her father. Short mouth, ears weirdly set on a small head shaped like a tennis ball, her body short and rather tiny. Her sister Billie, however, looked just like her mother. Genes are funny thing and can play its game in mysterious ways. In Billie, there was not a tiny bit of resemblance of the chihuahua father. With a small hesitation, you would really call Billie a dachshund.
You don’t fool the nature, you don’t fool genes! — used to say grandpa, mum’s father, when they often had arguments with grandma. They had a wild marriage, but they loved each other. He hated his mother-in-law, calling her a Hungarian witch, a gypsy bride, but often worse. She was doing everything she could to keep her daughter from being with him. Maybe it was because grandpa, then 30 years old and a business director, fell in love with a 15-year-old girl, student worker, who became pregnant with him the same year. That’s when she was expecting Martin’s mother. “Where the gypsy puts his seed there will never be one white again,” he used to shout to her. “And gypsy you are, Hungarian gypsy! We have a gypsy in the family, gypsy’s blood in the family, oh god, the grass won’t grow here anymore.” — he thundered in a rude voice. Martin’s grandmother had skin as white as snow, indeed a beautiful woman, something like Audrey Hepburn, no wonder grandpa fell in love with her. But genes don’t fool you no matter how far they are laid. Little Martin was born in December 1982. When he was brought by his mother out of the maternity ward, dad used to joke about returning it. They said they must have made a mistake, the baby was dark as ebony wood, big brown eyes were looking at the world. His mother brought him to the new three-bedroom apartment with pneumonia. When he was older, she used to complain about the irresponsibility of the doctors who sent her home like that. “They packed me a box of penicillin and put us in an ambulance, the old Skoda 1203. Perhaps even from experience they knew everything would be fine. I had to crash the pill and mix it up in your baby tea so it dissolved. There was no liquid penicillin syrups in those days so , as might be expected, it didn’t taste good for you at all, but you healed yourself,” she concluded happily.
The strong immunity and well-known ability to survive anything that is often seen in newborns and young children has finally allowed him to stay.
He attributed what happened to him at 15 to an unfortunate marijuana experiment. His mind never had the right setting for this kind of fun. They were with the boys in the park where the joint took turns. After a few minutes, he came sick and the world was spinning on all sides. He felt indescribably weird. He heard his mates laughing, but the sounds seemed to come from somewhere. After another series of unpleasant hallucinations, he didn’t even seem to, and to the place of entertainment he overcame incredible internal panic and fear. He later understood that it was this unpleasant experience that was a direct trigger for his depression, fear and panic attacks that he had never known before. It’s been a tough time. Since Martin didn’t know what was going on with him at first, he thought he was completely crazy. He thought a healthy mind had left him for good, and things would never be the way they were again. Cheerful and simple. He did not understand this chaos of his mind, and fear caused him immense anxiety. Every time he was ambushed by these conditions, it took away from him all the joy of life or a sense of joy from ordinary things like food, a favorite TV programme or a hobby. It was like a plague. An unfamiliar sense of fear devoured everything around him. Fear of fear ambushed him anywhere. While visiting father, at school or at the training in stables. Martin was horse riding since he was 10. Later, he helped wealthy horse owners, show jumping and dressage riders, take care of their horses, on which they allowed him to ride for it. Caring for horses, riding, friends at the stables and his love of horses, which he visited every day, greatly mitigated these agony.
It helped the most when he took them to nature. Walks in the forest gave a moment to forget about the eternally present psychological problem, but nevertheless the fear did not disappear. Every time it came to him, he felt a sense of immense hopelessness and nothingness. He couldn’t resist it, he couldn’t fight it, he felt like he was falling into the darkness. Anxiety plagued him and weakened him. It was sucking all joy and appetite for life out of him. Fear was the eater of any positive energy. He couldn’t rely on his mind and psyche anymore, and he was thinking in places that he was going to die. Somewhere back there, however, the inventive spirit never landed on such an act, moreover, Martin liked himself too much to hurt himself, but paradoxically the fear hurt him. Finding a psychiatrist didn’t have the guts. A man in his fifteen thinks very differently than an adult. He was afraid he’d be declared a fool. Nor did he feel support in his parents, mother or stepfather. He couldn’t tell anyone, he couldn’t explain it to anyone. He couldn’t open about it. He seemed to be on his own. Martin tried his best to cover up these conditions with positive thinking, making a small joys in his head, reasons to enjoy himself, little hopes that were supposed to ultimately suppress this strange state. He fought it his way. He enjoyed going home to his mom, looking forward to a good meal, opening a favorite book, looking forward to friends by the horses, looking forward to horses. But fear as the trigger for this unknown deeper state of anxiety and panic rushes has always waited inside the head. It was like someone throwing a stone in the water and it’s going to cause circles on the surface around where the level closed. The fear of another attack has always grown into a real attack. It was like a vicious circle.
The idea of fear caused the actual fear that then triggered the whole series of anxiety. Just like the stone thrown into the water, the fear was the trigger for more vibrations of fear. It had to be fought and suppressed forever so it could not reappear again. Martin looked up what the word depression meant, but he didn’t think this diagnosis could fit. He didn’t lose his appetite for life, he was just persecuted and terrorized by the strange fear you knew how to incite and cause yourself. It was like his own mind was attacking itself and making it impossible for itself to heal. He was creating his own fear. It was necessary to come up with a resolution. Rational thinking could help. It was necessary to establish absolute control of the mind. Face the problem and try to get rid of this enemy simply in a new way of thinking. The mind is a powerful lady. And so he started writing a diary where he tried to explain to yourself what was happening to him. He was dissecting a sense of fear in detail, looking for a cause, exploring where it came from, and controlling his mind, trying to control it and, by changing his mind, tried to suppress the states completely. Changing mindset is not an easy thing to do. It’s a lengthy process where, through new knowledge, you gradually swap old components for new ones and overlap the old system. Martin sought hope, sought strength, and so he came up with the idea of strengthen his army of light by going to church. Where else to seek help if not in God and where else to find God if not in church, he thought. Martin had no idea if God really existed and where to actually look for him but he needed a foothold and an answer to questions, he needed help with anxiety, so the church seemed to him the best place. Martin always felt a kind of strange force that seemed to be paying attention to all of us, so he began to slowly discover the power of faith. Firstly, in the way of renunciation of learned texts from prayer books and by following the procedural acts of Mass, but gradually his relationship with God began to become more personal and the more he built his own internal dialogue with him, the closer he approached him. Answers to questions and solutions began to emerge like mushrooms after the rain. Anxiety faded as a result of a changed mind and was eventually completely defeated. In the end, Martin formed his own, very close and personal relationship with God. Gradually, he stopped going to church and began to search for spiritual books that dealt with God a little more progressively. Although he later experienced further shocks of his existence as a result of another disappointment and personal fall, but since he already knew what to do, these did not cause much harm. Martin never stopped caring about God, never stopped looking for him and always wanted to get to know him a little better. This journey continues to this day. Martin was a little concerned that he would visit God only when he needed it. This time the answer to his concerns, as often before, came again through a book story he came across by coincidence. And since there’s no such thing as coincidence but everything just always perfectly serves the moment, in this humorous scene, the little boy asks God if it’s okay to pray just before the exams. God assured him that it’s ok, and what’s more, he said it suits him that too, because he can then devote himself to other people who need him more at the moment.
