An Undisclosed Café Sesimbra Portugal, A Wednesday, Dear Love, Some days are just made to be silly. You know I haven’t had any Coke for 20 years or more. I’m just not a big fan of soda pop But here I am in Sesimbra at an undisclosed location, sweaty hot day. “Que forno”… Like being in an oven ( what an oven ). . The writing was flowing, hours sitting at the keyboard and I was done looking at anything non organic. I closed my computer and decided I would have a Coca Cola. Now I’m not drinking alcohol right now but I thought about how nice a glass of Vinho Verde would be today, but I really didn’t like the idea of alcohol. It was the idea of it that was attractive to me. To the counter I went to order my drink. The main bar lady was out having a cigarette so the manager asked me what I’d like and there it was falling out of my mouth, in Portuguese but in English here for you, “I’d like a Coca Cola with a slice of lemon.” She asked if I would like ice, which I accepted. I took my coke can and my empty glass of ice with its solo slice of lemon outside to stare at the blue sky while listening to the seagulls and all the teenagers pass by as they leave the beach. I’ve been thinking about this for sometime actually. One of my friend girls who I don’t speak with too much any more, loved a coca cola on particular days. It was like a shot of life force for her. You’d hear the opening of the can and then a moment later, before you took three breathes it was gone. She made it look so good. So I had been thinking about that for some time. There I sat, pulling back the tab, sweaty and hot, enjoying the feeling of the cold glass in my hand as I poured the brown liquid into my glass. To be honest the first few sips were kind of refreshing. Sweet but weird. You know in the U.S. the coke is made with high fructose corn syrup, so it was a special thing to get Mexican coke, which was made with sugar cane. That always stayed with me, how the U.S. likes to put frivolous ingredients in everything. I think we believe the more ingredients listed in that 12 o.z. can the more value we are actually getting, as if 12 oz of three ingredients is not equal to 12 oz nineteen ingredients. Anyways, I am sitting there half a glass in, as I pour the rest into my glass contemplating the flavor, the entirety of the scene, sitting on the steps, almost like I was in a commercial for soda in a red can. But suddenly this soda started tasting gross to me, artificial. Maybe that is why I stopped drinking soda eight thousand years ago. I picked up the can and saw a bit of text that said, sem açucar, no sugar. That was weird to me. It tasted sweet. And as I turned the can over in my hand, I read Coke Zero. What the… Of course it would be the artificial version of Coca Cola that the lady gave me. The universe loves to joke with us. Twenty years, not that I was abstaining from soda for any particular reason other than it’s not my favorite drink, yet… I went inside and shared the humor and her first response was, “I don’t like coke,” and I said I don’t either. She then apologized as she said she was a horrible bar girl, laughing. It’s true I thought. She was sincerely apologetic, but of course she took my money, which I planned on paying anyway. My dad would have asked me that if he was listening to me retell this story, so I am preempting him. Neither she nor I thought to look at the can to see that it wasn’t actually a Coca cola. Life is silly isn’t it. I’m glad I hadn’t been waiting 20 years to have that one can of coca cola only be served a zero sugar artificial unacceptable replacement for the real thing. Maybe there’s a life analogy in there somewhere as well. Tomorrow, I am going to have the real thing somewhere on the beach or in a café. One more thing. Usually when things like this happen they don’t happen once, but come in groupings. It was the case with this situation. I will continue on in a few days or so with the absurdity that is the ‘mindless’ human. Me being one of them too. You ever wonder why someone gives you sugar packets with your ice coffee? Is that a riddle or… What kind of joke is that… To absurd days and the simple things in life that perk your perspective, Emeric ​ p.s. Why would I call my program on relationships something like Love Cheese? Simple, talking about love is often silly and talking about self love is sillier than that. Besides, we are way to serious sometimes speaking about this difficult things, like other people. Something about the ridiculous nature of laughing at what often isn’t laughable is so helpful, at least sometimes. You can get a look here… And if you have any questions or if you would like me to hold your hand through out let me know. I want you to have better relationships, especially with yourself. ​www.EmericDamian.com/love-romp​ The one and only program for opening your eyes and heart to the absurdity that is LOVE CHEESE and The Relationship Romp… ​ ​

Café Spot Diving
Sesimbra Portugal
24th July 2024,

Dear Love,

It’s noon and I sit in the diving mecca of Sesimbra, near the docks.

Tuesday and life is calm, after the weekend rush, a Monday and Tuesday feel like a Holiday from people.

Local characters sip coffee, fishermen unravel their lines from a night of fishing. Here in Portugal the fresh markets for fish are closed on Mondays because the fishermen are blessing the ocean with a day off.

That is a testament to the Portuguese and their love for the waters.

Of course I don’t mean to romanticize the Portuguese, because the same mass consumption of poor quality items exists here. In the big markets you can find everything all day everyday, even ‘fresh’ fish.

Nonetheless…

The traditions that live in the villages of Portugal and throughout spots in the cities mean so much to me.

Sometimes I think humans work so not to be alone, so to be with other human animals. That there is an exchange of money and time aren’t the necessity of life but a secondary reason for working..

Look at us humans with our need for relationships…

Searching…

8 years ago, at 3 a.m. in the morning, after a month and a half of visiting a friend in Portland Oregon, after moving around the west coast of the U.S. for some time, my heart hollered at me, “Go”.

Go where?

“Just go and let the rest unfold as it may.  Pure unknowing…”

I packed my bag and took an Uber to the airport. The Uber driver with dreadlocks and electric music dripping through the windows picked me up and we were off, my heart and I.

No ticket, no destination, no idea…

It’s been 8 years this September that I have been in Portugal. Still without a knowing, still watching the unfolding, still participating in a life that feels so foreign and yet present.

I left my mind here and there in random places in Portugal, let it roam and experience other parts of my being, aspects of a self that would stay quiet, whispering in the background of my existence.

So many dreams have come and gone, many relationships, pleasant and confused, experiences of wild evenings on the streets of Porto, lost spirits on the cobblestone streets of Elvas, scars on my rib cage from the rocks of Sintra, wounds on my heart from resisting love’s invitation too many times to tell.

So many lives lived in such a short period of time. All contained in a memory of my mind.

The dream that is your life, the coming and going of your imagination..

One of my great curiosities in life is how one moment in time you don’t know a person, then you meet them, then you become friends, lovers, whatever the case maybe, a delineation in time.

Once your life was empty of this person and now they are a member of your memory, a part of your dream.

What a strange affair it is, to never have known a person, then to suddenly know them.

I tell you it is the strangest occurrence, if you take a moment to sit with it, to view a time before and a time after meeting whomever it may be.

What a dream.

There are times in my life when I try to reconcile my suffering, my confusion, when I seek to remove one way of being and to replace it with another, but that is a trick.

Off in the distance on the second level of the small port building 65 meters in front of me an old man just took a pee on the wall. Yesterday ten or so imported workers were sitting in that same spot in the morning. Later that afternoon a gypsy woman walked out of the same location.

And just now Jimmy the dog of the docks showed up at the cafe looking for a taste of something.

Life unfolds all around us all the time, even when alone in the nothingness of it all, even while writing in a café near a marina.

And so that mind of mine that wishes things were different, comes up with nonsense ideas to try to convince me it knows what we should be doing or what we should do next.

It is the most curious relationship you will ever have and that is the one with yourself and particularly with your own mind.

This may seem sideways as I say it, but the voice that tortures you is the same voice that tries to convince you it knows what you should be doing next, offering a remedy to the torturing thought that it is dragging you through.

That voice and I have been traveling together for however long we have been discussing life’s affairs.

So here we sit at a cafe in a gorgeous land, with an incredible view amongst so many lives being lived, doing the greatest work one can ever do for themselves, seeing through the mind’s lies.

There is no solution to life because life is beyond solutions and solving.

There’s simply an unfolding of experience and our relationship to it.

And yet…

I’ll save that for the next time I write to you.

Emeric

p.s. It’s been a while since I have shared with you. How are you doing?

p.p.s. I imagine you’ve lived through 1001 stories of your own, mysteries, absurdities, and such. I imagine you’ve come to a point in life that you too have realized that you are in a relationship with everything around you, including your relationship to your relationships.

Recently I put together the best material I have to take people through the experience of relating to the world in a way that is liberating and transformative and as true as one can tell. You can read more about it below.

It’s mostly nonsense yet it is somehow very true.

You can explore it here, my unfinished every growing masterpiece called Love Cheese and The Relationship Romp

Also, you can find a picture of Jimmy dog of the docks here…

 

p.p.s. If I ever get married or choose to have a lifelong partner or a short term partner, if I ever meet anyone who has trouble relating to other people, including their parents or children even if those children are adults, I would want them to go through the program I created, called the relationships romp and love cheese.

Actually if you are an adult or some semblance of an adult human being, I want you to go through Love Cheese and the Relationships Romp, because I am biased and I want more people in the world to understand their own innate incredible nature.

I can’t guarantee anything, but I think it will bring a lot of joy and awareness to your life and it will certainly bring more beauty to any and every relationship you have. But that is my opinion.

You can get it here within 10 minutes.

It’s not for everyone.

It’s opinionated, expensive ($370), and not backed by science or any expert opinion.

In fact it is almost 100% based on 50 years of me being alive and being a troublemaker.

However…

My experience is based on observations and truths that have been verified in conversation with too many people. I converse with everyone, and sometimes I get paid very well to do so.

But like I said. I guarantee nothing and I have a zero refund policy. Because I don’t like taking responsibility for things not working out well for other people. It’s your life! I trust you!

So, If you have 15 minutes a week and are bored and a bit lonely, then you will enjoy what I have for you.

Go here and in 10 minutes you will be on your way…

​www.EmericDamian.com/Love-Romp​

Finally…

I wrote a short story of a kind. My friends have been asking me to publish more of my material. I write every day. Anyways, if you would like to read it, reply to this message and I will send you a link to read it.

 

He said,

“I just don’t know and I am clear that I don’t know, and that is a world of difference from being confused.

I am not confused, I just don’t know”.

There have been a thousand and one times that I have known what I am doing, who I am being, and what I am up to.

And there have been a million more times when I’ve had no clue and it’s uncomfortable.

Isn’t that lovely.

But what I have noticed is that most people numb out their inner wisdom, so as not to hear any of the internal muck that is going on within.

But the thing is, the noise is still there.

It’s just covered with so much more noise and distraction that it never comes to surface, or rarely does but it is still acting upon them, creating an anxiousness.

It’s uncomfortable to say, “I don’t know what in the world I am doing”.

People want certainty in life.

People love wearing their uniforms and vocations.

We love to say, “I am a professor, entrepreneur, writer, artist, student, coach, scientist, explorer, traveler, PhD, real estate developer, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband to, wife of… I am something goddamit!”

People want to be able to call you a name, label you, and we want that same thing for ourselves and others as well.

It’s quite human.

And that aspect of our human-ness is often difficult to deal with, ‘not knowing’.

That is why we tell lies to ourselves.

Said in a more pleasurable way, “we are playing a gargantuan game of make believe, but we often don’t realize it, so we must make everything seem sensible, by making up stories, to make what we are doing appear to be reasonable and sane”.

It’s not that we are lying to ourselves, but it is.

In fact, we are always creating reasons for the reasons that we are doing whatever it is we may be doing.

It’s terribly difficult just to do what you do without there ‘needing’ to be a reason or explanation.

It’s like you can’t go for a stroll just because.

No, it has to be “I am going for a stroll because I need to relax and let go, to take a break from blah blah blah”.

It’s as if everything has to be justified, otherwise, you feel guilty about it, like you are wasting time..

When was the last time you did something just for Shits and Giggles?

Really…

Try it on and see what happens.

Do things for a while without them having to be a means to an end to something else.

It’s incredibly freeing.

But watch out because you might start dropping your incessant need to justify everything you do, even to yourself.

Stay weird,

Professor Emeric Damian Thorpe,

p.s.

You are a badass. You have made choices. You will make more choices. Your choosing is your freedom.

I believe in you and I am certain you can, if you choose to. It’s beautiful to be, to be you, to be you as you are or as you wish to be.

Loving you,

Emeric

Let’s take a look at what has the power to transform you, the looking.

The looking into your eyes, while being with that which you want to create, with that which you are creating while keeping a continual focus on being with it…

It’s not about the goals, the tactics, the plans, the little this and that, even though those matter.

It’s about being with the vision you desire more often than not.

However…

There’s a hiccup in this thinking because none of us know exactly how that vision is going to be delivered into our world.

Thus we have expectations about how it will be and if it isn’t how we expected it to be, our eyes often go blind to the joy before us.

I watched one of my clients prove this to herself over and over, but then, as we all do, she would go to sleep and lose awareness of the wonder that lives in the pursuit of her sincere desires.

No mater how much we strategise or think we should do something, it ends up being that life delivers continual gifts and unplanned presents upon the path that is pulling you toward your destination.

As she took to creating what she wanted, she would suddenly be surprised by a connection that came out of nowhere, a synchornicity, and then another connection, and then another.

They could not have been put on a schedule, or built into a business plan.

They are gifts of the mystery of being in motion toward your vision.

But we forget that and start polluting the path with doubt, with insincerity, with neediness, with inaction.

Which gives rise to our transgressions, to focusing on our conceived weaknesses and our past pissy-ness and sour memories.

And we are terribly biased toward our crap, the negative happenings, days filling up thinking about and amplifying the poopy parts of our life, pushing them into our not yet imaginary future.

Our minds, like pigeons in a park dining on peach pie, shitting on everything…

I do love pie… Apple pie…

Nonetheless…

Future envisioning, planning and plotting, running into the mystery, into the unknown, free from the dragging thoughts of the past and free from anxiety about the future, are the most enjoyable play to participate in.

It’s the most challenging thing to do.

Being with your thoughts, your creating energies, your sincere desires is not easy, even though it feels like it should be.

To imagine the future, to put your mind forward into the unknown and then pursue it with vigor, with certainty, with a mind that is All-In, a mind that refuses to accept any other narrative, well, that is a kind of madness, isn’t it.

Yet, we all know what a beautiful expression it is to live as such.

It takes training; it means creating yourself as the person who is that.

That is who you ‘Be’ in the world.

It’s an every day affair.

I call it an Encounter.

An Encounter with who you are CHOOSING to Be.

There is not truth here, no path to follow, or way to be.

It’s an invitation to listen differently, to your world, inside and out.

Maybe there is something in you that recognizes what I am saying.

You will feel what is true in this for yourself or you won’t.

It’s worthy of exploration, of experimenting with.

Who do you choose to be as you pursue what you choose to pursue?

To being a paradox of power,

Emeric Damian

​

p.s.

It can be powerful to focus for a moment on how terrible your future will be if you don’t do the things you say you must do.

It has potential to be a strong motivator.

As you know, the mind will throw nasty thoughts at you, thoughts about the past and you will believe them.

Great!

Now you get to train your attention. Now you have an opportunity to choose to treat yourself in that moment with kindness, ill will, love, appreciation, or a simple neutrality; this matters more than what the mind is tricking you with.

Imagine having gratitude for the nightmares that the mind presents to you.

There is some biological imperative for this negative talk, some self preservation that is taking place here.

Nonetheless, for most people I have found their greatest desire is not just about creating an end result; it’s about who they are being while creating a future that excites them, that turns them on.

In truth that is the greatest adventure of them all, and it is often hidden behind all the things think we want or don’t want…

Your relationship with yourself now, in this moment, this NOW, is always what matters most.

You can go after anything and get it or not, create it or not, attain it or not, and do so in a way that satisfies you deeply no matter what.

To me, that is always the sincere desire.

The adventure…

Time for a walk in the valley of trees, as I have written enough in this moment. ( a picture of one of my many paths in life )

What I am going to say, what I wish to share with you, if I do my job well, will transform your relationship to everything, to your life, to your self, and thus with other humans and non-human animals alike.

It’s a grand statement to make, because it is a lie.

I can’t transform your life, though I can.

But you…

These words are for you to discover for yourself, what I know to be absolutely so.

But my knowing, my experience, is mine.

You must find out for yourself.

Here it is as plain as I can say it.

“You create others by the way you listen to them and thus, you create yourself as well.”

“The way you listen, is your way of speaking, both with words and without.”

“You can listen to another as you already believe them to be, whether they are or aren’t as you believe; you can listen for something you wish might be so, whether it is or isn’t; you can listen to the possibility of life unfolding in a mysterious beautiful way; you can listen to another and create them as you listen. Mirror mirror on the wall…”

The way you listen to yourself, will create your relationship with yourself, and your relationship with your self, is the only relationship you will ever have, the only relationship you can ever have, even as you are in relation to others, as others are always you.

…

That last paragraph…

You see, I said I would give it to you simple and as straight as I can, but then, it just flows from me, as if it’s not me, speaking through me.

You know me well enough to know, what is easy to say, to do, to live, is never simple, as easy is too simple and simple is too easy, so we must make it more complex.

Let me put it differently.

Tonight I was in conversation with a few coaches, life coaches, spiritual coaches, coaches’s coaches.

And a question came up, something like, “What bells and notifications usually go off in your mind, when you are listening to your clients? What are you listening for?”

…and the answers varied…

…but they were in rough alignment, all along the lines of, we listen for “false assumptions, limiting beliefs, negative self talk, judgements of others, worry, misplaced anxiety… etc..”

These are all goods things to be aware of, indeed and I will point these things out too, but none of these can ever be what we should be listening for.

Do you known why?

Exactly…

We are going to find what we listen for, even if it may not be there, even if it is, even though it may simply disappear upon listening.

And I share this with you because, what was implicit, in what they were sharing, is one of the things I find most deplorable in relationships, even though it can be absolutely helpful to attend to, yet, it’s deplorable to me, when people are listening for other peoples ‘garbage’, ‘foibles’, ‘hypocrisy’, ‘poopy doopy’, and crap.

It’s like everyone is playing a game of “GOTCHA! You fucked up and now I am going to tell you all about how shitty you are, how incapable, how lazy, how narcissistic, how overbearing, how sad…” Whatever it may be.

Listening is the most difficult thing to do, so deaf we are. It’s easy and that’s what makes it so hard.

My profession, you see, is an art form, because I have to be aware of everything I have shared with you above; yet, it’s not what I listen for, ever, even though at times I have, so guilty I am, of everything that one might be guilty of, so hyperbolic and dramatic I can be, forgive me.

Onward…

What I listen for, even in my imperfection, is the beautiful realizations that you will have when you start listening to yourself, and then when you listen to yourself again, but with a different mind for hearing, sensing, feeling, and loving what it is that is flowing through you, and then when you listen again, knowing that the way you listen is the way you create, as your listening is speaking your being, into being who you are.

That is why I listen to you as the possibility you posses even though you may not know it.

However, what I primarily listen for is the experience of you discovering how unnecessary it is for you to be anything other than you are, as you are in this moment right now.

It’s the greatest experience to experience… Once you get that… Then the pleasures of listening shift again.

…as you create from that space of needing nothing, while having it all, as you wish…

The pleasures…

That is my great gift in life, to listen to all of it, to hear the mystery, to allow for grace, to embrace the emptiness and meaninglessness that threads through life…

And then to turn around and reflect back to all of those who are near and far, the serenity of simply being.

It’s easy, which is why it’s not simple, nor hard, nor complex, nor easy…

.

.

Hugs and love you sexy gorgeous human being,

Emeric Damian

p.s.

May you have what you want in life and may what you want in life be in alignment with your highest values, and may you thus be fulfilled in having what you want.

​

​

​