Though I resented it, I went out in the street to clean off the pavement the broken glass bottle and the glue that had spilled out of it, thrown out the balcony by my mom. I shouted that the one who had made the mass should be the one to clean it up. Still I went out and did it, as my mom wouldn’t. She elbowed me out and locked the door, so there I was – a fat teenage girl, in shorts and slippers, a baggy T-shirt, and I could have been spotted by a boy I was in love with. I was mad, helpless, frustrated, and … I marched downtown to the construction site where my dad was telling the workers what to do, and I told him, “She is your wife. She made the mess. You should take care of her.” He asked me to calm down and go home, so … I went back to clean the mess.

I have so often cleaned up other people’s mess. I have so often believed that if you see a chocolate bar wrap in the street and you just pass by without picking it up and throwing it into the bin, you are as responsible as the person who dropped the wrap on the pavement. So, whenever my boyfriend failed to give money to his ex-wife for his daughter or buy new boots for his child, I was the one to drag him to the store and pay for the boots, etc.

However, I feel that not all situations are equivalent. Yes, I still believe that whenever I can, I should try to prevent people from harming other people, but … should I try to prevent them from harming themselves?

If I always clean up a person’s mess, will he ever learn how to do it on his own, will he ever grow up?

Some people believe that the published collection of her letters MotherTheresa: Come Be My Light will help people who have lost their faith and sunk into the darkness of suffering and doubt. I wonder what the book’s message to them will be – that they have the potential to suffer even better, that, of course, suffering will take them to Heaven, and they should dream of eternal suffering?

Well, I have never thought masochism to be  a normal state of human nature, and I have never thought of helping a sufferer through encouraging him to suffer even deeper (unless I intended to help him faster realize he had suffered enough).

I believe that every bit of suffering could be transformed into something to help people on their way to happiness – the essential state, the core of human nature.

However, so many people seem to believe that there is some chic in suffering, that suffering somehow sends you on a higher plane, above other people. One of the most popular Bulgarian folk songs is a dialogue between a young man and a young woman, discussing whose pain is greater. Another one explains that a mom should be respected more than a girlfriend because the former mourns her son till her death, while the latter stops mourning her lover soon after his death.

Suffering gains people’s respect. It’s recognized as some kind of achievement. I have listened so many times to women discussing their periods, pregnancies, birth labour. I have always wondered why my fast and painless giving birth or my lack of cramps  and pregnancy indisposition should make me a less worthy person. Why should my generally good health and fast recovery make me a less worthy person? Or the fact that I earn more than many people around. Or the fact that I love my job.

I don’t see why, but even I am not immune to this pain fad. I often feel somehow guilty and subconsciously doubt my being worthy of my luck to have been born in an educated well-to-do family.

Some people believe that Mother Theresa’s suffering makes her even holier because she went on helping people despite her pain. OK. Let’s imagine Mother Theresa had been happily married to Brad Pitt rather than Jesus, she had been rich and famous, aided by her husband in her work. Would that have made her less worthy? Would that have made her impact smaller? Hm. Perhaps people would have doubted her motives then, saying that she was doing it as an expensive PR campaign. OK, but if she went on doing it for years? Then they would start realizing the truth that she did it out of love and compassion.

When Mother Theresa was the icon of love, many people believed her to be an unreachable saint. I have heard so many people say “You should be Mother Theresa to do that”. How could the happy Mother Theresa have been a good role model for average people in the west, then? Still she used to be a good model for monks, nuns, volunteers on missions, etc.

How could she be a good role model now? The lesson the suffering Mother Theresa could teach is that helping people makes you sad and lonely, but holier. How many people would be keen on following this example? How could that help make the world a better place?

I think people do need heroes, but I don’t believe these should be Greek tragedy sufferers. They need to see people who are happy to help other people. Thus, the old Mother Theresa was a much better role-model than the new one. And Angelina Jolie is better than both. The best role models for the average middle-class person, however, are neither saints not stars. They are ordinary people who are happy with what they have and what they give.

As for the new Mother Theresa, what I feel for her is deep compassion. I am not disappointed with her, but she cannot inspire me. Well, I’ll write about that later.

You should be able to some extent identify with someone, in order to take him as a role model. Here’s why you could expect a text on why I will soon make a great face in advertising targeted at the aging population. You might also expect more texts on children and teenage heroes, and … heroes in general.

It happens often because too many people rarely know for sure what they really need, and there are so many people who believe giving is essentially good.

If you are a compulsive giver, you are compelled to give whenever you see the slightest sign of pain. Just like a doctor, you sometimes give people  a pill which is known to cure a certain disease. Sometimes you just give them placebo. Sometimes you hit, and sometimes you miss.

A compulsive giver most often gives whatever a person wants, but does a patient always know which pill is the right one for him? By giving people whatever they want, you often poison them or don’t let them cope on their own.

Then what should I do when people want things from me and I really want them to be happy? Give them sugar-coated poison?

As I am a compulsive giver, which means I give on impulse, I should stop and think before giving. Well, yes, I don’t have time to do that if someone is drowning (or seems to be), but most often this is not the case.

I might not be the wisest person to always know best, but I am smart enough to make an educated guess – to find out what giving my gift might lead to.

It takes time, yes. Sometimes it’s easier to give – it’s faster, and you don’t bother think. But sooner or later it comes to you – the bitter feeling that you have wasted something. And the feeling of waste doesn’t make ME happy.

The book does sport a number of somewhat facetious asides. It does get rather preachy at times. The author doesn’t seem to have reached farther on her path to enlightenment than I have on mine; she doesn’t even seem to be making educated efforts.

So how could I rationalize spending $6 (the cover price of the Bulgarian edition) on such a book? It seems easier to explain why such books are of use to their authors and to certain audiences. Well, I am happy I have met Teri, and it’s not because I share the lot of a working single parent who has had a number of failed relationships and is trying to save the world while learning how to take care of herself.

It’s like reading people’s blogs to find out that there are people who are observant, alert, conscious – not all the time, but still they are! They save me from my ever lurking arrogance – the feeling that I am the one and only treading on the Way without a paid Guru. They, perhaps, remind me that I need people in a way, despite the fact that I could do (and I love it) perfectly without their physical presence or even long distance communication.

Did Buddha ever offer a logical explanation of why we take refuge in our Sangha? We just do. It’s good to know one more thing that could make you really happy.

The moral: if you’re attracted by new food, listen to your instincts and try it.

Why should I read, think and write through all this instead of reaching nirvana through some simple zen experience like dark chocolate / tea/ not picking up the phone?

Won’t I just get lost, off my way to happiness – the way most western philosophers seem to have done (look forward to an entry on the western way of doing philosophy)?

I love reading and thinking and writing in my journal (and blogs) about all these in the most unsystematic way, but I do have a method in my madness: I let my heart / intuition lead me to the next book I will enjoy.

I plug into wisdom, no matter what I choose. I know Dalai Lama would say I should pick out one way and follow it, but … not my way. I do enjoy my infidelity to Buddhism or whatever path which seems to be The Path at a certain stage of my life. Not without my doubts, though .

And last (and I don’t care if least), I might be a Platonist or rather an Archetypist. I feel that if people have come up with all this, it’s part of human nature. If I ignore most of it, I ignore parts of my soul. And some day the ignored subatomic particles or stardust will loom and say “Boo!”

Best-selling authors (like Dan Brown) write in simple English. I believe that nowadays the simpler the language, the better chances for the text to become a best-seller – more people will be able to read it and enjoy it in a fast and effortless way – the way they watch soap-like stuff on TV.

Then isn’t trying to master high English a waste?

I love beautiful difficult English (not Mobile Dick’s, of course!).

I would feel cool to be better at it. It will make me feel as important as someone who can change gear the classic way and does it in automatic America.

I would be happy if more people felt cool about studying it and using it. It will give them access to ideas and nuances of ideas, which would otherwise be inaccessible to them.

Look forward to my next entry, which might read like “Why should I have access to all ideas?”

Why should I?

Isn’t it more important to have something to say than to have nothing to say but be able to say it in high English?

Whenever I tell my son that he should practice his drawing skills, he says “But I do not have my own ideas for pictures.” Well, I do . I have a message to the planet .

Do Iris Murdoch’s fans love reading her books because she writes in not-so-easy-to-read-fast English, or do they like her because she has something to say?

So, I am in! I am a writer. Don’t miss my next entry, which should read something like “Why should I learn how to write like Iris Murdoch?”