One of my favourite books is entitled The Forbidden Door by Gabriel Liiceanu, a romanian writer. The whole book is full of insights into the human spirit that basically help you to discover yourself in his writing, but a certain fragment particularly remained imprinted in my mind.We all travel through life dressed in sobriety, shame and discression. For some it's more pronounced than for the others, but in a way we all wear a mask to cover our emotions. We don't always cry, laugh or yell when we feel like and we almost never want to let the others see that we are fragile and vulnerable. The shame that arouses as a result of our interaction with the others acts like a censor, a censor that decides what should go pass the forbidden door and what should remain only inside ourselves.
However, as the writer describes, this door does open sometimes, and this is, after all, the meaning of love. There is a place for everyone where they can be sad, or experience ecstasy, without being afraid that their image might suffer. There is a balance between taking our clothes off and revealing our souls, and love is when the shame of undressing our body and the one of undressing our feelings are both defeated simultaneously and in correlation with one another. Then we are light and free. All that has been hidden and untold comes out, the clothes and the masks fall down and we are exposed in front of the other just as we are, while witnessing the intentional fall of our censor and our protective sistems.
"So, this is the secret! Each of us could cross life dressed in sobriety, shame and discression. We might be severe, distant and appear unbreakable. On condition that there is, or was, at least once in a lifetime , a person in front of which we can stay with our soul naked , without feeling ashamed. "
And even if that love fades and we close our forbidden door once again, a memory of the freedom of undressing our bodies and souls still survives. And that memory is what gives us confidence, strenght and peace. We don't discover yourselves or truly live when we hide behind that door. The best way to explore and to set ourselves free is to open the door for the other.