Impulse
_AM: What do you want to be when you grow up?
_I: I guess I'm old now, right?
_AM: Have you lost the ability to propel yourself forward? When did you stop dreaming?
_I: Oh, if you mean what I hope to be later on, yeah, I think I might have an idea.
_AM: You didn't understand me. The question is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And I don't do it to you, but to your inner child. Do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up?
_I: Yes… I wanted to be a Veterinarian and School Teacher.
_AM: Tell me why.
_I: Well, I grew up in a house with a huge patio, where I had many animals. My first pet was a turtle, and it is an animal that still fascinates me today. As a child I spent hours watching her. I lived in a time when it was very common to give animals, not like now, and for my birthdays, everyone brought me different animals. I had 50 in the garden: pigeons, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, a pheasant, chickens, turtles, dogs, canaries, toads, fish, ducks... And this led me to think that I should dedicate my life to it. Because in a way I thought that humans were not worth it because they caused harm to themselves, and animals were true victims. So I started researching how their bodies worked. My mother gave me a veterinary kit with all the equipment to care for my animals. Sometimes when she found a dead bird, or another animal, she would prepare everything to do an autopsy and understand what they were like inside, where the organs were, how they worked, to know how to help them if they felt bad.
_AM: And did you have someone to help you with it?
_I: Actually yes. Every week I went to the Veterinary Clinic near my house where Dr. Pablo Miquet, whom I greatly admired, attended. He, with the appearance of an artist scientist, made me love veterinary medicine. Between the ages of 8 and 11, he let me witness the surgeries and help him with minor operations by passing him utensils or cleaning the area to be operated on. Later, at my school, I had him as a teacher, and his way of teaching made me fall in love with education. He was original, loved by everyone, and in a pedagogical way he made us participate in the class and the investigation in the same way as he did me in the operation. At the same time, at the same school, we had him as a teacher in a ceramics workshop, where I learned to make crafts with clay.
_AM: We could say that this person has marked your life.
_I: Yes… I had never thought about it this way. Now that you mention it, his presence defined everything I do. Try to understand the details of life, biology and respect for the animal world; try to understand the origin of words, speak properly, be as pedagogical as possible, get out of the teacher's place to be a learning partner, using art as a form of expression. Maybe he was one of the “idols” of my childhood.
_AM: Idol comes from the Greek word “eidolon”, which means “to see, to look, to know”. That is, the one that one looks at to learn, to know, to know, to assimilate. It's what we hope to be. The idol marks the impulse of life, and defines the will to put oneself at service. The potential that each one has inside remains latent, coiled in the codes of DNA until an electrical pulse awakens it. This pulse occurs due to the effect that an external circumstance has on us. What we see, do and feel in our lives awakens what we carry inside. When we see something that resonates with us externally, the magnetic field recognizes the resonance, the echo of the vibration, and awakens the energy of our body, carrying this data to the nervous system. In order for this information to reach all the cells seeking to awaken this inner will, the nervous system generates electrical discharges in the heart muscle, making it beat, pumping blood at a higher speed, dilating the veins, bringing a greater amount of oxygen to everyone. the extremes, creating a stimulating reaction that gives greater clarity, more breadth, and that ignites the internal motors that pulse to produce the chemical reaction that awakens the intention to act similar to what we are perceiving.
_I: Wow, does all that happen when we get excited about something?
_AM: You call it “Impulse”. As I said, the potential is already in you, external agents only produce the chain reaction that activates what is already in you. Pulsar comes from the Indo-European and Latin “Pel” and “Pellere” respectively, which means to push, impel, receive external pressure to make something move. The particle “Im-” comes from “In” which means “inside”. That is to say, Impulse comes from the idea of an external push that is directed towards the internal, or an internal force that pushes you towards the external. Thus, while the pulse is something mechanical and systemic, like the same heart that beats and pulses incessantly, the impulse comes from a force that moves you in a specific direction towards action.
_I: That is to say that the idols of our life, which we contemplate with admiration, are the key that, through the external impulse, awaken the internal potential and will that we call the internal impulse that leads us to act in resonance, to put ourselves at the service. The will to do, to be of service, to do something like the other and for the other.
_AM: Now tell me, what did you look at the most as a child and admire? Whether it be books, people or cartoons.
_I: Well, I remember there was a time when I was a fan of the “Power Rangers” and I had everything from them. I loved dinosaurs, I had many archeology books, and many toy dinosaurs, but I was most fascinated by the fact of using the powers of these animals to do good in the world. Also, I had a brief time when I really liked Knights of the Zodiac, a Japanese anime series I think, although I was not a big fan of that type of drawing. What I do remember seeing with great love are two drawings called “Captain Planet” and “The Magic Bus.”
_AM: And why do you think this awakened so much love and desire to do things in you?
_I: Well… The Knights of the Zodiac didn't wake me up at all, I just liked seeing that they were in space and the stars. But the other two made me feel part of something that could change the world. Captain Planet was a man with powers who came to save the world, and taught ecology, nature, and the children who accompanied him represented the 4 elements: earth, fire, water and air... And now that I think about it... It's what I do even today... Wait... Do you mean that what I am doing today has been conditioned by a TV cartoon from my childhood?
_AM: No. I'm just saying it's been driven. You are not doing what you do because of a childhood drawing, because the potential of what you do, the information, was in you. However, your childhood idols awakened this information in you, which until today you had forgotten. It is thanks to the love of saving the planet since you were a child and saw this drawing on television that you remembered everything, that you were able to discover the potential of the elements, their philosophy, and how to use them today.
_I: So, the Magic Bus makes me understand what I'm doing now. The teacher had a bus in which she took the children on excursions to learn biology, science, history, all things through adventures in which the bus became small or large to enter a body or go to space. There you learned many things, in a fun way, on a journey with your imagination. And I'm realizing now that I feel like the teacher of the magic bus!
_AM: Another of the impulses of your life. Pablo Miquet, Captain Planet, Magic Bus, Power Rangers, Animals, Education, Nature... All of this has been surrounding you in your childhood, giving you the drive to do what you do today. "What do you want to be when you grow up?".
_I: …I want to be, what I am Today. I just realized that I'm doing what I wanted to be when I was a kid...
_AM: I see that your eyes have just been wet with certain tears of joy as you write. In the desire to move forward and want to become things that you still know how to become, you had never allowed yourself to look back and remember your question. "What do I want to be when I am older?". You have realized now that your inner child allows himself to laugh and play even at 33 years old, because you have dedicated your life to making his dreams come true. You have become your childhood idols. But not everyone has had the same luck. Many have forgotten this question. They have forgotten to remember that to be happy in life you have to be like the child who dreams, who falls in love with existence. Look back and ask yourself the questions: “What did you want to be when you were children? What did you want to become? When you saw the world around you, what motivated you to say: I want to help!?” What we will be in our lives is determined by what we admire, even if we fail to do it. Well, the frustration of having a life that does not meet the expectations we seek is nothing more than the reaction of those hurt and silent children inside.
_I: I have to ask myself what motivated me as a child, and consider doing it again. Age does not matter. Allowing myself to do something that as a child I would have wanted to do when I was older revitalizes who I am and will give me the strength to become what I hope to be in the future today...
_AM: The only reason why many people do not manage to transform their lives into what they expect of them is because they want to imitate their idols, not become them. But the real reason is because they have lost children's ability to imagine. The potential is in you, but it will not awaken through the sacrifice of the adult but through the play of childhood. So, Matías, what do you want to be when you grow up?
_I: I want to be one of those who transforms society, I want to be someone who awakens a new politics, a new system. I want to transform my country, so that it is an example to the world.
_AM: Dream, then, without sacrifice. Dream because your inner child is the creator. You have discovered that you are today what you as a child hoped to be when you grew up. Now your older self can dream about what it will be like as an old man. The impulse is there, you just have to let it out. Dare to be that child again.
_I: From my heart, when I think about this, the heartbeat begins, as if I felt in love...
_AM: Because children fall in love with life, with great things, with imagination, with surprise and magic. Nothing is impossible, everything is possible. There are no limits to the capabilities of the child's mind. But the adult, in his sacrificial limitations, not only restricts imagination and love, but also silences the minds and enthusiasm of children, destroying their dreams with “it can't be done,” or “you will be an adult and you will understand that life is not possible.” It’s so simple.” Then, dreams begin to be limited, and you stop hoping to be an astronaut to have the dream of being able to go on vacation for 15 days this summer or have your stroller paid for in installments. The adult conforms, and begins to eliminate the wills of the child, the only one capable of freeing you and turning you into everything you are capable of being. Have you never thought: if adults are serious and responsible, why is the world so bad and yet they have the nerve to call children irresponsible?
_I: Yes, it is somewhat illogical.
_AM: The Heart is the center of expansion, an organ that distributes everything you receive to the rest of the body so that everyone can express themselves and fulfill their function. The heart, then, is the organ of Service, of dedication, of unconditionality, and that is why it is from the heart that one awakens the Child who without limitations hopes to be someone who makes a difference, creating wonders, living the magic, sharing his imagination, dreaming of being as powerful as the idols he admires. So go back for a moment to your childhood, between the ages of 7 and 14, when you began to look at the world, and want to be someone in it.
_I: And they don't have to be big things, right?
_AM: Oh no, anything goes. Not everyone came with the dream of saving the world, and yet, doing what they have dreamed of doing, whatever it may be, is how they will save it. I ask all of you the question: “What did you want to be when you grew up?”, write all this, write who your idols were, who you admired, maybe it was a relative, or maybe an artist, maybe the baker, maybe to the president. Remember what you wanted to be when you grew up and see if you are. Ask yourself if your inner child still wants to be what he wanted, and how that makes you feel. The only way to be who you want to be in your life is if you listen to that boy or girl that you have silenced for years inside you.
_I: Awakening the dream of my inner boy/girl, I stop having idols to become my own idol, contemplating myself and showing that child in me that I have been able to do it, giving him the strength so that together we can dream about our future.
_AM: And when you have achieved it, you will ask yourself again: “What do you want to be when you are even older?”
_I: I am driven towards service, and my greatest service is to fulfill the dream of my inner child.
_AM: Everything else that you set as your life mission will become possible from this first delivery of love. Dream again and set out to fulfill the dream that drives your heart.