The theory of energetic predators.
My grandfather was the most positive person I have ever met. His light-filled any room he was in. He has been gone for a few years now, and I don’t know how he manages, but he continues to bring me his wisdom from heaven.
A few days ago, we went to clean my grandfather’s house, and my mother found, in the barn, behind a brick that was moving, some notebooks inside a plastic bag so the humidity would not spoil the paper.
In them, my grandfather wrote a kind of secret diary where he reflected on the things he could not speak aloud.
My grandfather was born in 1927 and was taught early on not to show weakness. He had eight children to raise, and I guess his way of showing vulnerability during the war and subsequent military dictatorship was to write in cheap notebooks and hide them behind a loose brick in the wall.
I have been re-reading some entries in those notebooks and found many wisdom gems, but one strange theory blew my mind.
I have translated it from Spanish to English as written in the notebook. I have only given it the structure of an article to improve its comprehension.
Here it is.
February 14, 2001
I have realized why my neighbors are gossipy: loneliness drives their apparent curiosity about the lives of others.
They need to talk to anyone about anything so they don’t feel left out of the tribe.
Because life throws us out of the masked ball when we reach a certain age.
And we all need to feel part of something. That’s why my neighbors have this almost violent thirst for company, and they stand at the window of their house waiting to see you pass by to ask you things like, “How are your kids?” “Have you seen X or Y person?” “Is your old knee hurting?.”
They want to hold on to anything so loneliness doesn’t eat them whole.
We are energetic predators.
If you overeat, you get sick. You have to process the food. But if you don’t eat anything, you die.
It’s the same with the energy that people seem to give off.
I need to eat off that energy by socializing with others. Not too much, so that I don’t get too full. But enough if I don’t want sadness to take over my days.
Everyone has a different energy predator inside them with specific needs, but we all share the same truth: “Eat less emotional energy than you need, and you will be malnourished and make mistakes.”
And you don’t want to make mistakes and end up eating anything.
That happens to me when I don’t talk to a friend for a long time, and then my tongue gets loose with the first one that passes by, and I tell him what I shouldn’t.
However, it is convenient to stay hungry to feel like having more.
That’s why I don’t play cards at the bar daily.
The energy diet
To relate to others is a way to feed the soul, but you must know how to have a good diet.
And for this, you have to remember the following points.
- Watch what foods (people with whom we relate) make us sick and avoid them as the lactose intolerant has to eliminate milk from your diet. — I have found that I cannot spend much time with any of my daughters-in-law or my blood boils, and then I have a headache all afternoon.
- Having a specific hour to socialize as the one who eats at 2 pm daily helps you avoid eating (socializing with just anyone) anything between meals.
- Fast once in a while to cleanse your insides. Like when I spend a weekend away with the sheep, alone with myself. And I come home with renewed energy and eager to play with the grandchildren.
Last but not least
The older I get, the more company or social energy I need to eat and the less unpleasantness I endure. If my soul were a stomach, let’s say it has become capricious and delicate.
I am fortunate because I have so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren that there is always someone at home, filling with joy this old heart with little left to return to earth.
It all boils down to this simple phrase, “Life eats life.”
Conclusion
My grandfather is correct, and that being social creatures, we humans eat energetically from each other when we share our dramas and joys. And just as our stomachs suffer if we eat spicy chili, our souls suffer if we spend too much time with people who give us headaches.
Having schedules for socializing also avoids, as my grandfather rightly says, that we end up relating to anyone who crosses our path. — I have often started relationships with people I shouldn’t have because I have spent too much time alone.
The part in which my grandfather says that you have to have a middle ground is very appropriate because socializing will lose its rejuvenating effect if you are too friendly. After all, you generate tolerance.
A virtual hug
AG
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