Korrie becomes one of the people who helps me discover that the body is a gateway. Massage, physical awareness exercises and group work help me to feel what I feel instead of thinking what I feel (or thinking what I think, or thinking what I should be thinking, or feeling). I experience my first hallelujahs and that’s cool because Yes! I get it now! But it never takes long before—again—I don’t get it.

I’ve lost my footing. Achievement, recognition and all the stories I talked myself into, stories about being a good, creative, valuable person and so on… None of it brought me what I unconsciously hoped for.

Everything I was so sure of no longer feels true.

Everything that was going so well no longer goes.

Take race cycling. Until a few weeks ago, I spent my Sunday mornings vigorously participating in a weekly ‘tour de force’ with friends, that increasingly became about racing each other to smithereens. The sheer pleasure of cycling, the simple rush of physical exertion, the joy of almost flying over the road together… More and more, it had become about being first over the finish line.

Then came the emergency staircase. One Sunday later, I dropped out of the pack almost immediately. Quietly, I arrived at the café where we always have coffee at the end. Everyone was already on their second or third cup.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ one guy asked, puzzled.
—‘I couldn’t be bothered.’
I said it without looking at anyone and said no more.

A couple more times, I show up, but I don’t know why. Nor does my body. Every half-baked attempt to stay in the race fills my muscles with acid. ‘Enough!’ they seem to be screaming.

So, I stop racing.

I stop doing a lot of things.

To friends who want to know, I explain I can no longer pretend to like it all. That I no longer know how to behave. That everything that was so normal for so long now feels alien. Sometimes, there’s a sigh of recognition; sometimes, we end up having a sincere conversation; sometimes, we even laugh. But most of the time, I get a foggy look. They don’t get it. And who am I to judge them, because what exactly is it that I’m getting?

There is one thing I get, and it scares me: almost everything I vigorously did, joined, and pursued for so many years has become meaningless. Racing on a bike, drinking beer, following the so-called news, talking about things I think I should know about, going to parties, leading a ‘social’ life, building a career… All the building blocks I called ‘my life’ are crumbling. 

And the space created by all that crumbling? Man… it feels fucking uncomfortable. I don’t know what to do with it and want to know quickly. So I search and search and search, and in spirituality, I find a new foothold. I listen to spiritual teachings and mimic them as loftily as I can, sometimes because they resonate with me, sometimes because I think I should resonate with them.

‘You’ve put up some beautiful imaginary posters, Mundo,’ says one of the people I meet as I wobble through. ‘I especially like the one with Buddha on it. But you’re still looking outside of yourself.’

He hits the nail on the head, but the hitting doesn’t stop me from looking for the real, authentic Mundo.

Luckily, my search has a figurehead, an example I can hang on to and look up to: my still-business-partner Steven. Steven knows how the world works, and Steven knows how I work—better than I do. So I listen to Steven, follow Steven, meditate with Steven, start talking like Steven, start acting like Steven.

And I’m going to continue ‘being’ an online entrepreneur because that’s what I want.

Oh? Really?