Neculai Fântânaru
Everything Depends on Who Leads
Everything Depends on Who Leads
Suddenly, my eyelids feel heavy. I can't control this strange state that grips me. The quill slips from my hand, leaving a tear of ink on the parchment that pulsates with a life of its own. My head falls slowly onto the solid wooden table, and the sound of this fall is completely swallowed by the sacred silence of the monastery. Something is happening to me, something that I can't explain to myself through the usual laws of existence, a "Transmigratio Conscientiae" that changes my perception of reality. Each moment is just an echo of the one before.
Then, as if everything had been written in advance in the book of my destiny, I wake up... but not really. I find myself in the same familiar room, but now everything seems to vibrate with an ancient energy that does not belong to this dimension, that does not obey human time. The parchment on the table begins to fill itself with letters, like living shadows that struggle to the rhythm of a music heard only by them, in harmony with the unseen breath of the universe. I try to get up, to look at the sky above me, but I discover with horror that I am trapped in a temporal loop with no way out.
The eyelids become gates to a forbidden world. If I try to leave this cursed room, to open the door, to break through the walls, I find myself again at the same table, with the quill still warm in my trembling hand, writing without my will the same mysterious words, repeated obsessively: "Deus per somnia loquitur" - God speaks through dreams. Each letter I trace seems to be dictated by a voice coming from the depths of a cosmic consciousness that I do not understand, nor can I comprehend with my mind, but which I feel pulsating through every fiber of my being.
I am reminded of the protagonist of a story by Jorge Luis Borges, who discovers an infinite library. Here, each book contains every possible combination of letters, including the absolute truth about the universe. But this truth comes with a price: the one who finds it remains in the library for eternity, becoming part of the infinite archive of knowledge himself. And that is exactly what I feel at this moment of great crossroads: that I have become the guardian of a secret that also guards me, caught in a relationship of interdependence that I cannot break without losing my essence.
With a clarity that terrifies me, I realize that the parchment I am transcribing contains a Maleficium Scientiae , an ancient curse: ultimate knowledge can only be obtained through the sacrifice of ordinary reality. It is not just a simple copyist's job that I perform, but an involuntary initiation ritual that transforms me into the guardian of a universal secret, condemned as if to write for eternity in a dream from which the only apparent escape is the complete oblivion of all I have learned and become.
But is it really a condemnation or the highest form of blessing? For in each endless cycle of this long dream, I understand more about the nature of reality, the hidden fabric of the universe, the subtle connections between all things... but I lose something of who I was before. It is a process of cognitive metamorphosis in which my old identity melts away to make way for an expanded consciousness, encompassing truths that the ordinary mind cannot process. What is the point of running away if the road always leads back?
In the novel "The Name of the Rose" there is a mysterious manuscript that hides a deadly secret. Those who try to decipher it are caught in a game of knowledge that leads to their destruction. William of Baskerville discovers the forbidden manuscript in the library, which seems to have a life of its own and a curse that destroys those who read it, but he manages to escape alive and elucidate the mystery of the crimes with the help of reason stemming from the knowledge of books. Logic becomes a weapon against darkness, and discernment, a shield against fear. Therefore, the ultimate knowledge comes with a sacrifice of reality, because it cuts you off from the world and forces you to live on the threshold between light and oblivion.
The monastery seemed a place consumed by mystery and protected by shadows. My dilemma was between forgetting the truth in order to survive or remaining captive in infinite secrets. Like the scene in Umberto Eco's novel, the text written as if by an invisible hand had become a gateway to the power to reveal the hidden structure of the world, but at the cost of the life and mind of the one who reads it. Suddenly, I began to feel a deep peace, that solemn silence that comes only after I have agreed to give up who I was before. The dream flowed unhindered, while the parchment wrote itself about me, and I could only watch helplessly and give voice to the words born without my will.
Only one question troubled my mind: would I be able to escape through complete oblivion, returning to the comfortable ignorance of before, or would I remain conscious in this liminal space where infinite knowledge was inscribed through me in the great book of the universe? After all, the question was no longer about freedom or imprisonment, but about the meaning of my existence in the service of truth.
With this in mind, I understood that there is no real choice. There is only acceptance of the role for which I have been prepared throughout my entire previous life. After all, I am only a scribe who has found his calling in writing eternity, my dream not being a prison, but a sanctuary where the primordial truth finds expression through my transfigured consciousness. But if God speaks only through dreams, who else has ears to listen to Him?
The Law of the Sacred Seal can be formulated as follows: "He who reveals the secret of Truth is no longer its master, but becomes forever the seal through which it is revealed to the world." At the same time, it shows us that certain forms of knowledge are not intended to be possessed, but to possess us, transforming us into conscious instruments of their manifestation in the world.
As for the dream from which I could not escape, it is not a trap, but a consecration, for I have become the living archivist of the secrets of infinite knowledge. And the final question, which I ask myself now with all responsibility, is not whether to escape the dream, but whether I am worthy to remain in eternity, serving the absolute truth that has chosen to manifest itself through me.
For some are called only to live, others to know as much as possible. And I was chosen to be the bridge between these two dimensions of existence, writing for eternity the story of a knowledge that is embodied in eternity through my being.
* Note: Enigma - Sadeness - Part i (Official Video)
Why read this book? Because it is critical to optimizing your performance. Because it reveals the main coordinates after that are build the character and skills of the leaders, highlighting what it is important for them to increase their influence.
The essential characteristic of this book in comparison with others on the market in the same domain is that it describes through examples the ideal competences of a leader. I never claimed that it's easy to become a good leader, but if people will...
For some leaders, "leading" resembles more to a chess game, a game of cleverness and perspicacity; for others it means a game of chance, a game they think they can win every time risking and betting everything on a single card.
I wrote this book that conjoins in a simple way personal development with leadership, just like a puzzle, where you have to match all the given pieces in order to recompose the general image.
The aim of this book is to offer you information through concrete examples and to show you how to obtain the capacity to make others see things from the same angle as you.
Without considering it a concord, the book is representing the try of an ordinary man - the author - who through simple words, facts and usual examples instills to the ordinary man courage and optimism in his own quest to be his own master and who knows... maybe even a leader.
