Sitting in the shade of a large carob next to his garden, like a judge considering an impassioned case for delivering a death sentence to intuition, Victor listened as Pablo enumerated every occasion in which he believed he had heard his inner voice, trusted in it, and, ultimately, acted upon on it. Each of those instances was being called seriously into question, and Pablo was all but demanding some sort of justice.
His hands folded in his lap, Victor remained silent throughout his young friend’s frustrated diatribe, neither making a gesture, responding to any questions—which, at any rate, were entirely rhetorical—nor offering any advice. He was acutely aware that what Pablo needed most was simply to be heard. Besides, given his emotional state, there was no way he would have actually been open to anything Victor might have said. As far as he was concerned, Victor may as well have been the very embodiment of intuition itself.
Instead, the old man let Pablo’s words fill the space between them like the dense mist overlaying the valley floor. Fortunately, the words, too, were susceptible to the dissipating effects of the advancing morning, which took stealth advantage of the ensuing silence, enveloping the two friends in an invigorating freshness that rose up from the ground, permeated the air, and infused the light with a crystalline vitality.
“I’m truly sorry,” Victor offered, once Pablo had regained his composure.
“Thanks,” Pablo replied, not only exhausted, but now self-conscious. “I just can’t believe that after everything that’s happened, I’ve gotten nowhere.”
“I can certainly understand why you’re upset, but—even given the circumstances—do you really believe that?”
“What else am I supposed to think?”
“Once again, I’m not sure that’s the question. You can think whatever you like. Whether your thoughts are rooted in any semblance of reality is something else altogether,” the old man remarked. “And given all you’re feeling, I for one have my doubts they would be. No, rather than what to think, I’d say the real question is what to do.”
“But that’s just it—I have no idea,” countered Pablo.
Victor paused, looking into the chaotic harmony of the tree canopy overhead as though to help formulate his response. Each branch reached for the sky as it fought for its place in the sun, competing with the others while complementing them, part of the same twisted, tangled, perfectly balanced whole, an ecstatic, verdant expression of life itself.
“It’s simple, really. Just like any other challenge, you confront this one head on.”
“And what challenge is that?” Pablo asked, doubting it was one he’d want to face.
“You have to decide whether you’re ready to go beyond simply trusting your intuition to having faith in it.”
Pablo could hardly believe his ears.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he challenged. “If trusting my intuition has gotten me nowhere, why would I want to have faith in it? And besides, what’s the difference?”
“If you’ve truly gotten nowhere, you’re absolutely right,” Victor replied. “As for the difference, I’d say trusting is believing in what your intuition is telling you here and now. It’s more immediate, concerned with the potential action at hand. Faith is further reaching—it requires more of you. It’s going beyond taking the guidance your intuition provides in the moment and believing in where it will lead you ultimately.”
Unconvinced, Pablo diverted his gaze. Halfheartedly struggling to make sense of Victor’s comments, he discovered that as the sun gradually burned off the mist, he could make out an occasional carob or olive tree, their faint silhouettes teasing him through the brume like a pair of kohl-adorned eyes from behind a muslin veil.
Go from trusting his intuition to having faith in it? Do more as opposed to less, when what he had done thus far had amounted to nothing? Far from being won over to Victor’s perspective, the more he thought about it, the more resentful he became.
“But what does that mean? My faith in what? Yeah, I know—my intuition. But I don’t even know what my intuition is. Not really. And even you can’t tell me. For all I know, it’s just my imagination! What I do know is that it has let me down. And that makes me wonder if I ever should have listened to—let alone trusted or now have faith in—it in the first place!”
Pablo’s voice was trembling.
“If I’m not going to Barcelona, what was the point? What was the point of any of it? All it did was set me up for an embarrassing failure. And now you’re telling me it’s another challenge. Well, I don’t want to deal with any more challenges. I just want to get out of here!”
“Pablo,” Victor began, “it’s not that, by following your intuition, you’re suddenly going to avoid all difficulty, that you’ll never get caught off guard by any of the countless surprises life can throw your way at any time. Instead, rather than somehow rendering you immune to life’s challenges, what your intuition can do is help you deal with them.”
“So, how do I deal with this?”
“You deal with this by not losing the faith you had when you decided to pursue the job in Barcelona. You deal with this by remembering how right it felt both when you made that decision and afterward, as things began to fall into place. You trust that, even now, things are continuing to fall into place—remembering that you can’t always know what it will look like when they do. In the meantime, now, like then, you take action.”
“But what if I’m still stuck here?”
“Then it’s your own fault!” Victor shot back, not mincing words. “As long as you equate not going to Barcelona with not going anywhere, then, yes, you’ll almost definitely be stuck in the village. But if we stop focusing on Barcelona, what’s happened over the past few weeks? You felt the call to leave and acted on it. Your mother supported your plans. Your cousin came back right when you needed him. You’ve been set up to leave—and you still are. That hasn’t changed.”
“What’s changed is I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Because you just got the news. You’re disappointed, which is only natural. All your hopes were pinned on Barcelona. Once the shock subsides, however, you’ll have to let it go, if you want to open yourself to what’s next.”