We all walk around as if we had been using invisible tags that define us. The tags become more visible in our profiles or resumes. We are dentists, engineers, father, mother, runners, crossfitters, right wing, left wing, rich, unemployed. The latter is almost synonymous of being nothing, of being non-existent in society. Do all those definitions can really define our existence?
Gisele Bunchen is for me one of the (few) celebrities that are really worthy of recognition. One of the best-paid models in fashion history, married to one of the highest paid players in American football history, she is the opposite of the stereotype of celebrities we see of her level. We do not see her on social medias with extravagant or strange clothes, or with her face plastered with makeup. Or posting a picture with a Starbucks cup with the wheel of a BMW in the background, or posting photos at some restaurant in Paris or a hotel in Santorini, or doing spa treatment. Despite all power, fortune and visibility she has, she is still a simple woman, honestly - not out of interest or media - engaged in human and environmental causes, such as the indigenous struggle and the preservation of the Amazon.
In an interview for Vogue this month Gisele Bunchen talked about being a model.
"I'm not a model, it's just a job that I do, a career that I have, it allowed me to see the world and I was paid for it, but it never defined me."
One of the eight elements - a kind of 10 commandments - of Buddhist philosophy is Right View, which consists of understanding life, having parameters to deal with reality. Having a correct vision means understanding that we are not our nationality, culture, political ideology, the expectations of others, or what we believe that others expect from our lives. If we define ourselves in this way, we will always be different from what we really are, becoming a victim of ourselves and others as well and the circumstances of life that change as much as the direction of the wind.
Therefore, we need to question ourselves, evaluate our thoughts and feelings and motivations to find a principle by which we live until we get to the bottom of the question of who and what we really are.
