The road Taken (so many times)
L'ironia del destino vuole che io sia ancora qui pensando a te
It has returned,
My very own ghost, the voice in my head that is not my own. I've learnt this.
It shakes me to my core.
Throws me off the trodden path if ever for a split second.
Because I forgot.
So many times that eventually I forgot how to really forget.
It is more like a feeling of something remembered than an actually memory.
Lodged in my amygdala, refusing removal except through lobotomy.
They say will-power is like Jesus,
it dies so that it can be restored.
Mine became a martyr on the cross more times than I care to admit,
I wonder how many times it can be resurrected?
And incessantly, inexorably, I wonder,
why my mind constantly chooses this same road.
Two roads diverge in a yellow wood.
And I, as it turns out, never take the one less traveled by.
Un gioco che non vinco mai
Wanting, never taking
Wishing, never doing
A description of me, but it is not me.
The more involved I get, the more distanced I act.
It's not logic, I suppose it is fear
or something similar.
Or am I setting myself up?
To always shoot just beside the goal,
But never truly fail?
After all this time
Am I the little coward?
A net to catch the word that escaped.
I say I like to read and write.
But that is not the whole story.
See, I belong to a rare group of people,with a strange fascination not only for the written word,
but for reading about reading and writing about writing.
The reason I am always quoting Jeanette Winterson, Hélène Cixous and Mario Vargas Llosa
is because they pull off one of the most brilliant acts:
They write about writing about writing.
And, for me, the truth is found in between each and every 'about'.
I am concerned with the places where fact meets fiction, where the latter becomes the former.
All truth lies, who said that?
With every layer, truth and fact are a little more diluted, a little more embedded in their story.
Vargas Llosa's La verdad de las mentiras explains why a good story is always a lie if the author is capable.
A veces sútil, a veces brutalmente, la ficción traiciona la vida,
Encapsulándola en una trama de palabras que la reducen de escala
y la ponen al alcance del lector.
{Sometimes subtle, sometimes brutally, fiction betrays life,
encapsulating it in a plot of words that diminish its scale,
putting it within reach of the reader}
Like a metaphor can illustrate a concept better than a clinically specified description,
so fiction explains life better than any well-intentioned professor.
We often think that finding truth is the key to everything.
And 'keeping things real' is the philosophy of people all over the world.
But rarely do we contemplate what we consider truth to be and how it is found.
And we never stop to think that reality might be a social-construction impossible to strive towards.
Whose reality?
I am drowning in inevitability, but it isn't truth.
on externalities.
Over coffee we got to talking about the past. About how everything changes.
This is what I fear, perhaps the most irrational fear of all.
Despite my settled existence right now,
and while a he was explaining how his garden had been changed by nature
for the last 30 years, I could see it all so clearly.
This is what I fear, perhaps the most irrational fear of all.
The thought of spending 30 years in the same house, the same garden.
How do people do it? without reinventing themselves, without changing?
Do they need the outside to stay fixed, while changing on the inside?
But, then again..
I once said I don't believe people don't change.
Then, coming from a bitter place, but maybe, there's something to it.
Is changing externalities just a cover up, to disguise the fact that we never really change?
Is escapism, in fact, not a bohemian lifestyle, but an illusive quest for... what?
Something better? Something bigger? Something?
Despite my settled existence right now,
in my mind I'm always searching, travelling, constantly changing.
Off to the next place, holding out for another adventure, an exciting opportunity, a challenge.
And I must come to terms with this duality or change.
externally?
Trust me, I'm telling you stories.
Certain things should not be thought, let alone put down in writing.
I am one of the lucky ones, indeed the girl with the golden hair.
I use the term Weltschmerz loosely, knowing it is not quite what I suffer from, but close enough.
Suddenly my life appears to me; neat, constrained, compartmentalized.
What does that make me?
Like how I should be satisfied with all that I am and that is my life.
And still, at times, when the world slows down slightly, I find myself in doubt.
I am one of the lucky ones, indeed the girl with the golden hair.
Responsible, good, successful at what I do.
Doing what I enjoy and am skilled at, all the while making good money.
Living comfortably, without worries and with opportunities everywhere to be found and seized.
Loved people around me- close and far- but they're out there.
I know all this, and yet, some nights..
I use the term Weltschmerz loosely, knowing it is not quite what I suffer from, but close enough.
Sure, I spend a lot of time dreaming, telling myself stories of other worlds, another time
but what takes up most space is the thought of everything I could be doing.
but what takes up most space is the thought of everything I could be doing.
Right here, in this world, this life.
Suddenly my life appears to me; neat, constrained, compartmentalized.
My choices artificial and their consequences nothing short of a punishment to endure.
Money in the bank and a self-illusive assurances that I am doing the right thing.
And perhaps I am.
But what if I am not?
What does that make me?
Nothing falls into the mouth of a sleeping fox.
despite everything.
(C) Wislawa Szymborska
The catharsis that comes when the story rushes out
What we think is fate is just two neuroses knowing they are a perfect match.
This thing about fate, what is it?
So unlikely, it must be better than fate.
Sometimes I think life would be better lived in short sentences.
No explanation, no details. Just a few lines, and that is it.
But then again, what am I doing here? Artificial living?
This thing about fate, what is it?
This desperate will to believe that we have no control.
I suppose it's discomforting to think of ourselves as wandering neuroses, but why kid ourselves?
Is it not more magnificent to imagine another neurosis, just like your own,
Casuallly aligning itself with you?
So unlikely, it must be better than fate.
So unlikely, in fact, that it simply does not come by.
Except it does. it comes in the form of sentences.
Everywhere I read. Everywhere I write.
I think, therefore I am not
I make promises to myself every day.
I tell myself to write more, write better, to really write.
Somehow, I put much more effort into these promises, than writing, passion and pride.
So I do other things.
Silent, shy promises and nobody can ever hold me to them.
I tell myself to write more, write better, to really write.
I say I will follow my dreams, go where my passions take me.
And I promise to be proud of myself, to always be myself,
even when it's inconvenient and problematic.
Somehow, I put much more effort into these promises, than writing, passion and pride.
I write occasionally, feel slightly passionate and sometimes catch myself putting myself down.
Rather than do, I think about doing.
I think so much about actions I should take, there's no space to actually do.
So I do other things.
And I keep thinking.
Promising.
some day.
some day.
here's a riddle for you.
I've always been more question than answer.
But, despite common belief, questions don't always want answers.
I ask questions I hope never to find the answers to.
Constantly asking and secretly hoping that you will, too.
I suppose it is a sign of a split personality.
I suppose it is demanding; never settling for what I know is there.
Always looking for more. Always asking (for) more.
But, despite common belief, questions don't always want answers.
Sometimes they simply want to be asked.
They crave the challenge, the twisting, turning, interpreting, erasing...
They crave the challenge, the twisting, turning, interpreting, erasing...
I ask questions I hope never to find the answers to.
It is frustrating for you that you cannot solve my riddles.
Because I do not want to be solved.
Enter: Me
Clouds gathering,
Substance of life, real and imagined,
The feeling is the same.
It is not safety, because I resent that. And it isn't comfort.
I suppose it is the feeling thay I am doing things right
For once, this is the sensation?
Surrounded by possibility it's easy to hope
And that's it, really.
The feeling that you can confide in your hope.
When someone asks you: What do you contain?
and you answer: 'an unexploaded dream', knowing it is true.
It is right there, ready to blow when the time is right.
Insisting on its right to become.
As I do now.
The weight of the world, the weight of a dream
Maybe it is the tension between longing and aloneness that I need.
It is the excitement I crave.
That point, where the opposing parties reconcile,
All my pasts blend together until I no longer know what has been and what I hope will be.
Or is that what we all do, all the time?
My own funicular railway, holding in balance the two things most likely to destroy me.
It is the excitement I crave.
The exhilaration of maybe, possibly, hopefully.
I need to know that perhaps it is written.
And I thought, for a second, that maybe, hopefully.
But every time a maybe is followed by a regret, the cost of possibility rises.
That point, where the opposing parties reconcile,
where a fight does not entail a goodbye and where a smile compensates for all the rest.
That is where my mind lingers. Be it real or not, I could not care less.
The heart writes its own story and it is rarely concerned with reality. Not mine.
All my pasts blend together until I no longer know what has been and what I hope will be.
Do I hope or do I pretend? Have I replaced dreams with fiction?
Can I create the place in which I wish I was and be happy there?
Does that free me? Is that wrong?
Or is that what we all do, all the time?
Close our eyes slightly, dream a little.
Et voilà.
Perhaps life is where imagination and action coexist?
Perhaps life is where imagination and action coexist?
You are only coming through in waves
your lips move, but I can't hear what you're saying.
I do not let myself think my thoughts out loud.
Unsettling.
Only, it is me.
My lips are moving and I know I am the one making noise,
but I still can't hear what I am saying.
Thoughts in the head are like words under water; distorted.
I do not let myself think my thoughts out loud.
There is no time and they are all meddled back in the junkyard of my mind,
unstructured, scattered and covered with a thin layer of doubt.
- what if I am wrong? If I am not true to myself? Am I not doing everything I can? What then?
Unsettling.
So I tuck them back inside. And I perform, like I know I can. Like I know I always do.
I accomplish, I achieve and I succeed.
But is that it?
Spiced vanilla
I pick up the round jar, not without knowingly admire it with a faint smile.
As you might when recognizing someone that you don't really know.
I open it, scoop up some of the cream and strart rubbing it onto my palms.
Just for a split second, the scent throws me off and I remember him.
From a time when I always used to smell like this and always, incessantly thought of him.
Contemplating the mysterious ways in which the world works, I put the lid back on. My hands are a little softer now, even if I am not. And the scent will soon be gone again.
Challenge accepted.
- The easiest thing in the world is to wallpaper yourself from head to foot
and put an armchair in your stomach.
- Sounds very uncomfortable
- Oh, it's very comfortable. That is why people do it.
Worldly worries.
Lately I am worried.
Easy access information makes every crime known and magnified,
Even on a more personal note, it is easy to get swept away by this current tsunami of pessimism,
The truth is we live in a time considerably more characterized by peace and tolerance than any other.
Today, in Colombia, Barack Obama claimed to be 'open to debating the US drug policy behind the Drug War.
We are better off, economically and health-wise, than ever before.
Dictators are overthrown, opposition rises for the first time in decolonized countries,
youth activist believe in their own power to change and they use it.
How can we see all these things and not be optimistic?
I do not pretend that the world is simple. I don't want it to be.
By the hatred, the rising suspicion, the economic arguments and most of all by the sense of resignation.
We think everything is getting worse, and admittedly, it is an easy mistake to make.
Easy access information makes every crime known and magnified,
leading us to think criminality is booming.
The financial crisis is unintelligible to most people and so we blame the European Union,
because none of this happened before, right?
The international (but prominently American) war on drugs is causing more harm than good,
The international (but prominently American) war on drugs is causing more harm than good,
and we think there is nothing we can do, because fighting leads us nowhere.
Even on a more personal note, it is easy to get swept away by this current tsunami of pessimism,
so detrimental and so fundamentally counter-productive.
The truth is we live in a time considerably more characterized by peace and tolerance than any other.
Steven Pinker's research shows that, despite our perception, violence has declined.
He shows how reason trumps violence, just as Voltaire said that 'stupidity generates cruelty'.
¨
In Europe, we seem to have forgotten the idea of the European unity. A collective mind.
In Europe, we seem to have forgotten the idea of the European unity. A collective mind.
When economy fails us, we do not blame the financial system, but the very idea of Europe.
Seventy years of peace cannot convince us, because we no longer remember what came before.
Centuries of wars, rewriting the European map before the ink had the time to dry.
Xenophobia and bancruptcy are serious problems,
but we must not let them take away our belief in a bigger context.
Our belief in Europe.
Today, in Colombia, Barack Obama claimed to be 'open to debating the US drug policy behind the Drug War.
And all over the world, leaders and experts are discussing drug policy from a new perspecting,
where the consequences are debated, rather than morality and good intentions.
People are aware.
We are better off, economically and health-wise, than ever before.
Dictators are overthrown, opposition rises for the first time in decolonized countries,
youth activist believe in their own power to change and they use it.
How can we see all these things and not be optimistic?
I do not pretend that the world is simple. I don't want it to be.
But neither am I ready to give up on the world.
We are not there yet, but we are travelling.
The destination might be less important.
