Why write this blog

My photo
It is a way of giving my other self, my unconscious and perhaps artistic self, a way of expressing itself, and thereby helping me working things out. It is somewhat cathartic in a positive way. :)

30 August, 2009

Through the night 'till dawn

Coffee was drunk, sleep bypassed, words were written somewhere.
One wonders what the long-term impact is of our actions. What one can only do, I suppose, is be true to oneself and hope for the best. One may or may not take risks. Everyone struggles with these kinds of doubts and insecurities. Some people worry so much that they become unable to act, at all, for fear of the unknown.
I have conquered most of my fears, at least of this kind, a long time ago. I tend to act if I feel the need is justified, or if I am prone to do it by my feelings. I have once heard that sometimes it is right to do the wrong thing, and I absolutely agree with that.
Therefore it follows (in a moment of Descartes) that one should always act even if we have a sneaky suspicion that it may be the stupid thing, because regardless, you should do what you feel, and maybe, just maybe, in the long-term it may turn up to have been the right thing.
Or was all that just oxymoronic?
Coffee is needed to ward off the sleep. Words are coming out here.
But it is this duality, and contradiction, and ambiguity that shapes our life and defines who we are. As a species, we are not only smart, but smart enough to be aware that we are smart. It is our greatest gift and our greatest curse. The ultimate double-edged sword of our existence.
Anyway. All this to say that things were said that may have been too deep and too revealing for comfort. It is perhaps best to be left in blissful ignorance sometimes. What is not possible, is to believe and think, that once certain things have come to pass you can go back to the way things were. They never are. Words, and events, and feelings change who you are as a person, and those changes, however minute, imply a behavioural change as a result. It can be imperceptible or it can be very noticeable indeed, and yet, unless you are a great actor you cannot disguise it.
More coffee is being drunk. Will sleep come? Words, however, may not be said again in other places...

The Apparent Normality

It's funny that I consider myself such an honest person and abhor dishonesty and compromise, and yet I can put up such a facade of normality. I looked like I was even cheerful at one point. I have refined the art of work/home separation to such an extent that I believe people at work do not know or have a clue, who the real me is. I am so different at work due to the nature of it, dealing with people and staff on a daily basis that I cannot be my normal self if I am to perform and provide the service I am paid to do. And I cannot get out of it, because I have other people dependant on me, family, I won't get into it, which means I can't just drop my job and move on somewhere else. I am sold myself at work, forced to do things that I don't necessarily believe in.
I think to a certain extent, because I have had to create this alternative persona, I kinda almost try to compensate on my private life and try my real self to be as different from this work persona as possible, if possible having gone too far the other side.
Seriously, I cannot honestly say that I am that different, but a lot of little things are different. The way I force myself to speak to someone, or the forced smile and happy-looking disposition that is certainly a cover, an enforced creation. A while back I tried to be myself at work, and that did not work at all, so I took a look at how people reacted and tried to change acccordingly to get the desired reactions.
Hmm, I wonder if I could learn something from that on my everyday life...
Then again, I want and need people to like and respect me to such an extent so that I can tell them what to do. Privately I want people to like me for I am, is that so much to ask? I don't think it should be. But then again what I tend to believe in seems to put me in a minority, which is a great shame, I know so many people that put so much effort and time at being someone they're not that they can never get an honest relationship with someone.
But what do I know? Between the wallowing and the self-analysis, the pragmatism and frustration I think I may in the end have become a cynic. And maybe that is not so good.

28 August, 2009

The cat is out of the bag

And it came to pass that in the end I could not keep my big gob shut and the beans were spilt. I am not sure how I feel about it, but I guess a mix of relief and aprehension.
Relief because I do not like to hold feelings in, and having spoken somehow feel better for it. I am Portuguese and we are by nature a very emotional people. Yet I live in England in which people are by nature quite closed in the feelings department and talking about things is frowned upon. I do like to let it out and talk about it and analyse it and recriminate if need be and shout and argue and release the passion that shows I can still feel.
I am also apprehensive as this will prove to be a the point of separation, a new relationship will emerge from this and I don't know if I will be to handle it or will I like what it will become. It is the proverbial leap into the unknown but I fear that it is to be in a place like the purgatory, not quite in hell but with a chance of heaven, all the while waiting in limbo for what is to come, who knows for how long.
I came through and I was upfront. In this world where being frontal and direct and blunt is regarded as impolite, potentially rude, somewhat imprudent or just downright crazy. It certainly does not comply with the rules of modern society and current notions of decorum. I suppose though that that is exactly what I stand for, and that probably makes me strange. My good friend will recall many a discussion we have had about this topic, but I still haven't changed my mind, who wants to be normal anyway?
This way of being and approaching things from an odd angle has taken me to where I am today. At present it is not much but I do have the consolation of not having sold my soul, who know what the future holds in store? I was told by someone once that this particular way of life is what will set me apart from others. Well, ain't that the truth. Whether it is a good thing or not, remains to be seen. To the future and the unknown I await with my soul and principles intact.
Yours truly, I remain, and leave with something that I read :
"O Melancholy, linger here awhile!
  O  Music, Music, breathe despondingly!
O Echo, Echo, from some sombre isle,
   Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us - O sigh!
Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile;
   Lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily,
And make a pale light in your cypress glooms,
   Tinting with silver wan your marble tombs."
Keats

Oh it's real alright!

So. I started the blog. The demons are being exorcised. I slept on it. For a couple of hours I managed to not think about it. I did really well. I am going to a friends birthday party tomorrow, I thought that was gonna distract me.
And lo and behold it all comes crashing back in moment. Because of a sentence. Talk about messing with a guy's head.
Better still, women that are so adept at not saying what they mean expect us to play fair, and when we don't, they get all upset and feign concerned surprise.
I really thought that leaving it all well alone and giving it time and write my blog would allow me to get on with it. But no. And thus, by an incredible art of cunning, the ball has been firmly panted on my side, and I am to either explain myself or face the misery of causing anger and hurt to the last person I would want to.
How do you deal with that? Like Cypher said in the Matrix: "Jeesus, what a mindjob!"

27 August, 2009

Real or not

Something I find fascinating is the way I can still laugh at something even though I am sad, or depressed, or empty. I mean, when I have time to think about things and let my mind wander those feelings surface and are so real that I almost can't breathe. Yet, when I am concentrating on something else I can still laugh.
I mean I shouldn't be laughing right? I am quit sad. Yet I do, it is a strange and in a way wonderful but disturbing thing. How can two conflicting emotions live side by side so explicitly and remorselessly? Is it something in me? Is it because I don't feel anything no way near as intensely as before? No, that cannot be the answer because I have experienced this duality before. The reality of the situation surprises you like a rainbow after a rainy day. Amidst all the sadness and confusion and frustration there is still strength left inside to laugh and keep going and carry on with your live.
It's a strange parallel I find with the film Sex and the City I watched recently, the corniest film ever, but even that is surely based in life and life experiences. When something that brakes you heart happens you think it is the end of the world, or you want to think that it is because you cannot envisage a way forward, and yet the way comes to you somehow regardless.
As somebody once said, Life finds a way, maybe it's a survival mechanism our genes have developed over the aeons to deal with unexpected and unpredictable change.

Current wallow

Which takes me to my present situation. To the current state of emptiness and self-pity.
CENSORED But describing the situation would not only be tedious and predictable and cliché it would be extremely boring.
I rather mope and complain about the state of things.
CENSORED  
This state of willingful blindness is to me at once incomprehensible and unfair. Why are some people allowed to get away with murder? Why are decent people overlooked in favor of bullies? Worst of all, you tend to generally get it in the neck later, when you are listening to their whining and complaining of why it always happened to them, and no sooner are you trying to be comforting and supportive, but only for a very short time after that they go off with the same character once again and you wonder why you bothered. It's like a spiral you cannot get out of. Worse still, those people and women that you like and or fall in love with are normally close to you, and you get to experience their "adventures" with somebody else first hand, as if having a broken heart wasn't already bad enough.
It's not fair, it's not right, and it sucks big time. Why should we always be the ones to look away? Just because we have an ounce of common decency that should not be an excuse for others to be exponentially cruel, unintentionally and unconsciously or not.
Women of the world, get with it. Work it out. Look around you. There are probably people that actually do care and like you, if you only you were to see it.
Do you know what the funny thing after only this is? This time around I thought I would be feeling much worse. I have fallen in love before, and for different reasons, it didn't work out. But I felt angry. Or very sad. I felt a lot. Now I don't. It kinda reminds me of a line in this song by the Smashing Pumpkins: "The more you grow, the less you feel." I don't think I have understood that until now. That is the fallacious ambivalence of my feelings: sadness without despair, despair without anger, anger without passion. A new state of being.
I'll leave now with the immortal words of Under the Bridge by the Chillis:
"It's hard to believe
That there's nobody out there
It's hard to believe
That I'm all alone
At least I have her love
The city she loves me
Lonely as I am
Together we cry"

Why wallow

The reason of my blogging is to exorcise my demons. I could have done it any other number of ways. As explained previously, this time they didn't work, so I turned to writing. Nevertheless, I feel I have not yet addressed the reason for wallowing and make that the theme of my writing.
I was just thinking whilst my kettle was boiling that "Don't think about it" closely followed by "It'll be alright, just give it time" must be the worst expression ever after "Let's be friends".
Why shouldn't I think about it? Why shouldn't I go over and over it in my mind? Why shouldn't it I analyze it in my head exhaustively? I want to think and dwell and obsess. It's not healthy, some may say, well, so what? Neither are cigarettes or booze or sex with strangers, but we don't do it for the health benefits. Why can't we deal with sadness and despair by talking about it? Why do I have to listen to a cheery tune whilst I feel horrible? You'll feel better about it, maybe so, but the problem will still be there though won't it?
I know friends and people are only trying to help and they have to say things like that, I mean, they have to say something, I am sure in the past I have said those things to myself, but they aren't any comfort. I want someone that will tell it to me straight and not patronise me with clichés. Someone that will know me and know what I respond to, I am lucky in that respect, as I do have people like that in my life, alas, I have chosen to live many miles, countries and seas away from them.
I want to wallow. And vent. And shout. And be silent and quiet in the corner. How many people ask you if you're ok and are content with the answer I'm alright when you're quiet clearly not? What was the point in the first place except to satisfy their own perceived idea of being polite and nice.
Well, I don't want nice, not anymore. It doesn't take you anywhere.

Start of the beginning - The wallowing

Ok, so this is it. I am writing a blog. And as the title evidently shows, it will be an exercise in self-pity and a world-wide sharing of my personal view, feelings and sorrows.
It is a very personal blog.
It will be, or so I hope, an expiation and purge of my rage, despair, frustration, disappointment, sadness et all.
It has come about very strangely. CENSORED
Anyways, more specifically, I've decided to write it, as my normal way of dealing with these feelings has so far failed to satisfy me and left me still empty and clueless on how to move forward.
I tried everything else. A chat with a good friend, that did help me. She introduced me to Californication, the series not the album. Besides the copious amounts of sex in it I related to the character played by D. Duchovny, aka Mulder. The parallels are as loose as the differences, the character is a writer I wanted to be one, he writes a blog because he can't write, I wrote one because I haven't written.
Then, there was music. And football. CENSORED I would normally at this point just play a bit of Football Manager or another computer game, and I would start to feel not necessarily better but able to cope and move on.
Somehow, today I just don't feel like it. It could be that I'm older and becoming old. It could be that I feel I should be doing more to do something with my life. I'm not sure, but this time it has just hit me in a different more all-envolving way. I cannot move on and shake off the emptiness. True, I have had some pretty tough couple of months but I have had worse, much worse. Ok, I admit a couple of those I did not cope very well, but I felt a fight in me.
Now, just the emptiness.
Writing, has, in the past, been of help. I maintained a journal of sorts a few years back, albeit for only a couple of weeks. I attempted to write my ideas about friends and friendship another time, about 8/9 pages. I even had devised and structured a science fiction novel, with main characters which never took off. The laziness, again.
I went for a walk yesterday, alone with my thoughts. It didn't help much. It was quite enjoyable which was not the point, I was hoping to be even more miserable and have some kind of epiphany, but it didn't happen. Mainly, because I was actually distracted by memories, smells and prettiness. The point, nevertheless, remains. Yesterday, as today, what was left was nothing, just the emptiness.
This is the first post, but I'm still not content with my wallowing, further explanations must be in order, and further purging must occur, today. I'm gonna get a coffee first, it's only my fourth, I should be ok.