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 November, 2012

Everything ends

Everything comes to an end, eventually, even time and the universe according to some physicists.

Life goes on they say. It's true. There is a circle of life, of events, an inexorable passage of time where things are not meant to last.

How long of course it depends on perception, time as we all know is relative, thanks Albert.

Lives end, loves are lost, matter transforms. There's little that's immutable.

I could talk about some deep philosophical matters right here right now.
But I'm not. I'm gonna talk about triviality and daily life and daily routines.

I love television. Almost as much as I love books. Although very few television programs touch me deeply because it's hard to make a connection, with actors you've seen in other stuff, and with something you watch weekly. But I've had a few. ER without a doubt was my first, when Dr. Green fell ill and eventually died of cancer it was like it was somebody I knew. The West Wing was another incredible show that when it ended I knew there was a void that would be difficult to fill. The Wire I loved but because each series was a contained story it didn't feel too bad.

Books there's been plenty. Lord of the Rings. Baxter's Xelee sequence or the Manifold trilogy or pretty much every series he's wrote. Single volume novels also, Hundred years of solitude, Eleven minutes, and so many others, when I read I get into the story, if the book is really good I get into it fully and completely. I love books and I love reading, always have, since I was a little kid, since I remember me being myself I've always had my head buried in books. That will never go away and nothing will ever change my relationship with books.

Television is different, it's more immediate, there's faces, real people, body language, great acting. And it takes you there quicker. Sometimes in an episode, sometimes in a film or even a documentary or news, but when we say television, we mean serialised TV.

And Friday Night Lights is up there for me. I can't explain it. I think perhaps it's the tone of the whole thing. Maybe it's the storylines or the acting or the characters. It could be the seemingly accurate portrayal of midland America. Maybe it's the whole thing.

I don't know. I think there is a wistfulness that it resonates with what I currently feel, the theme of lost opportunities buy with a tenuous semblance of hope that just keeps you going, a kind of understated minimal optimism that somehow things will work out, even if you don't know how or simple because they have to. Or you have to believe they have to to carry on.

Whatever it is I'm going to miss it. It's going to leave a hole in my life. I'm going to watch its last episode now, it's been great.

27 November, 2012

The past shapes us

I told my friend that I was reading this thing the other day, that made me realise a lot of why I am the way I am, I may have suspected it but never thought of it that way or so clearly.

It was actually in an otherwise funny website, where they write stuff like the best 5 movie endings, or technology you wouldn't believe it's real, but there's this one guy that writes loads about things that have happened to him, and one of the articles was something like: "5 things about you that shows you come from a dysfunctional family" and I swear at least I could see myself in two of those and possibly a third one.

All this to say that I never fully realised how much growing up in that environment shaped what I am, good and bad, it was revealing and disturbing, it explained and it left me with the certainty that I'd had issues and wondering whether I still have them and whether I should, sometime, need therapy to properly confront and overcome them.

That and confirming the fact, without a shadow of a doubt now, that I came from a dysfunctional family. I always knew, and know the issues, but it is also true that growing up a lot of things you just think are normal, aren't. Not the beatings of course, or the shouting, but other more subtle things that you didn't think about.

24 November, 2012

Algarve 2009

Lembro-me bem desse dia, desse tempo, dessa semana.
Lembro-me de praticamente tudo. Do Sol, maravilhoso, do meu Portugal. Do teu impacto M, não não tu M, a outra M! :)
Lembro-me pois é uma memória tão vívida que seria capaz de re-criar a nossa conversa quase palavra por palavra, consigo ver-nos os três sentados naquela pastelaria no fórum, até me lembro em que cadeiras cada um de nós estava. Foi a primeira, de muitas, conversas que tivemos ao longo destes últimos três anos, conversas que no seu conjunto tem tido o condão de me, acordar acho que é o termo mais certo.
Lembro-me do andar na Lagoa, de vê-lo pela primeira vez, do cheiro, da luz, até me lembro do cheiro do shampô que usei que sempre me leva a recordar essa semana.
Lembro-me de Lagoa e de Vale de Centianes. Acho que até então tinham passado três ou quatro anos que eu tinha estado numa praia. Lembro-me de me lembrar do quanto gosto de estar ao pé do mar, de ouvir as ondas e sentir o quente do sol na pele enquanto forajo na areia com os pés. Lembro-me especialmente do silêncio e da calma. Frequentemente, agora, quando preciso de relaxar, forço-me a ficar quieto e voltar à praia de Centianes. É por tudo isto que quero sempre ir àquela praia, não porque seja melhor que qualquer outra, mas porque tem um significado tão importante e pessoal para mim. Tradição importa, o passado importa, e relações com a tradição importam. Mas é um balanço delicado, entre não ficar preso no passado e viver o presente, entre firmar novas memórias e recordações e manter um laço com o que passou, com o que é e foi importante, pois é normal repetirmos um comportamento se fazermos aquilo que nos faz felizes. E isto é tão mais importante com pessoas, amigos família e outros mais que tais.
Mas digrido.
Lembro-me também da angústia e da tristeza e do desespero.
Tinha sido um Verão... interessante digamos. Muito aconteceu, bom e mau, e desesperante. Sentimentos foram agredidos e corações partidos.
Lembro-me de me sentar e escrever tudo o que me ia na cabeça, tudo o que sentia. Lembro-me também que decidi escrever, fisicamente. O pensamento fica se utilizamos papel e caneta ou um computador ou um telefone, mas é diferente escrever, mesmo, fisicamente. Não o faço frequentemente. Gosto da ideia que posso partilhar as minhas divagações através deste meio que é o blog e dou demasiado preguiçoso para escrever e depois digitar tudo novamente, e, no entanto, foi exactamente isso que fiz nessa semana em Novembro há três anos.
Porque precisava de escrever, com a minha mão, em folhas de papel, com a minha escrita. Necessitava disso, e do silêncio e da calma e da isolação e do sol, e nem sequer o sabia, só olhando agora o consigo perceber.
Lembro-me de ouvir a Comercial e os Cromos lá, pela primeira vez, e também isso me leva de volta a esse tempo e a essa semana.
Foi uma semana seminal. Por tudo. E tanta coisa mo recorda. Uma canção, um cheiro, uma lembrança, um pensamento.

Mas... agora, ás vezes, ao mesmo tempo, me assusta um bocado, relembrar, e reviver algumas dessas emoções. Começo a não querer revivê-las, acho.

Apesar disso, há outras memórias do Algarve, que formei, e formámos, desde então, na sua grande maioria boas e em grande parte excelentes. Nunca esquecerei aqueles quatro dias em Abril de 2011, foi um fim-de-semana incrível.

Tudo volta ao início, a Novembro 2010. Nessa semana que fez um sol e um calor inesperado para a época, especialmente para mim, 18 graus é calor e para quem não tinha ido à praia há tanto tempo ou Verão em Portugal e tais temperaturas há pelo 6 anos. Todos os meus hábitos quando aí vou de férias, e estou sozinho, foram desenvolvidos nessa semana.
Lembro-me da esplanada do café da esquina (Café Rodrigo?), esse especificamente porque era perto da estação de camionetas que me levaria à praia e tinha um esplanada e poucos carros a passar e internet wi-fi. Lembro-me de lá sentar com o meu pastel de nata e café e a minha toalha. Lembro-me porque passei essa semana de calções e de toalha na mão e com o jornal debaixo do braço ou um livro.
Lembro-me de ter perdido as chaves! De me ter sentido inútil e embaraçado e de não acreditar que tinha num instante traído a confiança de alguém que mal conhecia mas que instantaneamente sentira que era alguém especial. Lembro-me da bondade, do vizinho com a sua paciência, e da senhora da churrascaria, que me deixou lá sentar até o vizinho F regressar. Por isso o frango da churrascaria Restaurante Sant'ana é uma tradição com significado.

Lembro-me. Lembro-me dessa semana muito bem. Desse primeiro dia. E de escrever no teu quarto M, ou melhor, no vosso quarto, sentado no "puff" ou bean bag. Lembro-me do sol.

Lembro-me. Lembro-me das memórias.

Lembro-me. Lembro-me que a partir dessa semana me tenho refeito.

18 November, 2012

FNL & being XXXV

It's strange, this life I'm living.
I wake up I go to work I come back get some food watch TV.
As usual when I start waking up at a regular time for a few weeks I start waking up at that same time even when I don't have work.
So, when I don't have work, I wake up, get some food watch TV or play some games then get dinner and watch TV again. I love watching TV, I don't have a problem with it, it's easy I can do it for hours.
There's certain shows I love, and I watch some quality TV. Different program's elicit different responses in me. They can make me laugh or think or travel to different places or dream.

I don't like watching soaps, but I guess some TV series are a bit like soaps.
I have recently discovered Friday Night Lights and I love that show. For lots of reasons and not necessarily the obvious ones. Even though it's set in deep American country with all it's idiosyncrasies and issues it shows a truer side of America than most and I love that and I kinda makes me fall in love with America all over again. When I watch it now, it makes me feel and sigh and reflect. But when I hear its opening music it also makes me sad and alone, deeply sad at my loneliness.

It's strange, last weekend for no other major reason other than a phone conversation with a friend and night out with another I felt pretty happy and confident and I had a couple of really nice days.

But then my daily reality comes back and I get really sick of telling people that no I don't have plans today, or for this weekend, again. Because that's my life.

Or that even when people ask me to do stuff I refuse, because I can't.

Or sometimes I refuse because I simply cannot be bothered. I know that this is wrong and it's the way to depression, isolation is a sure fire thing to get a little bit paranoid and obsessed with certain thoughts. But sometimes I really just want to do what I feel like. Even if it's staying at home or not doing what I'm invited to because it doesn't interest me. But I know when I do refuse, for every time I refuse I will not be asked again, and that time I may want to just leave the house. I'm just getting tired of doing these things that other people are interested in and I have no real keenness in it so that I can remain friends though. Is that truly friendship? Or am I just being selfish? Being selfish, both ways, for only wanting to do what I want and for pretending with my friends, because surely to pretend for the sole reason of not being alone is also a form of selfishness.

Alternatively, for whichever reason, I can refuse, and stay at home. But it's very depressing to have four days off and spend them watching TV and not leaving the house not seeing anyone. Currently however I have very little choice, I need to to be disciplined and look to the future. So I can rationalise it that way, and it is true.

The problem is I don't want to look too much into the future because I'm dead scared of what I see.

And what I see are more weekends like these, more days off like these. Because I will be alone and I will have no friends, or all my "friends" will have babies and children and lives that do not accommodate me and I will not fit in their puzzle, nor, to be fair, would I want to because it will remind me of what I don't have.

So when that music comes on, that beautiful song, I know I will enjoy the show and get lost in it, but for those few minutes it makes me deeply sad at my loneliness.

04 November, 2012

Have I stopped wanting?

Have I stopped wanting?
Wanting to be better?
Wanting to have a better life?
Wanting to not be afraid of the unknown?
Have I settled for all I can get instead of fighting for what I want?

But how can I fight for what I want if I don't know what is because I've stopped wanting?

03 November, 2012

Keeping away from the edge, just

It's the third of November, early hours of the morning. I have been getting a bit sad lately. I know I'm holding my life with strings. I felt that I may be ready to write again. Write the deciding moments follow up post. Writing always helps me.

Two months ago to this day I wrote my last post. I just realised I hadn't published it, it's out there now, together with another one written a couple of days beforehand.

And it all came back. How close I was to losing it. I was on my last legs. It has only been two months but some hope has been restored, some confidence has returned. I can see a way out but I am extremely aware how feeble and tenuous the situation is.

Nonetheless, most of those feelings are there still, they haven't gone away. There hasn't been a magic wand moment. I can still feel so afraid at how fragile it all is and I don't know how I'm holding it all together. In fact I'm scared of even thinking about it and making it real.

I want to just hide it all away. Cover my ears and be distracted. Hoping that it will, magically, go away. Thinking is bad. For me it means obsessing. So I can't do it. I'll just live through books and television and video games. They are my refuge. Keeping me safe from my insanities and insecurities and hopelessness.

I just need to hold to that thought, that faint hope, that maybe there is a way and just follow that road.