Children and Life

Don’t tell your kids how great Life is, or they’ll just be in for constant disappointment. Tell them how much it sucks. Then every single positive will be like a little victory. 

Pick-up / Drop-off

I found a 1-cent coin on the floor of the plane. I thought to myself ‘nice, a classic lucky find!’, so I picked it up, and then immediately and inadvertently let it slip from my fingers, back on the floor, somewhere I couldn’t find it.

And then I realized what a sadly appropriate metaphor for my life this is.

Having the Balls

(You’ll have to excuse me.  My mind never stops, and if I don’t get stuff out, I’ll literally go nuts. So this is the first “random” post, but it’s definitely not going to be the last).

I was thinking in the shower just now… When it comes to testicular cancer prevention, they tell us men, not unlike for women and breast cancer, to regularly feel our testicles to check if there could be any abnormal bumps or growths. Now I was thinking just now, do we really need to be told to do that??  I mean, if you’re a guy (and again, I’m gonna assume that it’s similar for women), if you don’t feel or play with your balls once in a while of your own accord, there’s something wrong with you!  It kinda comes naturally, really!

Style Check: Cyberpunk

Today I did something I very rarely do: I went to the bookstore and hung out there, looking at various books, researching, educating myself on authors and styles.

I usually go to the bookstore when I have a very specific book I want to buy and I never really stay. But today, I decided I would dive into the fascinating world of classic science-fiction literature, starting with iconic authors Philip K. Dick (Do androids dream of electric sheep?, which became the movie Blade Runner), and William Gibson (Neuromancer, credited with being one the starting points of the Cyberpunk culture), all while listening to the haunting Blade Runner soundtrack as I was walking the streets.

It was a rare moment of feeling really good, feeling like I was finally discovering another big thing into which to sink my teeth for the foreseeable future. I brought back a copy of Gibson’s Neuromancer, and Dick’s Breakfast at Twilight.  Very much looking forward to those reads.

I have been revisiting the cyberpunk and “future noir” styles recently in movies, books, games and general artistic works, with a brand new perspective. These styles sort of came about and grew roughly at the same time as me, and therefore I was still too young to understand while they were the “new big thing” during the 80’s. But revisiting this now is very interesting, because I now have the maturity to understand, and at the same time, I recognize a lot of of elements that I grew up with without knowing that they were part of that bigger whole. So it feels a bit like I am finally catching up to my past (which happened to be a vision of our future  :P ).

Ah and it feels good to write something positive for once.  :)  I will keep you posted on how this foray goes!

Suicide is real. When you’re thinking of suicide, you’re actually making sense. It means you DO need to kill off a part of your being that is holding you back somehow. Holding you back from loving, from enjoying life, from being all you can be. You do need to kill off THAT part of your being. Just not the whole thing. That’s the nuance.

— Someone I know

When you reach a certain age, you realize the things that crushed you then don’t crush you now: the loneliness of a Friday night alone at home, someone telling you they don’t love you any more, souring the promise of something old or souring something new. You understand the tendency of self-defeat exists only as long as you want it to so you can excuse yourself when you curl up in the back of a friend’s van and whisper that yes, boys do cry, and you write a poem about it when you get home and you never read it to the person that showed you proof in the mirror that boys do cry.

— 
—J Bradley, All Around the City (via ignify)

(Source: iheartfailure.net)

P: “I’m asking you to do a leap of faith. Just trust me, don’t ask questions.”
Me: “Sorry man. I’ve lost all faith that I can leap at all.

Happy fucking Holidays

Last year, after a very rough 2010, I wished for 2011 to be a fresh start where I would manage to get back on my feet, dust myself off and keep climbing.

Unfortunately, though, that didn’t happen. In fact, 2011 ended up being even worse than 2010, which frankly, I didn’t think was possible. I went from being at the bottom of the barrel, to making a hole through it and going even deeper into the ground.

So this year, I am not planning or hoping for anything about 2012 (save for perhaps that ridiculous possibility that everything might end). I’m gonna keep expectations as low as humanly possible. I have nothing looking up at this point anyways.

If I can just remain able to bear living through the year, it will already be an accomplishment (and frankly, I have absolutely NO intention of doing that if things remain as low as they are now).

As for Christmas… well, for the second year in a row, it can kiss my ass. And I can’t stress that enough. There are 2 things that need to end with that bullshit: 1- overconsumption, and 2- shoving “happiness” down peoples’ throats.  If things aren’t going well for me, or around me, don’t try to cheer me up artificially with fucking songs and decorations. If I’m just a little blue because my socks don’t match today, it might work. But if I lost someone this year, or lost a job, or am broke, or ill… I don’t wanna hear about it. I don’t wanna see it. But I can’t fucking avoid it.  That needs to end.

Where’s home?

Here’s a change of subject.

I’ve lived abroad for quite a few years.  This year, I came back to my hometown, mainly because of work (I had originally left for work also). I had primed myself, thinking that the opportunity I had was amazing, and that surely after all these years, the place had to have changed quite a bit that it would be like a new discovery.

Unfortunately it was nothing like that. I probably should have known. In retrospect, I think I had simply led myself to believe my own BS, simply because to a certain extent, I didn’t have that much of a choice to come back. But it was disastrous. Everything worked against me, and I ended up leaving my post after just a few months. Not to mention all the trouble of relocating, and the general feeling that actually, nothing had changed, and that everything that had made me leave (in big part, the fact that nothing is moving, socially, economically, culturally) was still definitely there.

As I’m writing this, I am still in my hometown, but luck has it that I’ve been getting calls to relocate elsewhere once again. This time though, it’s a place I’ve never thought about, or even particularly fancied. But it’s another good professional opportunity. It might also be another great chance to turn my fortunes around once again.

Which begs the question: do I have to be elsewhere to be happy? What makes it so difficult for me to tolerate the quirks of my own homeland, when I can tolerate and work more easily around those of another? Is it because I identify myself so closely with my homeland that I can barely separate the two? Is it something akin to not being able to look while someone you love is hurting themselves?

And how can I define home, then?  In what had become my adoptive country over the last few years, I had come to take the issues more and more at heart, which made me more and more impatient and critical. But after living there for so long, it’s only normal that this would happen. So when/where do I end up peaceful enough to say I can live with whatever is happening around me and not let it affect me so profoundly?

I have been wondering where my home is supposed to be for at least 10 years already. It seems I still haven’t found a clear answer. What’s more, it seems like I am close to repeating the same story again. I can’t always be running (away?) like this.  I am not getting any younger.

This is where the saying “home is where the heart is” pops into my mind. In which case I guess I should probably be looking for a person, rather than a place.

I don’t know how to name this one

I was talking to my sister today.  She broke up with her boyfriend of 4 years 2 weeks ago. She was saying things like  ”it’s sad, in a way”, and acting like it almost happened to someone else.  I know this defense mechanism quite well.  Regardless though, she looked all happy and “liberated”.

So is that how it works?  Or is that just a temporary relief from being free of something?  Someone has to cry in the dark and someone else is having the time of their life?  Ever been on either end?

I’m tired of hearing myself talk about this. I do have other things to talk about. But this still takes most of my energy and heart. Shame. Especially considering it’s been more than a year now. Heck, I’ve even been with other people since then… and yet, my heart still hurts.

I’ll talk about other things soon. 

I’m really tired…