Autopsychography
The poet is a faker
Who’s so good at his act
He even fakes the pain
Of pain he feels in fact.
And those who read his words
Will feel in what he wrote
Neither of the pains he has
But just the one they don’t.
And so around its track
This thing called the heart winds,
A little clockwork train
To entertain our minds.
Fernando Pessoa (himself)
I think I need to stop blogging at night. I feel like writing about ordinary things, but my thoughts dont seem to allow me to write simple. I wonder why I just cant keep it simple. It may be because I´m usually tired and it is hard to put thoughts in order like that. Maybe I just can´t write… or maybe I wonder too much!
What I mentioned about the life I have chosen was simply the fact that I live by myself. And I work for anything I want in life. Alone. And you know what? I´m free, and this is wonderful! I like what I do, where I work, where I live. But sometimes this is scary. As in, if I need support, I´m the only one I can count with. Actually everyone´s life is like that. But the presence of family and supporting parents give the idea of protection. But I´m not complaining.
I think what most Brazilians worry now is about the economic situation in the country. The price of the dollar is going skyrocketing. We´ll have presidential elections this year, and everyone now worries about what will come next. People still fear the dark shadow left by Argentina. I have been postponing some projects to wait and see how things are going to turn out. And most of the people have been doing the same too. It is nothing hard now. But we´re starting to feel something is around the corner. And sincerely. I do hope it is something good.
I want to share another poem by Fernando Pessoa. Just as a complement…
At Times I Have
At times I have happy ideas,
Ideas suddenly happy, in among ideas
And the words in which they naturally shake free …
After writing, I read …
What made me write that?
Where have I been to find that?
Where did that come to me from? It is better than
me …
Shall we have been, in the world, at the most, pen
and ink
With which somebody writes properly what we here
jot?…
(18.12.1934)
translated from Fernando Pessoa by J.Griffin
My current lifestile is considerable different than others, and I resist feeling self-conscience about this today. I Try to remember that I chose the life I have for specific reasons. Even if I’ve come to a point that I am considering a change, there is no need to feel badly, ashamed or embarrassed about where I´m at now. Everyone has to make their own way and if this conforms to the norm, that’s fine. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too.
Right now I´m sleepless. At almost 1 am, listening to Deep Forest, it has came to mind how thoughts are deep as well. I do try not to get lost in the amount of theories I´v learned, neither bitter by the failures and defects I´ve got. I´ve been just trying to be glad for the experiences I´ve had, while hoping deeply I´m always able to live new ones- and keep learning from them as well. Oh, God, I wish I were not feeling old! I know I´m not. Guess I´m just afraid of not living enough for all the things I want to do and know, and love, and learn… feel…
Maybe, I just need to go to bed.
om sairam!
Delicious routines- what seems monotonous is not always
bad.
If a marriage is not fine, one usually blames routine.
If one lacks motivation: “It´s routine”. If the
creativity of a company is low, they also mention
routine.
This bad fame, that associates the word to everything
that´s tedious- bureaucracy, accommodation, monotony,
mediocrity- does not refer other kinds of routines,
some even vital.
A couple of friends of mine, go to Paris and some other
place every year. It is always like that: Paris and
another city in Europe during Spring. Monotonous, isn’t
it? God…
Some virtues are associated to routine: security,
harmony, standard of quality, reliability, etc . To
some, those may seem outdated values, but they are far
from being useless.
Routine is the constant beat. Life depends on it. In the
heart, it is called rhythm; take this away and we die.
The body has its routine, and it´s this routine, the
body repeated cycles that enables fecundity , appetite,
and love…
Have you ever thought of how tiring it would be if the
heart bit out of rhythm? If it were like that, how would
one know when one is in love? Holy heart syntony!
Imagine if the stomach didn’t perform its routine : how
odd would it be eating without the pleasure of the
appetite?
And love? It has its sacred days dates: our beloved
ones´birthdays, wedding anniversaries, Valentines Days,
Christmas, New Year…On all these dates, people feel
special, and gift one another… routinely….
The stars, the Sun, The Moon, the planets all have their
routines of billion of years. Without it be of
horoscopes, the sunsets, the tides, the serenades? What
about music without the pace of the rhythm? Our mornings
without the good old coffee and milk, bread and butter?
Would there be the new, without the routine? Yes,
because newness is everything that is not routine.
So, why blame routine like that? I guess it is
mediocrity that people refer to. To incompetence and
lack of creativity. It is not because of making love
just on Saturdays that a couple fights on the following
day :it is because it was not that good.
Even nature has its great creative routine: summer,
with its heat and tanned bodies; autumn, and its winds
raking the leaves after the harvests; winter and the dry
cold and bright days, when earth and seeds rest; and
spring, with its flowers and the hopes of new blossoms-
and then it starts all over again, year after year, in
eternal routine. This is life.
The old saying, “You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” is very true, and I´ve learned all about it during those vacation days.
My mind is in a period of great activity, and my curiosity about the world around me is practically insatiable. I´ve been interested in anything and everything. I want to be able to understand everything from the most simple things to the most complicated. I feel nothing could get in the way of my thirst for knowledge. I got today a good supply of books about the things I would like to learn about. I went to Cultura ‘megabookstore’ and spent some good time there. Even found some nice self learning books about hindi!
So both intellectual and artistic work take up a lot of my time. The level of inspiration is high, and I´m apt to be full of ideas that others also find beneficial. This not only increases my standing careerwise, it also helps me in all areas I´m interested in.
When mind is well, work of all kinds gets done a lot faster and better. Specially when friends or family members join in assisting and being near somehow. I´ve made this possible because my intellect has joined with my emotions in strengthening my communication with others.
I´ve attended some social events of some kind, and actually dropped in to visit my family more often. Friendships and group affiliations could prove supportive and satisfying right now and you should feel pretty secure with them. I´ve just had a great weekend with some old and nice friends I´ve greatfully managed to gather. This is a great time to sign up for classes, particularly those involving the arts. Remember the drawing course I mentioned some blogs ago? Ok, it´ll start in some weeks and I just can´t wait to see that happen!
I feel both energy and enthusiasm are high, this is a good time to proof how valuable my work is and how efficient I can be. Again, I´ll just have to make sure that I don’t take on too much, however. I won’t be helping anyone if I tire myself out.
ps: vacation is over.. damn!
Staying in one´s own city during vacation is also good for the senses… I saw a documentary some days ago- Janela da Alma, Soul´s Window. It is one that mentions the look as a great link of communication. Its original idea is related to how the vision problems can interfere in people´s lives and personalities.
It is a sensitive and reflexive investigation of the soul through people´s vision and the lack of it. Nineteen people were interviewed, among known and unknown ones, with different degrees of visual deficiency. Each one spoke of how they see the world and themselves, opinions that reveal different landscapes as we watch it. The production was done in three years, time that the producers had led to consult historians, artists, physicists, philosophers, and professionals who work in the ophthalmology area.
This documentary has made me remember a book I read once. It is by Jose Saramago, a Portuguese writer. Blindness: a novel( guess not yet translated into English). In it, people from an ordinary city become blind all of a sudden. The story goes showing how those people seem to lose control of their principles. A very intriguing and yet tough-to-digest book, it drives the reader to re-evaluate most of nowadays moral values.
I also watched MIBII last weekend. NO news about that, as it seems to me that everyone decided to do so… Anyway, the film is very good. It has showed me people still can make good commercial films, with great cast, nice visual effects without being pathetic. Besides, it is as good as the first one. I did have a good time! Really liked that doggie….
Besides watching movies, I have started walking around São Paulo again. I´m not sure if it´s either because I haven´t done that for long or the city has changed much, but it seems the great grey giant is more charming. It may just be the way I see things now. Through my eyes, I see things in a more colorful and charming way. As I close them, the colors and light remain for some seconds, what makes me look for more sights, and walk for miles without minding the time.
You see this above? It is my license to blog! Hehehe… Hope it helps me whenever Xanga is down… Xanga has made me lose some blogs. Somehow did not feel like rewriting them. Guess I´ll wait till all gets back to normal.
One of the vantages of staying in a city like Sao Paulo
during one´s vacation, is the amount of features the
city offers. It has a different sense once the city is
less crowded.
There is a great number of shopping malls spread
throughout the city. In each of them, among the huge
array of stores, one can find pleasant areas to eat- and
lose some precious time trying to chose the fast food
restaurant of the day. There are also the movies..
there, right next to everyone. All those facilities in
one single place. Too comfortable, very convenient too.
On a day like today, a cold one- no more than 18ºC-
going to a mall is also a scape from the cold. There is
one quite next to home. In my neighborhood. I´m used to
go there and hang out with friends, students, and even
going alone. I went there today with a couple of
friends- we did try to watch MIB2, impossible!
Tickets were all sold out. Then we chose to watch The
Sum Of All Fears. Hmm..
I almost forgot to mention how nice it is to be able to ‘chose’ to stay at home. Spending the afternoon watching some video and just move the fingers in order to either change channels or turn the tv up and down is pretty nice too. 
I feel good…
Hhmm.. I dont know how to end this blog. By wishing you a
nice week? A nice day? Yes, that´s an acceptable way of
doing it, right?
Have a good week, you all!
I´ve always known that not everything depends on us. That sometimes you try, and try, and try, and nothing happens. I won´t say that I got nowhere trying to do the things I had wanted, but I have indeed gotten far from where I had desired to.
I have experienced a sensation of weakness when I realised that some choices didnt depend on me anymore. They didnt belong to me anymore. I took some time to think about what really belongs to me and I had a feeling of emptiness. That feeling one has when one knows there´s nothing left to do and I have accepted that.
With a blocked way, just for a while, I was forced to take another route. Another path. I have had a week among children. I had never been close to children till then, and what a nice experience that was! It has distracted me. It has made me laugh. I´ll miss them, they´ll return to Bahia tomorrow.
I won´t deny that I still miss the one that I´d like to be with. I still miss him. And I wont deny that there should be a law that prohibited people to run away with our hearts.
However, I won´t deny that as everything in life, this too will pass. If now I don´t have what I want, at least I do hope the future will give me that chance. I know I will work for that. And choose and change paths as many times as I need.
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