Tenth Page IV

 

Greensboro has welcomed a lot of us. For that I’m grateful.  We’re divided in several small groups because there are still some Venezuelans with the need of leader self proclamation. It is kind of understandable since the need to impress is strong. That seems to be part of how we are: we need to show something to impress. It doesn’t matter if it’s real, if it’s true, but if it can be used to impress.  That happens in Venezuela too, so many people who want to be the leader that they make difficult unify a bigger group. I suppose that this is happening all over the world now. I believe it is a part of our process and this may constitute a step forward we must take to get where we want to go and how we want to be. Only I don’t know it. I’m still figuring myself out. Let’s keep with this journey. Let’s keep listening to some good music. Let’s see if we will overcome the urge for showing on social media, and the impulse to pretend and post as well, like life is about good things only, and that what we do on those posts must fit in what is sold as cool, which we all seem to buy by the way. I’m going to wipe myself and take a nap.

 

Oil. One of the things Venezuela is known for is the oil reserves.  We grow up hearing that there is enough oil for 300 years. Nowadays Venezuelans are facing a gas shortage, and I read that they are importing it from Iran. I mean, seriously; it doesn’t make any sense at all.  Politics do that. Politicians can burn an entire industry to the ground. In our case, they only needed the help of the military. Some of them have become rich because of this alliance.  Unfortunately the people only can hope and pray. Enough fellow countrymen have died trying to face this situation with the illusion of a change. There’s no change. We stayed there until 2019 thinking something was going to change.  It didn’t.  It haven’t. It is very likely we might never go back. Let’s put some silence here. This won’t be part of any immigrant post. It might lie behind the cool things, who knows! The thing is that we're learning,  more like, we are relearning, and whatever it comes with it.

 

Sunday. Some coughing but not too much not to go out for a walk. The playground must be still wet. It’s going to be a carry time. I love it. I hope to keep myself strong enough to still carry my boy. I’m a papá pure. We have to deal with it. Doomscrolling, I’ve been talking about that in some way. It was interesting to know that people fall into it attempting to find something useful. I thought it was more like a vice, like smoking, despite the information against it, we still do it. In this case, it seems to be more like a trap. It could be. It makes sense, but the impulse of start scrolling is not always in the pursuit of illustration but more likely entertainment. The amusement of everyone else, projected through condensed pills of images and short texts, showing how their lives look like, and which you invited to take a look, even to make comments sometimes. That’s why we’re called followers. It is very accurate.  Still Sunday.  The afternoon is here giving me a voice o the TV and the expectation of the already made beef I got to avoid the work of cooking it. I don’t cook, my wife does, my mom does. It’s just a way to put it. Cooking can be like cleaning: to have to, and to want to, don’t meet at the same time. The sky is painted in gray. A rain is forecasted. This was a home weekend. It was boring, as boring as real life feels when money and time lacks. We’re left with excuses. Excuses to pretend how different would it be if only… if only… Our mantra as immigrants: if only! I’m thinking about Ghost’s lyric: are you on the level, are you ready to swear right here and right now. I’m ready to eat, and I was just told: help yourself.

Anendophasia, or no inner voice. Do you guys think it is why we jump towards social media? To find a relation between what we think and how would it be? Do you think we need to look over and scroll for a while to get the answers we’re not able to get by, for instance meditation? The study also says it affects only a ten percent of the population, but ten percent is quite a lot, I think. Who know about these things? Are politicians taking profit from something like this? 

Tenth page III

 

Should I have the coffee or have my lunch. I’ not sure. I’m not that hungry, I guess the coffee then. I had the pasta. I’m letting the coffee for later. The night is here, giving me some company,  but it’s time to abort. It’s time to go to the bathroom and see if I can take it from there. It’s tricky. Inspiration is not always invited and there seems to be a sort of misunderstanding between my disposition and the words I would like to convey; they hide from me when I need them served in this text. Overthink.  Overtime.  Overlooking. I’m not over. Not yet. I guess I’ll have to catch them on another occasion.

 

 

We are more prone to circumstances.  I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Circumstances make people move out. I never planned it, I never even imagined it. There are so many convictions we called them so jut because of the circumstances, and how easy we move along to something different. A friend of mine shared a video of a Venezuelan comedian I used to admire. Everything he said sounded to funny and smart. I loved him. I saw this video he shared and I found it boring, without any spark of wisdom. I didn’t even see the joke in it. I told him: estoy pure, but I know it wasn’t because I’m getting old, it was because the circumstances changed. I’m not that guy anymore,  I’m another person. I can see it when I read myself through these words. This is like a mirror, and as mirror I’m just reflecting what I am now. I don’t feel proud, but I don’t feel ashamed either.  Now I get it. So, for what this worth, if any bit at all, take a look at the circumstances that put you where you are now. You are that change, you are not what you think of yourself,  and certainly you are not what others think about you. You are the changes you have made of yourself.  See you later. I must deal with some conflicts.  It’s part of who I am now.  Afternoon is greeting, wearing gray just like yesterday.  I want a donut but it’s not good for the overweight. I get Muse in my ear, waiting for four o’clock to hit the road. I was thinking about a case, about those people who pay for hope and those who charge for the service. I was reading an add explaining – or promoting. It looked more like an offer – why we should hire them as preparers, (Yes, preparer is a job. The preparer of your case, your personal case in hands of strangers) I’m not sure of how this works out for the needed one. I want to believe that insecurity holds a debt and we must pay it in order to, let’s say, not to worry about things we don’t know how to solve. I was thinking about the impulse that make us pay first without trying to understand before it. For example: you pay a car mechanic when you realize you have no idea of what’s wrong with your vehicle, and it is likely on most situations you may be in. That’s fine. Why do you think you need to pay for filing a case? Well, not everyone feels comfortable filing their own case. Not everyone feels comfortable painting their own nails. Yes. Now I get. I’m sorry. I feel dumb now. This is the kind of things we fall into when we have some time, perhaps to do something you enjoy, something you stopped doing for the lack of time, and since you lost touch at it, you don’t know what to do.  I don’t know what to with this time left I have. I don’t know how to enjoy it. I’m always begging for a moment to write and, now that I have it, I play stupid with myself.  I don’t even want to think how many mistakes I am just leaving here only to follow an impulse of nothing, because these words are worthless, and worthless becomes the time wanted when having it. I wasn’t prepared for it. It’s better to want it but never have it. Thus I can justify myself on my countless procrastination.  We love to say we haven’t done this because of the circumstances,  again: circumstances.  See. Circumstances make wise or stupid. Only time will tell. Yes. Again,  who are we? What are we? What have we been so far? We have lost a lot. There’s a resentment on site and we need to hide it. Nobody wants to deal with it. Let’s have a drink instead. It was a great night. Hope again made its way and kept us going. We just need to hold on but it’s not easy. My ear, again. It’s cold. The day ended well. I had three donuts today. I feel guilty now. I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow it’s Friday, let’s see what’s for us.   Beers time. Friday night. The poor don’t get too many choices, but fortunately there’s something for alcohol, so I take it. We usually drown our sorrows like that. Just to forget for a while. To remember later. To make a space in time for relaxing.  I’m relaxed now. I was wondering if you are into me, or it just me that I imagine it. Let’s say it is so, and that it applies to many other things. So that smile I take for myself could just be a polite gesture, but I insist in taking it as a sort of flirt and then I make up a whole love story in my head, just because of that smile.  I get it. I’m not sad about it. I just wonder if it has been this way in the past too. We get to an age that our wondering is leaning more towards the how would have been rather than how would it be. I think it could be a symptom of middle age crisis, or not. May be this is just an exercise of mirroring thoughts through words. Do I have the words I need to see my thoughts in perspective? I’m trying to find it out. And you’re here with me, wondering where could I be taking you to. Too many unnecessary wondering written now. Let’s move on to the news, Venezuelan news. A few years ago, a guy was caught by foreign authorities since he was wanted for, among other things, money laundry on behalf Venezuelan regime. He was extradited to United States for justice. A big wave o news and opinions floated all over the internet  the media. The constant topic among immigrants: the guy will talk, the guy will snitch, this is end of Maduro’s era. The guy is free now and in Venezuela with his family, and also rich, perhaps even richer than he was when he was caught. I remember how powerful such an illusion was. People were making plans about when and what to do at their return. No one talks about it now. I don’t know if the silence represents the grief,  or if that is how we manifest our disappointment now, since social media doesn’t seem to hold such feelings on their posts anymore. No one wants to be labeled as hater, specially when most of the posts are about joy and good life, even if it’s not true. So the silence is grief, and pain at this time. I’m bringing this up because I read there is a new money launder from the government, and he is somewhat holding a contraposition over the one caught and freed. So the problem, as you see, is turning  deeper and deeper without any possible solution soon. 

Zero page II

 

Hello! It feels surreal to actually think you might be reading this. I still gravitate and wonder where all these thoughts go when I’m not thinking. You see, I find hard to get they are stored somewhere in my head like our mind features a type of hard disk. I find it hard because memories change, and they ended up attached to a feeling, a feeling that can turn into something else. For example, the anger linked to a moment can turn into resentment, or forgiveness, and so the memory. It’s almost impossible to keep it as it happened. Garcia Marquez said, or so I read, that life is not that one we lived but the one we remember, and how we remember it to tell others about it. I’m translating here. It might come out a little different, but you get me. Especially you! Yeah, the voices, but we’re not paying attention,  and I’m still hoping for the financial help. So how do we bring them up to context. That’s another one: context. Are we going to be understood soon?

 

Sunday night. Too much food. Too many beers. I feel like I can’t do what I must when sitting in the bathroom. The let go is not happening and there are things I have to do after. This is another episode of time discount. I’ve said already that the time spent while waiting in the car should be discounted. Well, this time Too. I’m going to stand up willing to come back again because I didn’t do it. I can wait a little longer, but I don’t know how much would it be.  It’s better to cut now and restart later, despite the hours of sleep. I will compromise them. There’s always something.  Something’s always wrong,  like the song. That’s so nineties,  right? Little problems germinated in our routines, so they can grow. We raise them, indeed. Somehow we are prone to keep them for a while before taking care of them. A problem is always a good topic to start a conversation, and when it is used for such purposes, it works out pretty well as catalyst to get people’s opinion and therefore judge them. Does she care about me? What was that she told me when I talked about my problem? It is time consuming and I’m not sure if we get any discount on it. I realized they are several the scenarios where we spend – waste – our time… and it won’t come back. I have this feeling that I could have spent it more wisely,  but then I check the phone and I read that I spend about ten hours weekly on social media. That’s enough evidence to understand why I’m getting dumber while I think I’m smarter.  It’s funny because in this case, our perception works as it does with a mirror: what you see is sort of beautified by idea of oneself in front of others. So we might not be as cute as we internally see ourselves, or even uglier, fatter, shorter, more repulsive than we actually think we are if that’s the case. Shall we be sad at it? Of course not. This is life and it shouldn’t be wasted through social media scrolling.  What if I’m repulsive? Try to understand why you are and before whom. There might be a chance you’re biased by the persistence of being accepted where you don’t belong, or feel related to. Am I biased? I have to discover it. Are these words biased? Absolutely. That’s why love writing.  Nobody cares about my thoughts but God, so I just write and write until I get rich or bored or both. In the meantime, poverty keeps me inside paragraphs of self acknowledgement. Learning how to look up while I’m down. I’ve been down for too long but I won’t complain. I know nothing else, and my concept of further is limited by my obligations,  so I just gravitate among the words I serve and the music I play for myself. Don’t get me wrong.  I have a lot of joy along with this. I have personal accomplishments and a beautiful family. So let’s keep this life going and provide whatever lies inside of me to tell about my people, and myself.  See you later.

 

A rainy morning.  Eggs are being cooked.  Coffee is brewing.  I haven’t been able to enjoy these magnesium nights. We’ll get to it. Back to 2023, the need to move was unavoidable.  This is forth place and we’ll probably keep going until we find the right one. Tuesday is on the move. I came early for work, I have just spent like forty minutes only on social media. I didn’t get anything from it: no news, no knowledge, no thoughts, just forty minutes away from my life. I’m hungry now. I was laughing at myself because every time I raise my arms the sweater I’m wearing goes up too and my belly gets exposed. This could be something when we’re chubby. We are always some sort ashamed for not having a better body. It is like social media, like smoking: we know what we have to do, only we don’t want to, and that opens up a variety of meanings. What do we want? We get this mix from our desires, our duties and the alienation of both. I need a coffee. Once again, I need another job. It would be great if it could be at writing but I’ve been bypassed too many times. I’ve been rejected more as a writer than as a lover, and I’ve been rejected at lot. So, back in here, back again to 2023. Winter was over and spring came full of hope. I was reading about the block chain technology. As many others, I also fell into the illusion of earning money without working too hard for it. I read about SEC and Tokens. To be honest, I have no clue. I still don’t understand it, but then it felt like wisdom granted from the Akhasic Records, everything looked so clear at that time. Now such knowledge seems to fade away like the smoke, like the faith. Like the money I earn from hard work.  This story won’t promise an end, perhaps closure; a closure of an era. We need to be able to look back and understand that we had to leave Venezuela. That despite how bad we miss Caracas, we had to tell her see you later, and later won’t be any soon. Let’s bring new music to our ears. Let’s contemplate our current surroundings.  There’s silence,  I can hear the fingers dancing on computer keyboards. Each cubicle is covered. A need for privacy. Someone doesn’t want to be seen nor head. The air-conditioning is fine. It’s raining outside. I can hear a few coughs from time to time. I close my eyes and go back… 

Tenth page II

 

Here we are. This should go before but I don’t know.  I have just failed a grammar test. I guess I won’t get any job at this since it seems I’m not good at all. That doesn’t keep from continuing here, specially now, that I’m this alone. I don’t want to get distracted from my sadness. I have to make something good out of it. Whatever it may be. I pick my nose meanwhile. There’s too much to take out, from my mind, from the closets of the house, and from my nose, of course. The variants of what you said are now pushed into what you may have meant, aiming to open up a void of possibilities, enforced then by celebrities and mass media. So it’s not what happened anymore but what certain celebrity said it happened. Those are the our sources now, and that is the extend of our research. Don’t get me wrong. I may have fallen into that as well. Specially when I feel this I-don’t-how-to-call-it need to keep scrolling on social media apps, even when I don’t want to – specially when I don’t want to – it seems there is some place in my mind stating that I can’t contemplate what I think anymore but keep myself busy on something else the new media pulls up.  It’s kind of like an occupation, like a parasite: something lives inside a needs to be fed, fed out of social media. Even when going to the bathroom, or in bed, not only when waiting. I went for a walk once in a park nearby. There was a WI-FI zone, and there were like twenty,  perhaps more, gathered there with their phones just to keep up with their apps. They didn’t look like they were working the way we see people on laptops at coffee shops. They were standing and focus on their phones. The parasite wouldn’t let them do the walk, or whatever they first wanted to do there that day. So this is how we are now.

It's to early to wake up. It’s Sunday, and it’s raining. I need to go back to bed. Sun is there nonetheless. It’s been quiet but also fine. I wanted to find some more about catfishing or block chain mindset but I ended up laughing at sexist jokes and the ex boyfriends of Taylor Swift. That’s the relevance of my feeds from social media. The accuracy of the algorithm based on my interest. You know what? I think it may be a lie. I have this idea inoculated; that the internet apps have refine all my searches and feeds based on my interests. That’s what I’m supposed to believe.  So I have somehow get convinced that show business and celebrities gossiping is actually an interest for me. I don’t think so. I don’t want to accept it. I prefer to accept the simulation theory first. I prefer to embrace that we are programmed and controlled, but not this. So whoever controls me, please. You know I don’t care about those things. Don’t keep me away from wisdom. Wisdom is my big time quest, and you know it. Take advantage of me and make me wiser, not dumber, please! It’s enough already living as poor, don’t add stupidity too, I beg. Silence. Silence and whispers. Whispers of names and plans. Unmade plans. Plans turned into wishes, into merely desires drowned in a sip of wine, or thrown after a sigh of smoke. They go away. The get mixed with all those letters and messages floating in the air. They get confused with someone else’s.  Everyone has got plans thrown as desires: throw back Thursday,  throw again Monday: it may be why it get blue. I still got the blues, not only Gary… and my legs are getting numb from such a long time sitting in the restroom.  I feel like I’m going to be sick. I feel as I was wiping, as I was talking my pants on. I need a pill. I need money.  I’m tired of running after commitments. Salary vanishes as my once plans now desires. My imagination works hard on creating these parallel worlds. Worlds in which I’m successful and desired. I better get back to work. My second office, this is where I let go so many of my inside burden, either through my fingers or my ass. I was thinking about these posts status that only last twenty four hours, and how many hidden dedications they lie beneath. The fact that I post a message “randomly”, because what it says it worth the sharing, because this is what we do at the end: share. It just doesn’t match with our words, with our lives. But that’s how we want to be seen, to be understood,  as the living being that pledges and gets inside those words, those messages.  I don’t know what I’m looking for with this hurry over social apps. I first open them, and then nothing. What do I want to find? In case I do find something, it may not be good. Good things come unnoticed,  unexpected,  mostly.  Unless you had already worked for it, but that’s another story,  right? I expect to learn how to refrain from too much distraction and focus on what matters: my family,  my people. Those who I pretend to ignore. Conveniently, comfortably numb is in my ear, one, yes, I’m still working.  In fact, I shouldn’t be writing this now, but then when? Yeah, the drama and the dilemma. Our always picturesque sense and view of life…  I’m losing it. It’s hot but it’s not summer. In fact,  it’s going to rain soon, but it’s sunny now. Again, waiting in the car. Like I said it before, this has to be refunded from our lives. It’s just not fair to waste on waiting.  This should be rewarded somehow, someday, something good should happen. Alcohol can not always be the diluent of bad memories. There must be something more, else, further, along, and at least. Toddler’s shout out loud inside the car, while waiting. Only to make it funnier. Again: picturesque. I’ve got to go back!