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!

 

Zero Page

 

Where are we? Yes. Cruz Diez. I never took that picture. I always thought I was coming back. A half empty suitcase. I’m going to work hard, save some and start better this time. I guess thus is what many of us have in mind when it comes to this. An ambulance is passing by.  I hear it from the kitchen.  I’m cooking. A black coffee with no sugar so I don’t break the fasting I planned to complete last night. I broke it; free breakfast on the house. On the agency in this case. We can’t help the impulse of seizing whatever available for free. It’s in our nature. It doesn’t matter if you were born poor or middle class (by the way, now I know our middle class has more to do with other things aside from money, and that’s why, although poor as well, this middle class is still looking above the shoulder) as Venezuelans, when something is free. We must take it, and we must take it first. There are plenty of stories of pride and joy after seizing anything some other may have paid for. Even if it’s not true. The mood of the advantage must prevail at all cost. Nobody wants to tell a story where a potential spoil was not seized at its best. I could say that’s not in our culture. We seized when we can and when we can not, we make it happen then. We got in the plane. Some candies to share when we land. Miami first. After a short stop at Dominican Republic. We spent the night at the airport. Next flight was too early in the morning so it was not worthy the hotel room. North Carolina.  So different from Miami. Our temporary home,  or so we thought.  The excitement of the first visit, of being new at everything,  at anything. Almost five years of that day and almost five years of so many things that never came back, and never will. We didn’t know then several goodbyes were going to be forever.  Fue is now sounding in my ear. You think this is coincidence? I think it’s not. We’re living a movie someone already watched, the soundtrack is proving it. The eternal return. We play the song and play ourselves over and over, aiming to spot the detail we once missed. Then we laugh, smile, or cry. Cry is good, it’s sort of clean up from within.

 

It was March, I remember,  March the seventh, the power supply had gone, gone for almost four days. That’s how I remember it. Fourth days in Caracas not knowing about anyone. There we were; living a post-apocalyptic movie in our body. I think it was that what triggered our thoughts.  We've got to do something.  2019 was a terrible year. 2020 was Covid. Covid took us abroad, took us here, trying to figure out that this was a new life and not a time off from the crisis. Quite a word: crisis. It’s more like a burden, a burden that floats right behind you. Wherever you go, the burden goes as well. It’s kind of like a signature that certifies we come from the underdevelopment,  that it's what we are, what we know, and specially,  that we survived it. Now we are in spiritual and conceptual reset. Learning to live again. Times like these on my mind as I’m writing this.

 

We ran away. We had to, we had a story to share, we had threats to dodge, and a new life to take care of, to give our lives away for. I came out from the office and got some wine to sit and write. I was thinking how, and where this sort of tale should start. Let’s go to 2022, where Venezuelans were granted the chance to bring family. 2023 was a year of reunions, so many mothers holding their children again for the first time in years. Some others are still waiting for that to happen, wondering if they did something wrong and that’s why they haven’t been blessed that way.

Parents started coming and a new phenomenon rose: the new beginning of the new beginning.  It’s a bit like people’s age crisis, but with families. Another turn in their lives. Now it’s more evident who came here to start over, those who ran away from oppression, and who came here with money, disguised as runaways. Anything massive brings a lot of surprises.  It’s unavoidable.  It’s not our fault, it’s no one’s, actually.  The turned tables in politics are reflected in people’s steps.  Social media has a lot to do with it. Not mentioning all these series of influencers showing a lifestyle hard to believe it's based on publicity. I find it hard to believe.

 

A professor of the UCV was fined with four thousand something for the alteration of a building in the university to park his Ferrari.  Obviously such a news didn’t go unnoticed. How do we explain that to the world? How do we talk about inequity and this is in every front page when it comes to Venezuela? It’s a process. It’s like those times when the gas was unexplainably cheap. I bring this up because somehow I get that we don’t get it. This sort of news represents the dimension of a void we fall in when it comes to understand why we start over. Why we are this surreal. Yes, we are surreal, and surreal are our thoughts. Thoughts I want to chain and put them in some order so I can express myself through foreign words. This is my attempt to it. I have to go the bank first. It’s Thursday,  a Thursday to throw back and forth, of course. But it also feels like Friday. Or it’s just me that I didn’t get it well and I’m just pullulating around like nothing happened.  I’m afraid to ask. Let’s go to the bank first. It seems nothing happened indeed. So, 2023, another new beginning.  The relativism of the beliefs.  The deconstruction of the costumes; of our previous tryouts. New rehearsals and therefore new details spotted. New debts; debts over older debts. Existence dressed as survival – again – and some of that was what made us move. There you are, crisis. Let’s serve some words. Let’s find some context to at least try. Memory serves, I remember. 

Tenth Page

 

Robert Greene. I like this interview I’m watching.  He takes down this theory of finding your passion. He’s right. Whatever you end up loving start as something tedious and slow. Fun comes when you start feeling comfortable, and there is when it becomes a passion thing. So you can’t expect pleasure coming at first. You must commit yourself to the discipline it requires and comes along with it. Social media tries to sell you otherwise,  that’s perhaps why there’s too much envy spread out there. Couch guy mode. I had too much food. Now I feel a bit of regret. A regret I will forget tomorrow,  just as soon as I get hungry again. It was a fine dinner. A few likes for the pictures posted. Busy day at work tomorrow. I’m not sure if there will be time for written words. Air conditioning is the lead vocal of this silence band. A few drops from the faucet to break the rhythm. It's almost a reflex this way I have to come up with the sentences.  I can’t help it. I think over beats. Beats in my head mostly. There’s nothing to say, really.  As it happens when you have some time. Inspiration comes out of the sudden. I believe I’ve said it more than once. Let’s go to bed. Morning coffee. How long! I can’t write right now. I have to safe this moment fir the rest of the day. News about protests at universities. I don’t get them. Perhaps because I’m old and south-american, but most of these kids parents’ pay enormous fees to provide a better future for them (at least that’s what they believe, otherwise they were much less) and which a good part of that effort they spend protesting on things like war, or religion. Seriously? Something is missing to me there. I can’t even explain it well because I’m lacking of words in this language. I will stop right here because I must get ready for work. Coffee afternoon behind my desk. It went pretty good though. The day so far I mean. Tomorrow it should be even better. Thank you, God! Cute. There’s no doubt about it. And so she left. And I’m leaving as well.  Morning now. It’s tricky.  It looks I have some time but I’m not sure. I hear voices, the sound of the duty. Today is Labor Day in Venezuela,  only that is more like the Worker Day. It is actually commemorated in honor to those workers in Chicago who, I believe,  were killed because of what they fought for. I haven’t done the due research yet. Choices, when to pick the right one? It seems I never do it. Whatever I choose, the other option seems always a better one, it doesn’t matter what it may be. Unassertive at choosing.  I’m sorry! Monitoring. I love the term, whatever it means. I know it, it’s just that in my inner translator words like this one get lost in the possibilities of accuracy. Accurate is a fine word, indeed. I’ve said it already.  I know that. Cogito Ergo Sum: I’m thinking about it. I believe that what he meant – this is only me, delusional – was that only through thoughts we find the notion of existence. Whatever you want, and for some reason can’t have, sets an unexplainable void only understandable by the existence of oneself. It’s like the suffering, that’s how you get what you missed, what you lost. So the void explains the self, and the self is defined by our thoughts. That’s why there are so many thoughts after a disaster,  the explanation of the existence,  and whatever further, or beyond.  Venezuela’s disaster is making us think a lot. Now we get the existence of many things. We understand the multiplicity of sadness, and how words work as a channel for our silent thoughts. Enough of that. Birds start signing earlier. Tomorrow it’s pay day. A couple of things I think they’re good for me and for the text: we are at the top of the population,  and we were never overpopulated, in fact, we are about to start decreasing. Let’s enjoy being this many. Comfortably numb is about doing nothing over all these changes: pandemic could be an example of it. People love articulation, that’s why watching pictures and short videos have become a trend, specially including the tacit invitation, or suggestion perhaps,  that we may feel free to make up our own, and of course: share them to the world. Pasteurized charisma.  What are we doing to transcend? Do we even have to? All these Venezuelans who abandoned a whole life, are they transcending in the next country? Are we? Perhaps the phone is the link to a life, although extinguished, worth to remember… y recordar es vivir, right? We are now some sort of moving cabins who transport a soul full of memories, memories tight to a past gone. A past celebrated mostly through social media apps. Past exhibited to keep on living.  I smile at these words. This could be absurd, but I feel it. I feel it in my bones. It’s hot today!

 

There is this article that was discussed by a group of people which pointed out – and that’s what they were discussing – that chances increase according to the status. It was kind of cruel but real. Who will pay for these words? Are they even good? How can I know? Working class people don’t have much time for digging into literature styles or authors compare. Working class people can barely read a couple of book a month and that’s quite an accomplishment. The same thing with writing. I’m like the old school vinotinto players, play for pleasure and have another job. They played with their hearts, but never made it to the World Cup. I’m putting my soul here, and luckily it will end up in some blog on internet free to read. But I know that already. I knew it then. What the hell! This is more like an impulse. I let myself go through these words. I have to enjoy as much as I can. I may have to quit writing to get a part time in the evening.  Only just not yet. Son, let’s seize our moments together while we can. A time for crying must be coming soon. Once again, I love you! God, I’m yours. I trust you…

 

 

 

 

Nineth page V (Burde 'e Pure)

 

Estoy burde ‘e pure, my friends would say about any of us at this moment.  We’re not in our twenties anymore, not even in our thirties. Middle age crisis… welcome aboard! Intermittent fasting: again once more. Twelve hours to start lying to myself but that’s the beauty of this; I can keep trying until I get it. I tried today, and succeeded.  My first Twelve hours. So once again, let’s see. I was curious about this impulse of showing wealth through expensive brands, pictures at random posing with so famous clothing, I’m not sure who does that work out for, or what they are trying to convey. I’m in a age of simple correlations: expensive clothes equals high standards on the job. Money comes from somewhere, specially when earned.  A baseball player starts spending more when he gets the a rich contract, not before. So imagine all the bells you ring when, as an immigrant,  you post pictures like that. You will make a lot of people wonder about it. That’s none of my business but, let’s get this straight, it looks unfit. Let’s move on. Why am I bringing this up? Resentment perhaps.  I’m tired to work and owe and see others posting wealth on vulgar expensive brands of clothing.  Don’t look at them! Simple. I know, but how can I hold myself up to it? How do you ignore what you love to hate? Nietzsche pulled that up a little bit through Zarathustra. Envy makes my day, and I have a lot to envy every time I am in social media, and I am in social media a lot. I need a cure. I think about it too much and that is making me reduce my cosmovision, to a point where whatever I see posted, I think it has something to do with me. Today is great for being at the beach. That’s what I’d be doing if I weren’t this poor. I owe time and money, so I just stay home and drink to deal with failure. Laugh, I laugh and smile while these sentences take place. I’m kidding,  I’m grateful for how I am and for what I have. I’m just projecting towards me what I think it must be like envying on daily basis, and I sympathy for those people. It must be hard to grant your mood on other’s posts. It’s kind of like someone told me not so long ago:  this is how it works nowadays; either you exist virtually or don’t exist at all. I’m still trying to figure it out. In the meantime, I’m going to keep placing thoughts on this story, and see if it makes sense to anybody.

 

Let’s go back to Venezuela and our heroes, all of them from the military forces. We have never been in a war like, for instance the old Yugoslavia, not like that. We fought for the ideal of emancipation which was brainstormed by the sons of the high class back then, and they were, or at least people close to them, the ones who wrote our history,  poetically,  heroically,  worth to admire for ever and ever. That’s how we learned it at school. It seems only a minority wonder why there was no progress after such heroism, like Cuba, free but poor, what do  poor do with freedom? Find themselves a new master, I guess. What have we done with The money? Elevate the heroism, I presume, but without progress from what I’ve seen. Here we are then, struggling abroad with our cultural baggage, like a path finder, trying to see the sense we can’t make. This is for our children, I guess. I took a nap, and I just enjoyed. Things we do when we are burde ‘e pure, I guess. I’m ready for some wine. Why stop now? Functionality comes tomorrow.  Let’s get up and see. Sun is still shining.  Monday. Monitoring week. Anniversary day. Bathroom moment: push and pull physically and metaphorically. Pauses in between.  It’s quiet here. I’ve just read this phrase that stated something like if we don’t yell the truth louder than they yell the lie, the lie will win. I want to break this phrase down since there are some things to consider, specially in a matter of translation.  First the words used for overcoming: win, not earn, not gain, but win. We use one word for the three of them in Spanish, that means that any sort of victory comes up out of prevalence; there’s another to defeat. It won’t matter if it was in a competition, or as a result of something, or just because is well deserved. It's just one feeling in Spanish,  the same feeling. That explains a lot of our behavior when showing ourselves before others. I need the sense of victory, and politicians know this very well. Everyone in politics is a battle to win, an adversary to defeat, a struggle to overcome. No wonder our heroes fought, (allegedly) won, and conquered those victories for us to be free (and poor, but it seems no one cares) and that’s what matter the most: the sense of victory, and every victory must be celebrated.  Back to the phrase, reason won’t find its way unless we defeat the enemies of the truth. That’s how we are. I hope I don’t have to defeat anyone nor anything to make myself understood. I just hope this to be read, and commented if you want. I hear whispers in the office.  I could think they are talking about me, but why? And, if so, why shoud I care? Because of the impulse I just talked about. If I don’t hear what they’re saying I can’t be sure it’s is actually about me so I have to suppose and making a whole narrative up only to justify my need to overcome.  The pandemic. There are so many things around them. In terms of immigration,  pandemic has set up too many new paths to a point that, if ever, if ever get to be polled, in order to analyze such data, pandemic became and influent factor on global move out. I don’t see anyone famous bringing it up. Everyone seems to hold the word of the foreseeable,  by claiming that pandemic was nothing but a massive political move. I don’t know if it is because of what I’ve been through but, to me, everything that pops up from our screens is a political move, even the so called influencers, specially the influencers. The fact you get your feed loaded on comedians, and personal trainers, it’s enough proof to me, and I have nothing against them, they are working. I’m just saying that behind any public action, there’s a political move. See all that has happened with the Venezuelans who cross the borders of so many countries nowadays. All the insights that news take from it. We started as people who need help to carry on, to be then considered a plague that poisons the societies in the continent. All that in less than ten years. How so? Because of the political moves. So let’s keep deconstructing our traditions to embrace our current reality. Let these words work for comfort, or let go, at least. Afternoon is saying hello. I’m saying see you later to this text. Too much coffee for the day. This third cup was not even good and it got me straight to the restroom. Part of our wisdom lies on trust ourselves to say: I can pass today on this, or not for me at this time, and chose better in matters of time and money. In this case, I didn’t not waste money, but I’m certainly wasting time. Thirteen years and a beautiful boy. Not bad for this life. I’m still counting,  so we may see us under more promising circumstances. I should take a little walk and see if this coffee is burped enough so I can feel like having dinner later. I have to celebrate.  

Nineth page IV

 

Fifty thousand and counting. Not bad for an amateur, right? Women are meant to be loved, not understood. Oscar Wilde said, or I just read it somewhere. A Provider left me a message saying to call her to clarify some information,  and now she has me waiting for so long when I called her back. Don’t get me wrong, I do go by Wilde’s quote. I never try to understand,  I only love, love and desire, it's unavoidable.  Desire and recreate, it came with me. I’ve been carrying it my whole life. It turned out it was my mistake, and somehow I knew it already. I’m good now. Back to work. I need more coffee. Let’s see. I was thinking about the chavistas, the poor ones, those with zero help from the party, nor the high commanders. The ignored ones. The ones who actually sustain the government apparatus. There are several, a lot from what I see, who play the atheist role, only because communists don’t believe in religions, and they consider themselves as left-wing-like thinkers, so we, the ones who believe in God, are a bunch of fools manipulated by the imperial power of, anything related to United States (Yes, always United States for them) and they are free, free. What a word! What a concept! They feel free by being caught in such a system. At this point of my life, I don’t even criticize them. Not anymore. I just think of them once in a while. Like today. Venezuela is on the road to the presidentials and the chavistas want Maduro to win… again! It’s hard to assimilate.  It’s difficult to respect. It’s impossible to understand.  Let’s join the meeting. 

Saturday.  Back to my own things.  When you have things going on, it gets difficult to have a say on others, but that’s because I’m a man. As I man, things occupy a place in our head and remain there until we picture a possible solution,  or at least manage to procrastinate it. Like right now that I chose to write over taking care of it.  Breakfast. Nobody wants to make it. I feel lazy today. It’s too early. Sun is coming up. The day is showing some smiles for us to go out and find ourselves something to enjoy. I love you, son. I love you, mom. I love you, Bienbo. Colors are making their way throughout the apartment. The light is natural, like I said, sun is smiling at us. Everything looks better, feels better. Better is enough to keep going on. Poor. We are poor. I know it and acknowledge it since every time seems all the time. If I want something, it surely has to wait, like the drum set, or like any out of many things I need.

My mind, on the other hand,  has learned how to survive despite of me. In my mind is not money what I but what I think I need. And it makes me try harder, and be grateful for it. But it’s not, and like I just said; I know it. So when you ate poor you have to develop your patience and take to unimaginable states of mind. The poor is a master of patience… until we get some money. Again, hope; hope for deliverance,  like McCartney, or was hope of deliverance? Who cares! It’s not the point. Time to wipe, myself, and my ideas as well. I should get some wine, you know. I’m having some, as a matter of fact.  I was thinking about our villain archetype, it’s more like Austin Power’s Dr. Evil type but not meant to be funny, it’s just that it has to be picturesque,  like we all are.  Own silences, own evocations. Memories that can’t be shared but it doesn’t mean that for that we will not live them. Saturday night at last. I made it! We made it! It’s peaceful now, so I can go back to the picturesque; magical realism, Gabriel Garcia Marquez called it. Well, not him, to be honest. His style of writing was called like that and he became the most prominent writer of it. That is because he was widely famous, he’s a Nobel prize winner. We have our Arturo Uslar Pietri, and some might claim he was the pioneer of such style. It doesn’t really matter. The need for recognition comes with the underdevelopment thinking and with the magical realism itself. We can’t help it. We lose the attention of a movie when we see that Venezuela is somehow present (named) in a scene. We see a Polar beer in a TV program and it becomes a reference right away. That’s how we are, and I get the feeling that here it’s another story, and such a story is still not found because we spend too much time denying our own reality,  and bringing it up as needed, and not to be understood.  We prefer to use our story to move, and as an excuse for keeping the way we are now, and not to make a point and start growing from there. We believe this is  temporary. That’s why we don’t even learn the language.  Let the kids do that instead. They might be the ones who stay at the end, and that, honestly,  it’s a point to consider. I’m getting old. It’s not even ten and I feel like going to bed. The life with a toddler: as wonderful as challenging.  I love it. Trying,  but lovely. God bless us all. I’m going to need your help. I’m not going to make it just by myself. Wine is gone, and thoughts got lost in the silence of listening and trying to understand, to share. My thoughts are hiding from the loud, they prefer the written voice. Like a drag of a cigarette when smoking alone out of the office. See you later! 

Nineth page III

 

Granny. Mom. What a memory we’re building, my love! I’m getting sleepy.  Some pages are calling me in but I feel like I want to pass. I wasted too much time already, so there’s no time to invest. It's kind of like any drug addict, only that their money is our time. Time that won’t come back, by the way. Money does it every now and then, at least. I can’t think about a job where we get paid of time, instead  of money. Time is not regulated by SEC, it can’t be a token to promote on a white paper. We just have to live it. It’s the only way to consume it wisely. Live it, live the time. Make it count.  Make it a story to tell, to share, to write about. It’s getting quieter, chillier, and I’m a bit tired but satisfied. I had some wine on Tuesday, and I plan to have some tomorrow.  Why not! Do I have a problem? I don’t think so. It’s always a few glasses. I don’t like getting drnk. It’s bad for words, for knowledge, and for some reason I feel this impulse to write and write and not paying attention to mistakes. I let others correct me. I really don’t care.

 

Voices, from a phone, from social media. I fee like I want to stop here and hear there, for nothing, for getting drugged at it. I also want to have Sex. I want to wet my lips but I’m not sure. It May be the wine. Car waiting. Very common in here. For families where everyone works, every morning is a new battle to overcome. The good thing is that, once on time; once at the place, we feel this sense of victory that might turn into fuel for the rest of the day. Today seems to be one of those days but I’m in the restroom and we’re going out, so I don’t have the time I wish to do what I’m doing. I kind of have to interrupt,  or hurry up – which is definitely not good – and incorporate myself into the rest. Back in the bathroom again.  It looks like a place to write – better than scrolling feeds from social media, right? – it’s private nonetheless. I just have to mind my legs so they won’t become numb for being like this for so long.

 

I wish I could take good part of your job. I know it’s exhausting. I feel you, and I want to help you but sometimes,  like this time, I’m unable to and I hate it. Life has never been about pleasing desires. We create and picture them as a response to a necessity we feed and grow for somewhat changes during our lifetime. As human, we need to believe that something different may, and will, happen if only, and that if only could be our biggest support to survive. Faith does that from time to time. Or perhaps faith is the word we use to understand it, to put it in words. Perhaps it can’t be explained, and that is the reason why there are so many desires floating around in silence. Car waiting again. I wonder if moments like this somehow get a discount in life, I mean, I’m not here because I want to, I’m just waiting, and waiting shouldn’t count as time spent. Back home. Couch guy. Wine on hand. Still day light. My boy is playing.  We’re all chilling.

After two oppositions candidates, the third seems to be the contender, so there will be elections in Venezuela,  the feast from baseball has passed, and the declaration of War against Guyana looks like it was forgotten. Now the elections is what matters in Venezuela.  The elections and the sanctions. My people are hopeful again and I wish I could they won’t be disappointed once more. They have had enough. Wine is gone. Time for a bath. Antagonist is on TV, what a band! What a song! Fire up your guns. I see myself as a stoic. For some reason I believe this will be rewarded someday. Maybe. I have a song now, and he’s right here with me. I said it was time for a bath. I haven’t taken it yet. I’m about to. I’m just waiting for the smoke to get lost in the air.

A new day. Waiting. In my country men are taught to wait, to wait for the ladies, at any situation, and to try not to make them uncomfortable by the waiting. I’m the man at home, and at work, so I wait a lot, as a matter of fact.  At this point of my life, it bothers me very little.  I can say I have mastered the art of waiting. I’m taking this time to serve words, for example.  I have had two coffees already. That should be enough for the morning. We’re going out. I was tempted to spend this time scrolling down the phone but words want me to put them here, so here they are: thoughts becoming a message, a timeless message,  for you, for them, even for myself.

Silence and coughing. The garbage guy couldn’t wait and it seems we must wait for a week that he comes again. I feel like it is my fault because I left the car in his way but, I don’t know, he could have blown his horn, I was literally at the other side of the wall. My apologies,  I guess. It was a quiet morning. I’m exhaling and getting the scent of the coffee I just had. Yes. The one I was not supposed to. As breath goes I place my memories in place but I feel unable fir it. Remembering is not like it used to be. I kind of have to try harder, and I always end up speaking about the same topic, and I feel too tired to go back and see what – or how many – topics I have just mentioned and never developed.  To be honest, this is real, real words for real thoughts. As anyone can see, pointless at some point (I like that) and life tends to put us under a spot for such a perspective: futility. I listen to music at least. There will come a moment in which you get this code, and perhaps you’ll crack it, and finally understand that wisdom is lent and not own, and it won’t matter how many words you are willing to by, or how many lies you are willing to consume to detach from this. You’ll be back, you’ll be here, with me, figuring ourselves out as the soul we once encountered. Read me, listen to voice I’m attaching behind every phrase. I’m not calling you out. I just need you to join me. The boy will, someday, somehow.  We might look a him doing it. We might be proud of him, but this is not his pressure, nor anyone’s.  Let the words collect, and let the rest alone. They just want to behold. We want to create. The sky is greeting, the debts are letting us carry on. We just have to survive, to believe, as all those people in Venezuela do now, once again, one more time. Hopes is coming, and God is watching. It’s time to let go, to open ourselves to the new. Words are increasing, growing.  Will you come down up to this point? How many times have I written point ad time so far? Ozzie won’t tell me. But the song is good though: no more tears…  Night has come. The blender is on, making its own music, kind of like drum solo. It stopped, at last and at least. I feel kind of sleepy but I should read a little, just to preserve the habit since I feel like I’m giving up on it. Why? I just don’t know. It might have something to do with social media and how is everybody nowadays. The cult of anxiety and fast dopamine.  The fast food of the eyes, and therefore the perception. So perception is disposable now, and that means that it has been industrialized, junk-like typed, and somewhat contaminated by the permanent inconsistency between the speed of the eye and the assimilation in time. Memory is not remaining as a consequence of all this. We can just laugh and share memes. And, of course, compete internally with those I don’t talk but I spy, because I have this need to defeat them. To show them that I’m cooler, that I post better stuff. Just like these words, I might trying to make a point, and prove that I can write. Only that I still don’t know to whom I’m writing. I mean, I would love my wife and my son to read it but they don’t need to come here to find me stating that I love them. They know it already. I try to express it in different ways. So these words should go beyond,  reach others, and become a key to a gathering. A gathering of thoughts that need to remain in time and be passed through generations.  Will they ever get that far? May be not, but I can believe and dream about it. Just like I have done it with so many things, and many people. I want Sex, by the way. I think of her and you and I’m with none of you. I just have to let it be words of whispers and sighs, and paint a little smile while I’m writing it. I said I should read before going to bed, a couple of pages at least. So see you later, I guess.