the perception is nostalgia

There’s this article in which I could read some about time’s perception. It wasn’t too deep but what I usually remember from it is that we, –the almost forty in 2018- when saying something about the nineties, tend to think it was about ten years ago. I hadn’t bought a DVD player yet. I remember that a friend lent me two VHS tapes with the bands he could record from a special broadcasting of Woodstock 99. I remember Limp Bizkit: the nookie. Few years later Korn came to Venezuela, Papa Roach performed at that show too. I was amazing, affordable, young and nearly ten years ago (in my head at least). Moments and memories are always playing tricks, I can´t precise when I stopped playing VHS tapes and replaced them with DVDs, for instance. I remember those Coca-Cola concerts (Experiencia Roja, they were called) as not so distant events. My wife gave me as a present my first smartphone in 2013 (I’m not so into what’s on but that’s not the point here) and nowadays I’m finding hard to see the daily routine without it, even though I’ve been using it only for five years: it’s seems like forever but it’s not. I’ve spent more time with mobiles of the other kind. So this tricky is this perception issue…

Money, on the other hand, got tricky too. During the first months of 2008 the Government ordered the first trick with money; from then on, three units would be suppressed this way: what´s valued one hundred fifty thousand bolívares changed into one hundred fifty; three zeros out. It was called (bolívar fuerte) to make a difference from the former one and this was, for real, ten years ago. It obviously created a new perception. Four years later there was no distinguishing of one currency from another; there were both bolívar and also by that now, the former bills were all out of circulation (they got out the same 2008 and this is tricky too: nowadays there’s a strong shortage of bills) We simply got used to say that a car costs forty thousand instead of forty millions, and if it’s putted that way it did not sound so bad until you talked about salaries…

Venezuelans have been dealing with ‘Control Cambiario’ (this sort of ban from free market and that’s a euphemism, because it is brutal) for over fifteen years. Fifteen years of managing multiple exchange rates. This got crazy on 2015 (the first time someone had to pay one hundred bolívares just for a dollar) but it didn’t stop there, by October 2017 one dollar was fifty thousand bolívares, one hundred thousand by November, two hundred thousand last January, just for a dollar. That makes most of us handle salaries not higher that ten dollars per month… and this situation brought us a refreshed trick: due to the astonishing devaluation, people are suppressing, again, three zeros, this time on their own; a nice but not so fancy meal costs five hundred in a restaurant, but it’s not five hundred, it’s five hundred thousand and most of the people just make over a million in thirty days, so, if you want to have a meal, just a meal out, you know it will be almost half of a salary for some, and simply impossible for many…

The government made time and money a matter of perception in Venezuela. The most frequent tale people say to each other is what you could do with certain amount of money and that’s certainly less and less every day on… the perception is nostalgia.  

pity searcher, sharing story

A while went on since last time I could put some words on written thoughts. Time has turned faster somehow. Most of the hours I’m supposed to work I’m actually working, maybe that’s why…

A couple of months ago I’ve got some minutes so I could play writer. Well, the ones I’m taking for writing this come from a duty I’m delaying because my boss had to leave and, for now, she’s not behind me watching my screen. The problem, and it actually bothers me, it is this sort of sense of responsibility I cannot just get over, so there’s a voice telling me this should not be longer.

This might be a reason, a reason why some of us won´t focus more on the things we like to; these things we usually dedicate lots of thoughts. I had in my mind a couple of great things to tell, and I just forgot them, completely, I’m just using this time, as started saying, to put some words of written thoughts…

An important politician has escaped from the country, he’s now in Spain and there are these low quality fake news on saying, more or less, that he, from abroad, will claim the presidency of Venezuela as the leader of the coalition we call Oposición. So you can see even the fake news have lost quality, just like the government, which never had but this is different; our media is pretty much replicating arguments very few people believe and now so many just quit being interested. The face of many look like when hearing a bad joke which end is already known; by everyone, because it’s been told too much. I mean, people are not only bored but also tired and offended and those feelings together weighs quite some. In my case for example it’s on my shoulders, I’m always needing to have a seat, like carrying a back pack …

I’m back two days later. This is a process but I’ve found some to say: I still have a car. I say still because it is something nowadays. I know I should sell it but I have this hang on sort of feeling that won’t let me, so I’m leaving my bonuses on it. I know I sound selfish, too much I, me and my and this is not a pity searcher writing, it isn’t, this is more like sharing story writing.

I took the subway yesterday because there were no available buses, which it’s interesting in a city that it’s not entirely covered by the underground transportation. Many people rely on buses; cabs became too expensive, too expensive for someone who’s just going, for example, to do a shift at an everyday job, so, given the circumstances, you could see a lot of people standing, not for, but at; bank entrances, ATM machines, bakery stores and now, bus stops too. This could be why we’re all pretty much used to not being so strict with the timekeeping. We’ve finally become the jokes we once told each other to make fun. Few years ago we said such a behavior belonged to Venezuelan’s way, now it is the consequence of all these measures and responds… El Metro, that´s how we call our subway, was crowded; always, now with many more people to whom a deodorant and a perfume are simply unaffordable; you all get the idea of this: the breathing, the heat, the smelling, the disappointment, perhaps the sadness or maybe some anger but wrongly conveyed; you could notice and also feel it: how the environment and people’s mood actually talk through the expression of their faces, and that’s when the moment stopped…

The moment became memory; at least I would like to with these words, this post. I saw hope, I saw a girl with hope on her face. I didn’t talk to her, I didn’t stare at her either, just felt her that way, so I told myself why not being hopeful too. In the end, the situation won’t get any better with the anger and I’m pretty much tired. I’ll try to be more interesting next time. Thanks!

Una necedad necesaria o una necia necesidad…

Del gesto como gusto paso al gasto como vicio, por supuesto; no me gusta. Paso horas valiosísimas (al menos para mí) frente a una computadora, parpadeándole a las frases que van abriéndose camino: hechos noticiosos en su mayoría. Espero, ávido, la gran noticia; quiero ser el primero, quiero ser uno de los que se entera que en un día como hoy y a una hora como ésta; se acaba de divulgar el hecho que cambiará nuestra historia. Lo que no sabría explicar es por qué quiero ser el primero. Se me ocurren algunas excusas: vanidad, la vanidad suele ser siempre la razón de mucho, pero qué tanto, al fin y al cabo haría falta el reconocimiento; el mérito. Una dupla interesante ésta que les acabo de mencionar. Diría que por ego, pero qué va, el ego es lo que resulta de la dupla con mi primera excusa. Por moda, y por tanto: inducida; tenemos ésta cuestión no se qué no se cómo por la que hay que decirlo todo y de todo, pero no me convence; la moda es más el repetir sin verificar, al final esto es una simple fórmula: ego es igual a moda por la suma entre vanidad más mérito. Pudiera mencionar más, pero entrarían fácilmente en la fórmula. No es descabellado escribirles que también puede ser por fe, esperanza; esa necesidad de creer que las cosas van a mejorar, que este esfuerzo cotidiano no es en vano, que sí, que sí hay una recompensa por la que vale la pena el cansancio. Fe ésta que nos lleva a desesperarnos. Creer se nos vuelve un vicio, entonces se confunden el raciocinio y el lapsus (ya no sé cuál es cual) y viene el delirio: por qué coño los verbos en las noticias se escriben en futuro. Fulano de tal hará, Zutano investigará, Mengano discutirá… para bien y para mal el futuro no es un hecho, así que tampoco puede ser noticia. Quizás por eso la desesperanza… porque los verbos del futuro deben hacerse presente…

Cantó Cerati: el tiempo es arena en mis manos…