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.