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.