Tenth page V

 

Phones on the table. Do you guys do that? I might have done it a thousand times. Do you know the message you’re sending by doing it? Is it true then? I don’t think that there is a single person sitting on my table less important than whatever might happen on social media. So why? Addiction,  perhaps. Lack of sex. I don’t know, but these things have to be taken care of. On the other hand, this is how we are now. Some of us even argue and fight through the phone with people we have not seen in years, with people we may never see ever again. The passion is conducted over apps. Perhaps that’s where our energy,  our potential,  is being drained though.  I feel like I don’t want to do anything after work. I only want to drink and rest, so who knows! There is definitely something going on! The night came with beers and strawberry pie. Halestorm on TV. It sounds good.  How hard is to be programmed for commitment! There’s always something inside pushing to bear and accept a lot. People who don’t feel this attached are gifted, only that they don’t know it as such. In a marriage,  for example.  Committed freaks will remain quiet at any bit of offense only to preserve the illusion of peace. Only to maintain the commitment in perpetuity.  Others just replied go fuck yourself and get some sleep in peace.  You will find a thousand reasons where commitment is heroic but such heroism hurts. It hurts and it weights. Words are not enough to let go. Tomorrow is another day, another battle, with less money and the same debts. Perhaps it’s because of that: having too much to worry about allows yourself to let pass more than you’re supposed to (if you’re supposed to indeed or at all) These kind of things can’t be unlearned. They are like tattoos from childhood,  from life itself. So is the mindset of us, the Venezuelans. That explains a lot of ourselves.  We need to talk more, to get to the point we can embrace or sorrows and not hiding them as they were a sign of weakness. Vulnerability has never meant weakness in any way. It’s totally the opposite: it is brave to accept it and talk about it.

 

We are afraid to trust. We don’t want to trust. We prefer sexist jokes and pass as assholes rather to open ourselves up and be vulnerable.  Like I said, those are our hidden tattoos.  I have a lot on my own. I know how it feels.

 

Summer is coming.  Today it seems to be warmer, less gray and rainless. The sun is already welcomed.  The birds are telling everyone.  It’s time to get up. Last night beers make it a bit difficult.  Perhaps the magnesium: two pills every night is recommended.  Perhaps both. The belly keeps growing.  I guess the steps count has to be much higher,  specially now that the working time is seated on a desk. Some discomfort in my back: a middle age thing. Cosas de pures, my friends would say. I’m always imagining better times. I woke up with such an attitude today. Let’s see. As always God, you know my spirit is already in your hands. I’m just documenting it. I hear coughing.  I don’t think it could be to worry about but certainly it’s a sign I have to hurry.

The president of Iran died from a helicopter fall down. The media made it the first thing to read when opened any app. At least that was my case. Iran was very popular, very often discussed about when I was living in Venezuela.  Chávez made big alliances with them. The Venezuelan cars come from Iran, for example. Now the gas too, from what I’ve read. I stopped finding out about Iran since I moved out. I guess if I were in Caracas,  this would be big and conspiratorial. Everyone must be talking about it by now. I’m not there. I’m here and I wonder if the president would have been Maduro, would people celebrate it as they are doing now over Iran’s? How shall we process such a feeling? I mean. Is that what my people are expecting? It is interesting to think about it. Most of the people who moved out have considered at least once. Nevertheless, now that I’m bringing it out, the very sentiment might have been inoculated through the government propaganda: Maduro has said a thousand times that there was a plot to kill him. So the idea was born out of a statement and raised as a thought,  as an idea; then the social media do its magic: influencers, opinion debates, fake news, clickbait, catfish, framed images of any type, even made up past stories. Whatever works out to redirect the people’s attention at will. Now I’m getting nuts. We were programed to leave the country. It might have been a dark experiment. It might have been a part of a plan. I thought for a while that it was a purge. People like us don’t fit under the current regime, but I have sensed some randomness in our community. I have met a few people to share common grounds with. At least nothing further than coming from the same country.  Even the city; I haven’t met people from Caracas as from other placed of Venezuela. My ear again. How interruptive it isgoI feel proud now. I’ve made it to 60.000 words text now. I thought I was going to quit at 40.000, but here I am: counting 60.000 words of paja, or how I think it is called in English: to talk crap, or shit. And I intent to keep doing it. Pardon the mistakes. 

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.