getting naked

a few days ago i went to hear a friend play. we used to play in a band together, when we used to have the time... now apparently we've gone different ways but both need a creative outlet. so when he invited me to hear him play i seized the opportunity.
what i always liked most to do when playing was to let a familiar melody play in the background and then to just play over it, for my own pleasure (although the fact that it was a saxophone that i was blowing into surely shared my enjoyment with the neighbors, too) anyway, this friend had apparently had similar visions of enjoyment (incidentally, enjoyment was the name of our band), and he got together with just one more person to do something like that - just to play over background music. guitar, keyboards and brasilectro. simplicity and pleasure.
the club was filled with obviously "friends&family" on that tuesday night, with free cachaca.
and there he was just playing the way we did in rehearsal. nothing special, but obviously rehearsed, but he was enjoying it. and that was it. that was all it was and that was what it was supposed to be. no greater ambitions, no waiting until you get "to that point" before exposing your "self" to the world. just doing it. getting naked.
it was inspirational!

definitely boring, maybe responsible...

well that's what i am. or at least that's what i've become in recent months. too little work, too much television. i can't stand my conversations. skipping stones on the shallowness of life, as i once described someone. it came back to haunt me.
so it's all kind of organized (i don't like using the word like), with the expected and natural gaps, but sooo dull.
and my patience i running out. i'm waiting for the next great thing, but not exactly waiting passively. always adding new bricks, trying to understand the problems arising from the height of the existing stack. hoping that my Babel will not come crashing down (although i'm seeing new aspects of misunderstanding).
panic overcomes me sometimes. panic that life is getting the best of me. but not that i'm giving it my best. i catch myself speaking nonsense because i cannot cope with chitchat. i'd rather be doing something speechless with friends. instead of this communication of convulsion, sickening. and as the panic sets in i loose control of my being. and i end up seeking balance and content in the purity of physical activity. in the end i don't have much to say - do i?
i should just get out of the house.

big picture vs. little pictures

"look at the big picture!" i remember hearing a lot of that when i was a kid. i guess that was supposed to keep me from playing outside all day and make me do homework. that was quite a long time ago.
i take little pictures. there's only so much that you can fit in a single frame, regardless of whether it is a fish-eye or telescopic. i always wanted to find a way to do a 360-degee picture, to "get" everything in one take, to take it with me. well after several attempts i realized that it works quite differently than i had thought. first of all (since i don't the state-of-the-art gadgets) is boils down to taking many "normal" pictures, regular frames, details. then you sit down and manually put them together. there's one of the hill, one of the ski-lift, one of your profession then there's the hills in the background, then your friends&family, life philosophy, another piece of sky, my bike, a group of passerbys... and when you put it all together it is quite something. the only problem you now can't look at it all at once. if you move back you lose the details - come closer and you lose perspective. not to mention trying to print it.
well after a couple of attempts you realize that focusing on how to take that big picture has led you astray, away from the idea of the picture itself. maybe the picture is in the eye of the beholder. you can only serve the details - final assembly not included...

i saw myself...

... on screen. ever seen yourself? i don't think i would recognize a positive reflection of myself. i guess i'm just that kind of person - enjoying the good times, the good things, the good... but show me (what i consider) my negative - uf! i'd see it immediately.
well that was the theory, until just now.
there i was (ok, a female version), a person made bitter by the small things in life, blowing small things out of proportion because of the "big picture" without taking into account the good sides. you can't get the big picture with a telescopic lens. it's nice to know the details, but i've had too much time on my hands, and to many details that interest me. but the big picture... to stop and inhale the big world, the entire concept of what we refer to as life... - THAT take's an effort.
so aside from suffering from my workaholic abstinence, i've been also struggling against the momentum that comes with having too much free "mental" time (it get's you mental - definitely) and i've been lost in that famous "brain storm". my work is my shelter from that blizzard. and i have but a tent.
then there's the socially-imposed ambition that led to criticism, understanding why things are not better, and what we "should" do to achieve "higher" things... (oh, society has such messed up values sometimes... derived from "development", killing humanity)
there have been better times to be me.
but then i'll be back to looking up, looking out, looking over and looking after. and then when that's settled - i'll give you a look, too.

ta-dah! spring!

it's official. i've made it official - it's time to start spring.
pack your bags, get on that bike and get out. no more winter workout. time for some farming.
i used to hate going out to our piece of land, just a half-hour outside the city. when i was a kid it was a synonym for being dirty and hot, i had hay fever and i remember always getting itchy eyes. VERY itchy. but it was there. it was the weekend family outing. even the dog.
i grew out of it years later as my siblings and i hit puberty, and started being interested in other things. (for example independence - coming and going as i pleased, as opposed to waiting for the ride home)
and then there was that one moment that i just stopped. i didn't go back for years after we buried the dog...
i rediscovered the land and the shack there seven or eight years later. it had slowly been left to nature to repossess, since its tender had moved away. it needed a little spit&polish, but i got it back into decent shape. the first year there were barbecues and friends, then the second season i did other things, etc.
now its the beginning of a new season. the apricot trees are blossoming, the grass is starting to grow, leaves are yet to appear. its time to reclaim it. it's time to remember how things were done in the days of olden, how it was the seasons not the fiscal year that dictated life, that the body can work to create bites of food as opposed to just bytes. and then there's the whole plant-a-tree ride-a-bike create-your-food thing going...
so at the beginning of this new year i pledge to keep in contact with the land, and if there are others that are interested i will provide the surroundings for them too to establish contact with it. especially horizontal contact beneath the oak trees after a good bbq...

the will to live.

observing aging

we all age. maturing is aging. (aging is not necessarily maturing.) writing this blog is aging. i hope it's also maturing. (i can't believe it's been four months since i first tried this.) but then there's the individual and the social. you can fight one - you can't fight the other.
there are great people out there in the world (in my world for sure). for years now i've been watching generations (try around six) make one of the greatest transitions in life - from scholar to professional. i don't think people have full appreciation for the difference that this step makes in life. you give up a lot of innocence and accept responsibilities, something that you will never get back (maybe in retirement?). things only get more complicated when you have children. so the question is how much to do you give in to the situation and how to what extent do you seize the reins. it's a time when you feel the pressure from your family (many if not most of my friends still live at home) and your own expectations, while on the other there is the boss and professional environment. not to mention your professional innocent self and the need for it to get up on its feet. so some people just lose it. it's one of those situations where you just don't know what to expect from a person. you have the easy-going people that cope great, and then you have the serious-organized type who just flop. and i'm there on the sidelines, having gone through that phase before most other people. no point screaming plays - it's an individual world out there. sharing views is as far as you can go.
there is that little trick you can do when you start hanging out with people that are younger. it's a great little trick. you manage to steal a few years. but the thing is that even the next generation ages, matures. then you're back to looking for the fitting crowd. in my case - the eternal adolescents. (it's a real shock when you see your younger crew searching out their own youngers.)
but then when the dust settles (by that time you're probably over 30) you can see who made which compromise. and you see that perhaps the people are more-less the same people that you've known for some time, but this transition has take its toll and the simple dynamics of how you spend time with them is probably changed for good. they've found their next niche. all i can do, having found my spot much earlier and not having allowed it to defined the way i communicate with people, is accept the fact. i mean, it's not that i haven't changed, but i've adapted to the surroundings. just a year ago i would spend one evening per week at home, not its more likely that i'll be going out once. and its not only me. its most people (or i've managed to lose all my friends in one go and all those different people/groups are meeting in secret behind my back.)
but then you have the sieve effect. you tossed a bunch of people in and then you find out that these acquaintances have stuck around, even when friends fell through. it's the world behind the mirror. its the Other piece/part/phase/sector/department of life. you get to meet new people who will excite you just like the first day of elementary school when you meet all those new kids. and if you like to play marbles you will suddenly find yourself playing marbles with someone you hadn't expected to. it might even be a girl! and if you are the crazy type you will see who the crazy people in life are. and you might do crazy things for many years to come. until perhaps some other phase in life comes.
it seems that that is the way it goes. this thing called life. aw, it's all just a big adventure. you've got to take is unseriously enough. don't look at me. i certainly don't take it seriously. but then i also sleep very well...

of the relativety of time

when i was a kid things were slower. they were slower but more precise and time carried more weight. then i started growing up, i was a teenager, things got chaotic and then they were supposed to settle down. but that's when the tech came in. mobile telephones. then end of all precision. you gain the opportunity to make things more precise, to take advantage of your time - but they have the opposite effect. they are increasingly used to cancel or for the "i'll catch up with you" game.
(i've always wondered whether my parents could say the exact same things about "their time")
i've learned to accept the inevitability of the relativity that time has within our social universe. flexibility is something that my work requires, but not commands. i choose to conform to the environment, but do not accept that i must integrate its rules. i take advantage of the tech and use it to create my freedom, and with the freedom i choose to liberate others. it's easy to make plans with me. i know that it takes 180 seconds for me to shower, and i know how long it takes me to reach a given destination or translated a given text. but then i think about how much a spoken agreement is worth when time is concerned. i rarely doubt people's intentions, but i keep being caught off guard when it comes to execution.
so there. i've used the 20 minutes gained from the realization that i would be the only person on time. and now i'm off. i mean - it is saturday.

p.s. this photo is four years old and one of my first digitals.