...keep the dream alive.

to: joan
"... - if there's one thing that i've learned living in a coutnry post-revolution - one should never expect the optimal outcome. everyone tends to paint the best picture (whether in speeches or own wishes), but the future is defined by much smaller and more pragmatic steps, taking into account many more and realistic factors than in the initial anticipation/dreaming... expecting the second- or third-best spares you from disappointment, which in turn helps keep the dream alive :)..."

living in between...

this and that. actually, between that and the other that. if i look left i see that i'm far from "good"... if i look right i see i'm far from "bad". to the west there is material prosperity, rule of law (or something like that), organization and liberty, to the east it's poverty disarray, chaos and freedom. upstream lay rights, downstream is the land of customs, tradition. balances everywhere. different points where they are achieved in different lands confuse any attempt of "objectify" the true meaning of quality of life. and where exactly to i see myself? i realized long ago that wherever i go there are pluses and minuses, blacks and reds, "rights" and "wrongs"... cross-cultural confusion. i guess i'm on my own...

hallelujah!

suddenly the elements just fall into place. i'm not sure whether it matters that its an hour before sunrise, that all the lights in the house are off, that i'm working in my armchair... it's the fact that at this very moment the world around me, the one that i can sense through the hairs on my bare arms, is at peace. and in the darkness jeff buckley is singing (a most excellent soundtrack by hugh laurie), and everything is the way it should be.
if i could only bookmark this moment and recall it whenever necessary...

permis de conduire

i passed my driving exam an hour ago. a rite of passage. or at least that was that i thought it was.
since i've had an american license for more than a decade this doesn't seem to be a big deal - but it is. this was the moment that i acknowledged the local bureaucracy, that i accepted to be tested by the "locals", after having been driving in this same system forever, or at least that's what it feels like. so what are the lessons learned?
i know how to drive. but i've actually never doubted that. what i have doubted was whether i'd ever get into trouble for dodging the law. but that was also one of the perks! sticking it to the man. and not putting anyone else in jeopardy (now that's formal, since HE passed me, after i accepted him as an authority. makes HIM kind of like Him). i think i'll miss that feeling of being on "the other side of the law" every time i sit in the driver's seat.
i can face obstacles. not that i've recently had reason to doubt that. in the past past fortnight alone i've finished a one-year translation of a book (which had cost me my soul, social life, nerves, not to mention time and intellectually crippling me), i finished 2008 with 4,500 extra kilometers on my bike, having compelted the greatest climb available in serbia (i don't know that anyone else has done it, start to finish), i work like a maniac, and i'm not affraid of failure - which has kept me gunning for andd achieving higher goals than i'd otherwise even attempt.
i'm never satisfied. why should i be? this was nonsense. "you want a goal? go run another maraton." there's always new things i want. i'm unsatiable. satisfaction doesn't help quell the craving. right now i'm sitting in a cafe, thinking about how i haven't gone running in months. and i have new shoes that have never seen asphalt!
it doesn't really change anything i'm essentially the same person that i was yesterday. i'm essentially the same person i was a year and a half ago, but i've forgotten who that is exactly... now that the peak of the holidays has passed (just a "few" "minor" ones left) it's time to get back to business. and what's next is getting back to things like this, things like people, things like getting back in shape, things like the next book which is waiting. those things remain, those things will always remain. i guess that is what my life is about. at least for the moment.
life is THE adventure.