A full page of scribbled lines

 So, here we go again. The years is coming to an end, and it is only now that I feel like writing something. Here comes "next year I should write more" and all that stuff. The flip side is that next year should be very easy to write more than basically nothing.

 

  I intended to use this as a creative output, but I am always postponing it. It is better to do things than just consuming them but, in the end, it feels like I am stuck in some kind of loop, and never find the time to change. I have tried many things, some very promising but consistency is my weakness. Everything seems "plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines". Maybe it is time to try some small things and try to stick to them. However, it seems so very true that "life is what happens when you are busy making other plans". 

     I know I am the major culprit of this feeling, but it is not entirely my fault. Modern life is becoming a trap for attention and we have not changed to adapt and resist that.  Also, the world it seems to be transforming into a darker place, and if we are scared it is easier to search solace in the easy things, that are so in reach. And as we get older, and colder we pretend it is alright, but the world is changing so fast that is truly terrifying. 

    Opportunistic people are capitalizing on that for their own benefit, and as they benefit more, the make the world a scarier place which becomes a spiral of doom, where the big fish eats the smaller one and the rich get richer. Capitalism works that way, it only looks after the capital, and does not make long term plans, like herbivores stranded on an island with no predators that end up starving when overpopulation reaches a tipping point. So I would not be surprised if we are end up getting "laid-off", as employees of a company where the directives have an excel that reads red and they making it green by mass lay-offs and they pretend everything to work the same afterwards. 

    I digress,  as always. But I want to keep the flow of letters running with no plan whatsoever and this is what happens when you write the first thing that comes to mind. I do not want this to be half a page of scribbled lines, I want this to be a full page of scribbled lines. 

     I want to get a little bit better, I want to do better than consume. And I probably been feeling like I am not using my time properly for the majority of time since I have this blog or its original incarnation which, by the way, I cannot remember where it was. It was a long time ago, and things that used to be super clear are starting to fade in my memory. Which was never that good. That is a little scary. I remember listening, some years ago, to "Perfect Life" from Steven Wilson's "Hand cannot Erase" (I had to look up the name of the song) and remember thinking that it was impossible to forget almost everything of someone so important. But now, I am starting to believe that is possible. After all, I am so bad with names. I should make a list of everyone new I met because I cannot remember a new name.

    How long is a full page of scribbled lines? I have things to do, and I will try to continue this before it gets published, but I know myself and seems very unlikely. A quick search tells me somewhere between 40 to 50, so I have to keep babbling a little longer. This quick search was the new kind, where IA shows first, and at the end, if it sounds plausible and aligns with what you already believe, you take it for granted and never check everything else. I wonder, I wonder how far this will go, how would it change our lives. I have not many skills, and many of those few that I have I am not sure if they hold any value. Also, it makes up so lazy, taking a lot of mental exercise away from us, that I am afraid we will end up knowing nothing. It is utterly terrifying. Will we be discarded if we are of no use anymore?

    I had the intention to use the blog just for writing some short stories, like the ones in  the label Tell Tale Heart, but I could not figure how to do it. Any story about science fiction that I could came with seems to be old history regarding the current developments. I cannot imagine a future with technology that seems futuristic enough, nor I am being able to  concoct a story to showcase my fears which feels that is not something that has had already happened. Maybe I will try to find some railways for me to do it and try not to think to hard about that.

    Well that is enough. I have things to do and here is my full page of scribbled lines. I hope to write here again soon. We'll see...

 

The key is to be bored

Recently, I was bored. I started scrolling in the phone, so I wouldn't be bored. Then, a video caught my eye. It said something along the lines of "it is important to be bored". The bottom line was that it is important to be bored. Because if you are never bored, you will never think deeply. You will never have deep thoughts.

 Could that be the key? Maybe I did not write in a year because I was never bored? Was I always on the internet, passing the time, being bored because I did not want to be bored in an instinctive way?

 

Maybe. Maybe that is the key. To be bored.  And that way I might write once more. 

There is no rewinding

 Recently I tried the SNES mini. Is a nice callback of simpler times. Nostalgia plays a big role in our current society. Why else should anyone would like to collect  Masters Of the Universe figures? Probably because they give the collector good memories o just reminiscences of nice emotions, emotions that otherwise have faded away. And I believe that with age emotions dull, like an overused blade edge. When I was younger, I was terrified of a simple trip. And now, in similar circumstances I am just a little wary, but more or less confident. Probably because I passed through a similar situation before. Now, when I see younglings overwhelmed by situations that really do not matter that much, I try to remember how I would have felt in the the same situation. And yes, I would probably be overwhelmed too. The worst part is that, no matter how hard I try, I cannot make them feel any better.

       But I disgress. When talking about simpler times, I really do not know if the world as a whole was in fact better, or it was that we were little and had no real information about the world. I remember the Mafalda comics, and that parents were constantly worried by the possibility of a nuclear war. Is not it the same for us? There is always the constant threat of things going downhill. The world has improved in many aspects in the last decades, but as a whole, are we in a better situation now? Are we happier? Have we reached a peak? Or is it just that, with age, it seems that things can only get worse? Was there any generation that look into the future with hope while growing older? Maybe the generations that lived through a war. Those who lived in hell maybe can look at anything else and see the bright side.

 

    I'm still ¿disgressing? Going back to the videogame console, besides being a Nostalgic bait, it also has a new feature with the Rewind funcionality. If you mess up, you can undo your last seconds of game and try again. After trying that, I thought that is a pity that life does not have a rewind button. It is not the first time I thought of something similar and maybe there is a post here talking about that. Once, many, many years ago, while attending school, and in a period in which I playd a lot of videogames, I had the thought of loading a saved state if I performed poorly in the next test. I inmediatly noticed the absurdity of the thought, but I was very amused and intrigued that such a thought could ever have crossed my mind.

    However, thinking a little bit more about ir, I think I do not want a rewind button. If given the chance, there are few instances where I would have behaved differently. And in many of those cases I probably will not risk to lose my future in some bizare butterfly effect. Everyone loves a good what if, but only if I could load my saved game.

  I do not have any major regrets. I have some, but I still can live with them. Anyway, I am happy now. What I really fear is losing what I have. If I think about it, the fact that our current society works is nothing sort of a miracle. Furthermore, we are fragile, mortal beings, it only would take a little stroke of bad luck and you are done. Or worse, you could lose something or someone you love. Moreover, I feel like I am in the top of the hill, and things are going to go south. But maybe that comes with age. As we get older maybe we accept the facts that we are not younger anymore and that we will not live forever. That is scary, very, very scary. But maybe, little, by little, we can come to terms with that. Maybe it is like driving a new car that is working a little worse little by little. You know how to make it start when it is cold or what window not to open, until, one day, it is time to let it go. Who knows.

   By the way, how is it possible that in the top songs of this month there are, at the same time, "the Sound of Silence" and "Forever Young"? Wonders of this age, that I understand a little less with each passing day. Maybe when is time to say farewell to my car I would understand the world so little that I would not mind letting it go.

5 minutos más para la cuenta atrás

 The year is coming to an end. Few posts here, I do not really know what to use the blog for. I think idea posts like the last one might be the way. But I am quite unsure. Maybe if I change some schedules I might be able to put here a little bit more of time.

Has it been a good year? I think so, yeah probably. It is a bit strange to rate a year. I keep saying that there is no thing such as a "bad day", just a bad moment. Personally, no major events, nothing really bad.

Globally... that is another level. Many things happened this year, mainly the first great spanish disaster related to climate change. And it can be just the first of many. Besides that, there are so many signs of things that might go wrong that I cannot help but to worry. A lot.

  Maybe it is just me, that I am getting old (something I have been doing since I was born, technicaly). Or maybe there is something really broken with the political situation everywhere. Extremisms rise, left and right, everywhere. And I can only see tyrants trying to get more and more powerful.

I used to read a History blog, and many of the History's big changes started with some strange but not very big decisions from people in power who did underestimate their rivals. Appointing someone to a position thinking they would be able to control them, convoking elections thinking their rivals would never win, people voting for someone believing they will respect democracy... Well that last one is a bit more major. But every time there are political news anywhere I see steps in the wrong direction.

People are losing faith in politicians. And without them tyranny awaits. What kind of message is the appointment of military men as responsibles for political positions by a politician that has lost all credibility? That democracy does not work and the solution is a military dictatorship? 

  What would happen to us if democracy falls? What if the UE disintegrates?

Maybe I am getting paranoid, but it seems to me that everything is like a giant house of cards, and that a small gust of wind can provoke a major collapse.

I hope I am wrong, that things will get better, or at least, not much worse. Not very optimistic from my side, but maybe the first post of next year is brighter.

Until then, fare well.

Nested resolutions

 Pues yo iba a escribir este post para febrero, pero mira. Lo de siempre. Bueno, no nos entretengamos en esto, ya se sabe que podría escribir más a menudo.

Con cada año nuevo me acuerdo de los propósitos de Año Nuevo. Es un tema muy recurrente aquí. Siempre me propongo cosas muy parecidas. Hacer más ejercicio, comer menos galletas, aprovechar mejor el tiempo y similar. Otros años no me propongo nada porque ya sé qué me voy a proponer: lo de todos los años.

Pues este año decidí cambiar un poco esto de los propósitos. Mi propósito de Año Nuevo este año ha sido ponerme propósitos de mes nuevo. Me he acordado de aquello de los retos de 30 días. Hace unos años me puse el reto de escribir 30 días seguidos en el blog, y bueno, ahí están las entradas, fue un experimento bastante exitoso.

Así que decidí hacer algo parecido. Cada mes proponerme algo que hacer todos los días. Como todas estas cosas de propósitos, ha ido de más a menos. Los primeros meses conseguí los objetivos. E incluso muchos de ellos los he seguido haciendo, se han convertido en parte de la rutina, aunque no diaria.

  Lo malo, es que, como todas estas cosas, he empezado muy fuerte y me he ido quedando atrás con el paso del tiempo. Pero es lo bueno de hacerlo mensual, que hay puntos de reseteo cada menos tiempo. Otra ventaja, es que si hay algún objetivo que ha sido un desastre, puedes elegir otro o cambiarlo de forma más orgánica, puedes adaptarlos, rebajarlos o partirlos, si eso te ayuda a alcanzarlo al final.

   También puedes adaptar los objetivos a tus circunstancias de cada momento. A lo mejor en verano puedes hacer más cosas fuera de casa y en invierno te puedes plantear cosas más de interior. Además, si consigues alcanzar un propósito o integrarlo un propósito en tu rutina, aunque sea con menos frecuencia, puedes hacer hueco para el siguiente.

   Con lo que no me ha funcionado bien esta técnica es con el ejercicio. Quizá es que es mejor tener un objetivo más concreto, como por ejemplo, correr 30 minutos todos los días o algo así. Es posible que si lo dejas muy abierto, como "hacer ejercicio todos los días" al final no haces nada. A ver si doy con la fórmula. 

   Pues ya está, eso es todo. Sólo me ha costado 8 meses escribir cuatro párrafos. Tengo que buscarle un próposito al blog. Quizá dedicarlo sólo a Analysis paralysis, sólo a Madness o algo totalmente diferente. Pero hay que encontrarle un propósito más claro o quedará completamente abandonado.

A ver si el siguiente post es antes de enero.

  

Again, and again the post of every year

 Aunque el blog esté cuasi abandonado, creo que merece la pena hacer el post de todos los años. Al menos uno, que luego siempre es interesante ver qué has ido escribiendo con el tiempo. Aunque creo que es fácil, el blog prácticamente desde siempre ha sido "nos hacemos mayores", así que el tema no ha cambiado demasiado. Pero creo que, poco a poco, el matiz va cambiando. Seguramente cada vez soy más consciente de que el tiempo que nos queda, aunque desconocido, cada vez es menos. Y se puede acabar en cualquier momento.

Así que, en la medida de lo posible hay que aprovechar y disfrutar de lo que se pueda. Aunque ya sabemos que no va a ser, que soy especialista en perder el tiempo. Hace poco me preguntaron por mis propósitos de Año Nuevo. Respondí que los mismos de siempre, que más o menos. Algo así como perder menos el tiempo, comer menos dulces, hacer más ejercicio y, a veces, escribir más en el blog.

Este año me he acordado de que una vez encontré una página que animaba a tomar retos de un mes. Decía que aunque no consiguieras hacer nada espectacular, por lo menos habrías conseguido hacer algo. Recuerdo haberlo hecho con el blog, y bueno, por lo menos tengo un montón de posts. Así que voy a intentar hacer algo así. A lo mejor después, queda algo de "rutina" y sigo haciendo ciertas cosas, como escribir en el blog aunque no sea todos los días. Por cierto, que seguro que si sigo con eso de los "retos" seguro que el blog es parte de algunos de ellos.

Bueno, si no se me ocurre nada más, lo dejaré por aquí. See you soon.

Una analogía esquiva

 Llevo un tiempo persiguiendo una analogía, una metáfora que se me escapa. Quiero compararla vida con algo, estilo José Manrique, pero no soy capaz.

Diría que la vida es como una cinta transportadora. Una cita transportadora que acaba en el vacío. Porque no para nunca, y lo que teníamos conocido se esfuma y aparecen cosas nuevas a nuestra espalda. Lo antiguo que va desapareciendo es el pasado que se esfuma delante de nuestras narices. Pero este pasado para nosotros no es algo lejano, es el mundo que conocemos. Y las cosas nuevas, cuanto más lejos estamos del principio más extrañas nos parecen. Aunque claro, la cinta se sabe cuando acaba, y nosotros no sabemos cuando se nos acaba el tiempo sobre el planeta. Más o menos sabemos por dónde anda el máximo aproximado, pero cualquier momento puede ser el último. Entonces a lo mejor somo s botellas de cristal en una cinta transportadora que acaba en lo alto y cuanto más alto más aire hace.

Aunque claro, la cinta en realidad es infinita, es cíclica, y cuando el pasado pasa y la gente que tenemos de referencia "se cae" no vuelven de ninguna manera. ¿Entonces a lo mejor la vida es como una sección de cinta en una fábrica en la que sale material hecho que se va degradando y llega un momento en el que se destruye? ¿Pero quién haría una fábrica así?

Cambiemos de idea... La vida es como una isla que surge del mar por un lado y se hunde por el otro. Al principio, cuando llegamos a la isla vemos que hay mucho por andar, mucho terreno estable. Pero poco a poco algunas secciones se van perdiendo, el paisaje se va transformando sin que podamos evitarlo. Va cambiando poco a poco, de algo inmenso, pero familiar, a algo cada vez más pequeño y cada vez más extraño e inseguro. Al principio las secciones nuevas son emocionantes e intrigantes, pero poco a poco se van volviendo más extrañas e inaccesibles. 

Pero claro, los habitantes nuevos encuentran esas secciones extrañas como familiares encontrábamos las nuestras. ¿Entonces por qué tenemos vedada cierta parte de la isla? Podríamos caminar hacia atrás... a lo mejor hay que pensar otra cosa...

Nuestras vidas son los ríos que van a dar en la mar, que es el morir... no espera, que esa ya se ha hecho.

¿La vida es como una carretera? ¿Vamos acompañados de coches que se van saliendo en diferentes salidas? No, no me gusta...

Como decía, es una analogía que no consigo concretar. Pero al final, la vida es algo que no se para. Lo que era conocido y familiar va desapareciendo poco a poco. La gente en la que confiabas también se va. Cosas que parecían inamobibles cambian. Lo que era conocido y del acervo popular cambia. Aparecen cosas nuevas constantemente. Al principio es fácil ir al día, pero poco a poco te vas quedando más y más atras. Entre que el suelo que creías firme se está moviendo y deshaciendo sin parar, y el torrente de nuevas cosas que llueve sobre tí, es inevitable sentirse un poco perdido, un tanto inseguro.

Pero bueno, such is life. Quizá pueda darle una vuelta más a la analogía esquiva. Pero necesitaba soltarla antes de que acabase el año.