Seeing
our fellow human beings subjugated by their smart phones, seems to me like a
modern-day version of ‘Hansel’ and ‘Gretel’ enslaved by the devil witch ‘What's
Up?!’
I'm
reluctant to join our recent hysteria of selling our souls for an iPhone! I'd
rather buy an ice cream and lick it in the sun, in spite of today's total eclipse.
It is largely based on a way of living that many fail
to appreciate, as it lacks the glitz of our daily vanity fair.
Despite my bruising encounters with reality, and
despite my minor struggles to fit in socially, my life’s journey has been a
pleasant one.
The life I have lived appeals even to those who have
ceased to live theirs. It is like that jacket you wouldn’t wear yourself, yet
cannot help but acknowledge it fits perfectly on someone else —whereas your own
attire is, for life, depersonalized by the dictates of industrial fashion.
Viñeta 1: «Últimamente, la mayoría de los directores
sólo usan ordenadores; así que aprecio el que Chris haya navegado hasta una
isla mítica para rodar mis escenas».
Viñeta 2: «No iba a hacerlo. Todo el mundo desprecia
al canibalismo últimamente. Pero llamé a Homero y me dijo: ‘¿Eres tonto? ¡Es
dinero de Hollywood, no regalías por poemas!’»
Viñeta 3: «Así que conocía a Matt Damon, que estuvo
guay».
I only
pay attention to what calls my attention; which implies my not noticing what's
obvious to most of you, my fellow readers. That's why on this blog I write
about what are trivialities to me and "truisms" to many.
From my
perspective, we don't communicate, we perform. We don't convey the reality of
our feelings. We do, however, adapt our words and actions to an image we want
to project in this society full of writers who don't write and opportunists who
don't live.
The point
is to be ourselves, with all our quirks, while we flit from branch to branch.
What the inconsiderate think of us is irrelevant.
There's
no doubt that if one wants to avoid being isolated from the world, one must
stay abreast of the technological advances that surround them—whether it brings
them closer to progress or regression.
The
problem with technology is that it's also a tool of oppression and control
wielded by the Powers That Be, to whom we offer our privacy and intimacy, just
as the ancients sacrificed their firstborn sons or their fertile daughters.
I
believe dreams become entangled in the false solidarity of social media, and
weighed down by the pettiness that turns mediocrity into a terrible cliché.
The
simplicity and casualness of my "livin’-la-vida-loca" might seem to
have a naive, luddite-esque charm; but, frankly, I think our overuse of new
technologies and our surrender to Google's monolithic thinking are vulgarizing
us.
Although
my Internet clumsiness makes even the left-handed Captain Sparrow look
right-handed, I've been keeping this little blog- boat afloat for 18 years.
Thank
you for joining me on this voyage, kind reader.
The
Blogosphere is full of spaces where Ignorance has followers and vulgarity sets
the trend. Of blogs written in a pitiful way, presenting texts cobbled together
without feeling, rhythm, or expressiveness as "poems." Of blogs
crowded with "stories" written to bore us to tears. Of blogs where
personal reflections are copy-pasted from others’ personal liberties. Of blogs
for which the unsettling existence of Artificial Intelligence poses no threat,
since in them intelligence is depicted in the distance and artifice appears on
its frontispiece.
Neither this blog is artificial, nor does this writer practice artifice. This
blog—under any of the titles it has had in its almost 18 years of continuous
creative activity—is a work of resistance, not an exercise in resilience: I am
stubborn, so I don't adapt, I persist. And the persistence of this space is due
to the fact that you give it space in your life, kind reader.
Even
now, as the soil I’m standing on increasingly grips me, I find myself at night
gazing at the Moon, trusting that one day I will walk upon it, feeling my feet
barely touch the asphalt of the street I walk back from to your house.
The Police -
Spirits In The Material World
Continuing
with The Police, I believe we are
spirits trapped in a material world: the complexity of our feelings cannot be
reduced to the simplicity of binary code. Just as beauty is not a vulgar
accumulation of pixels reproduced by artificial intelligence.
To
reject technology or the Internet would be to reject the world we live in. But,
returning to The Police, the
solution to our troubled evolution does not lie in surrendering to a colossal
artifice: it helps no one to "like"
something on social media to support a cause if you do it so your "friends" will see it, and not out
of social conscience.
Our life
is in the heart, not in the ether. We will achieve progress as individuals, not
as cyber-users.
I think life is a stroll, and I try and walk it at my pace whenever
Destiny is not playing dirty tricks on me.
I’m a dreamer: not a man of visions, but a man of illusions. Every day,
every hour, every second in my life I feel like I’m casted away in a land
without hope called REALITY. And the notion of freedom that many other perceive
in the Internet is a mirage for me... And also a quick-sands territory where our
illusions are degutted and they arise as delusions.
Yes, the Internet is here to stay. It’s a great thing, but not the real
thing. The problem here is that more and more people, don’t pay attention to
the joy of living (touching, laughing, sweating...) because they’re too busy
staring at a screen where they pretend to have a real touching, laughing, sweating life.
From lurid pranks and late-night drives, to why playing in the
Revolution was like joining the marines – Prince’s friends and collaborators
recount their memories of one of the music world’s most majestic and mercurial
performers (...).
To read Dave Simpson’s article on ‘The Guardian’, just press on this link
Until
recently, my heart was a three-ring circus, where emotional somersaults
alternated with blind shots at the bullseye of love and laughter; shots which I
used to mask my disillusionment.
Until
just a few months ago, I was determined to outpace time to avoid my growing
old. While riding the train of excess, I conmuted the stations of wild nights
and black-out days. I pushed my body and mind to such a breaking point that I
now teeter on the brink of nothingness.
I felt
superior to others: smarter, more resourceful, better…
To
disguise my mistakes, failures, or disappointments, I resorted to the persona
of the damned, the misunderstood, the scorned, the victim… I complained that my
friends or relatives bored me, made me overwhelmed by their presence.
I
accepted being seen as a bohemian –the different one or the odd one– out to
disguise my fear of being identified with a monster. I came to understand other
people's rejection as a sign of their envy; so I fueled it with feigned
indifference.
I
enjoyed watching how those who didn't respect me, feared me.
Just as
I accumulate books or films I'll never approach, I've piled up relationships. I
treated people like volumes you place on a shelf and trust they will always be
there, where you’ve left them, waiting for you to bless them with your
attention.
My
eternal flight forward and my feigned existential angst were sustained by a
constant stream of plans to improve upon what was lost: people to meet, books
to read, excesses to discover… If something hurt me, I complained until I got
sick of it, which fueled my resentment. I returned to my petty vices. Other
people's decisions were like winter's attacks against the spring of my spirit.
As of today, Spring has returned. I welcome it
with enthusiasm.
The war the Russian army is waging against the
Ukrainian civilian population is not fiction; those who are dying in it are
real people, not fictional characters. Ukrainian people must be supported in
their struggle.
Let’s not silence their suffering, if only
because tomorrow we may be the ones shedding those tears.
Let’s give a voice to those who are giving
their lives for our freedom.
We live in a common world. Each of us makes it
unique. Each of us must/can strive to live with dignity and in peace.
Thank you for your dignified company, peaceful
reader.
It's becoming increasingly clear
to me that this new society of communication between intelligent machines is
making us dumber.
I know that's not the case for
you, dear reader; but
it is for me, and probably
for many around you—I fear it's for too many, judging by what I've observed in
my moments of unhealthy envy, when I spy on others, waiting for them to neglect
their phones so I can steal them! Give me a second to finish updating my phone
and I'll continue with my story. Please, hold on a minute¡ Thanks for your
company!
Maroon 5 - Payphone ft. Wiz Khalifa (Explicit)
If a hungry, brain-eating Martian
were to come to Earth in search of food, I'm sure it would advise against
invading our planet, given the risk of food poisoning that ingesting our brains
would pose to its people.
Wherever our visitor stopped, it
would see bewildered souls, half-dazed, half-drooling, their eyes glued to
glaring screens. It would immediately observe how we, the bewildered, respond
to the auditory commands and visual cues emanating from those screens: by
touching them with a finger, uttering guttural sounds, or gaping in amazement.
What’s been happening lately with the comments
I leave on certain... 'news stories'
in the digital edition of Asturias’s oldest newspaper is something straight out
of black magic—or white ink. My words vanish as if written in lemon juice,
instead of being the result of racking my brain.
At first, I didn’t think much of the selective
sleight of hand affecting my remarks; I chalked it up to my sketchy Internet connection
or the rush I’m usually in when I go online. But recently, I’ve noticed these
disappearing acts only happen in one specific spot: the section where the
digital paper advertises the 'pirate activities' of the hospitality guild
currently plundering my neighborhood’s streets.
In principle, seeing my words vanish is nothing
new, though it’s still painful that they don’t even get a chance to be read.
Everything is fleeting except for the January slump which, every year, seems to
last until December; and even more so in the unreality of the internet, where
our digital footprint is as ancient as a dinosaur's footprint.
Where do the echoes of our Netscape browsing,
our walks through Second Life, or our Messenger chats resonate today? Just as
in life we have to get rid of things that have turned into junk, it makes sense
that our obsolete ones and zeros simply dissolve into the ether of the Web.
There are times when I rebel
against life, against its injustices. There are others in which I tame myself
in front of it, in the face of its consequences. I don't believe in any
avenging god, enlightened prophet or redeeming ideologue. I do believe in the
nerve of hope, in the healing of love and in the solace of affection.
Well, I also believe in
luck...
I'm not someone born under a bad
star. Perhaps that is why I complain pitifully the few times when Reality hurts
me.
I know people whose lives are
rigorous, full of unfortunate situations. They never blame bad luck for their
fateful experiences. They are generous with every little thing they own.
They are people who always find something good to let go and share. They are
people who detail their appreciation with small invaluable details that enlarge
their human stature.
It's that stranger who greets me with a smile when I bump into them, it's that well-known one who crosses
half the country to meet me again, it's that friend who always congratulates
me on my birthday, even though I'm never interested in knowing when it's his.
In the face of vital setbacks
I complain, I am filled with anger or obfuscated in my lament. I blame my luck
for not knowing how to overcome spells. I always impute my setbacks to fate;
and I usually forget to thank chance for making it possible for my life to hang
relaxed thanks to the LUCK of having by my side my sister, my partner, a few
friends and quite a few acquaintances who make my life a walk on the sunny side
of life.
I write out of necessity, to
escape from my loneliness and to feel alive. I write to differentiate
Imagination from Reality, because I use my words like fireflies in the nights
of false memories. I write because no one tells me what I don't tell myself. I
write to the taste of my taste for taste, seeking to turn each visitor into a
taster. I write because I enjoy playing with words that are more beautiful when
read than when written. I write to fantasize about ideas that, rehearsed in my
literary personality, help me to become a better person. I write to get away
from what I don't want to be, to reflect on what I can be and to long for what
I never was but dreamed of being. I write at the dictation of a whim that
allows me to embellish the impertinence of being in my sixties. I write to
laugh at what hurts me and to make fun of the wicked that hurt everyone. I
write for my own enjoyment, just as I enjoyed writing you 40 stories in 40
sunrises illuminated by your calm breathing. Stories that are as much yours as
mine, because your inspiration shaped every word. Therefore, never associate my
words with scratches in your heart. I do not seek to hurt someone who only did
me good. Therefore, do not read again in what I fictionalize a way of talking
to you: there is no point in conversing with your silence. I would like you to
keep reading me, because you are part of what this blog was. If you do, thank
you; But don't feel like the rose or the thorn I sing to. Not anymore. I am
responsible for what my words tell, not for what your heart reads. I write now,
just as I did before I met you, and I will continue to do so as long as it helps
me to understand myself.
Just as I know you'll smile
again without me, you know I've stopped writing for you. What's more, I know
you'll laugh when you remember that you thought you loved me. Goodbye. Please,
don't turn our memory into gall. Will you?
