My God, April! What are you doing to me? Making me hope, making me dream bigger than advisable, making me daydream like there’s nothing more important in life.
And then there was light. Blinding light, taking away any common sense and reason, making me fumble through my days, making a mockery of my focus on the immediate and palpable.
You must be confused, my dear April days. You’re acting like children of summer, but the calendar keeps reminding me there’s still a way to go until then. You’re presumptuous and I find that I quite like that. The smell of freshly cut grass and lilac on these unusually warm evenings is quite maddening, you know?
If May keeps this up, you two might be facing charges. For instigation: sudden romantic gestures being reported all over the city late at night, from long strolls in lush, green parks, to public displays of affection virtually anywhere that traffic allows it (park benches, street corners, in front of coffee shops, across candle lit tables on terraces).
‘No man is an island’, the saying goes. What if we’re more like ships passing each other in the night, though? Getting a glimpse of one another’s lights and glimmer from a distance; and at a certain point in time, when the air is sharp and crisp, seeing each other at HD level of detail.
But then it’s gone. Because as crisp as the night air was, the moment was hot with anticipation and the usual fear of making a fool of oneself. The potential ‘what if?’ meant inaction was the safest bet for self-preservation. Whatever that may mean. So the chance to ask for help has passed, the shoulder to cry on no longer available, the potential once in a lifetime kind of connection is lost.
If you still can’t grasp this sort of moment, picture this: it’s early morning and you are in a rush to get ready for work. But that first cup of coffee is essential, you know you can’t function properly if you haven’t had it before you leave the house. So you boil the water, you add the ground coffee. The smell of the freshly brewed miracle potion envelops you. You add a bit of warm milk because that’s how you take it. No sugar, though. Can’t wait for that first sip. But this impatience won’t do – it’s too hot, so you have to leave the cup on the kitchen table for a while to cool off. ‘That’s alright,’ you think, ‘I can just finish reading this article in the meantime.’ You’re so deeply immersed in the article that before you know it you’re running late. Oh, and the coffee? That coffee you were about to thoroughly enjoy? It’s cold now; and even if you try to re-heat it, that miraculous, deliciously unique taste can’t be brought back.
It sometimes takes really horrific events to make us stop fretting needlessly about ‘what ifs’ and realise just how many of these human connections we’re missing day by day, even minute by minute.
I can’t help by ask myself how we can make the effect last longer, so that these dark and painful events are farther and fewer apart. The only answer I was able to dig up so far is that we need to make the present moment something we’re actually present in. Then we can silence and eventually tame our monkey mind, allowing us to see the one in front of us and reach our hands out to them.
Hi. My name’s Claudia and I’ve just binge watched Netflix’s new sci-fi mind-fuck of a show, Altered Carbon. Twice.
Truth time. When first seeing the trailer for this show, I was left slightly unimpressed. The premise sounded odd. The set reminded me a bit too much like Blade Runner (hello, perpetual rain, transparent umbrellas, neon lights and ever-intrusive holo-ads!). Oh, and the lead character, Takeshi Kovacs, was played by this guy who I was 100% sure rather belonged on a runway or in a glossy magazine cover shoot instead of playing the main in what Netflix appeared to be promoting as its next hit show.
But what’s a nerdy girl to do on a weekend when the flu is rearing its ugly head? I caved and clicked on the play button; and boy, was I not disappointed! Enthralled is the word.
I hadn’t read up about the source material for the show beforehand and I’m glad about that because it allowed me to go in with the same view as the philosophy the Envoys talk about so reverently – without preconception or assumption (well, sort of anyway). With each new episode, I found myself thinking (or sometimes exclaiming out loud) what a bad-ass and complete mind-fuck of a show this was.
Truth #2. Joel Kinnaman has got some serious acting chops! Still think he’s major eye-candy, so I’m pretty sure he can make a living out of modelling if this whole Hollywood acting thing doesn’t pan out as expected. As for his owning the thoroughly complex character that is Takeshi Kovacs while still pulling off the cynical, ‘I don’t care about anybody’ shtick – you can colour me impressed. This role truly showed the kind of acting range the guy can master, so I’m hoping I’ll see him in roles that do him the same kind of justice in the near future.
Truth #3. This is not a show for the faint of heart. That it’s on the pulpy side might be an uderstatement – large amounts of violence, nudity and sex. But that’s sort of the point of it, seeing as it’s built around the idea that the human consciousness can be stored on alien technology-inspired external hard-drives (stacks, as they’re called), while the body is nothing more than an expendable sleeve. Death is no longer something permanent, especially for the highly affluent members of society, who can afford to re-sleeve themselves in ever-young, ever-healthy, ever-attractive clones of their original bodies. Unless, of course, you suffer the kind of organic damage which will essentially leave your stack fried and your consciousness unrecoverable. That’s real death.
The showrunners did not shy away from showing us exactly the kind of dark pits of despair and lack of empathy the human soul can fall to when faced with the possibility of escaping death forever. There was one line delivered by Dimi the Twin when he gets sleeved into the body of a street gang member which illustrates how far from the aspirations of the early days of the technology humanity has fallen: “Where is the voice that said altered carbon would free us from the cells of our flesh? The vision that said we would be angels?”
Truth #4. I had to watch the show twice to grasp all the minute references, hints and gestures. Altered Carbon builds on a high minded premise from beginning to end, it’s multi-layered and makes sure to remind you of this fact in precisely those moments you would discard as non-significant. While it can at times feel like the characters can only speak in exposition (what’s happened to the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule?), what I appreciated about the show was the fact that it did not insist too much on explaining the inner workings of the world it was building. Sure, there’s a dictionary-sized list of specific jargon that can be utterly confusing in the beginning, but it also means to say the showrunners trusted their audience enough to just run with it, knowing it will all make sense at the right moment, as well as making the viewers feel like they’re in on a secret code of their very own.
The lingering questions remain, as well as the controversies, which means I might revisit the subject matter at a later date (maybe after I’ve also read the source novel). There’s no news yet as to when/whether a second season will be picked up by Netflix (although I think they would be fools not to). And there’s only speculations as to how a second run might look like, based on the source material in Richard K. Morgan’s Broken Angels. If they do stick very strictly to the content of the novel, this means Joel Kinnaman is out, which to me is a huge shame given the exceptional way that he’s carried the role. What’s certain is that Altered Carbon has brought up a lot of philosophical questions, uncomfortable as they may be, yet not that far fetched at the rate technology is evolving.
I’m not going to beat around it. This is an open fan letter. A letter from someone who admires you and your strength throughout the difficulties you’ve hit along the way.
I want to tell you something you’ve probably heard from a lot of other people today, but will say it nonetheless, because you need to hear it again and again, and believe it’s true: you ARE the champion today! You’ve shown the world what it’s like to play a 3 hour-and-45 minute match and then go on to shine. You’ve played brilliantly through physical pain and discomfort, and did it with determination, elegance and a sense of modesty rarely seen.
My dear, amazing woman, you are a role model truly. There’s an entire nation that should praise you and push you forward. You are a role model, showing us all that hard work is what makes for success, not just a spark of talent that can get snuffed out by lethargy and complacency. Hard work and honesty is what makes someone grand.
But at the end of the day, remember this: you’re not playing for us, not your fans, not your hecklers. You’re doing it only for yourself, so you only owe it to yourself to break new barriers and take on new challenges. You don’t owe anybody any titles, you’re our champion because you’ve got this impressive internal strength and no matter the obstacles you kept on fighting.
Thank you for today. Thank you for being yourself and for allowing each one of us watching your matches to dream that we can be more, to dare to keep fighting to be more in a society that snuffs out spirits like yours.
In all the years since I’ve joined the working class and become part of the corporate environment, I’ve taken part in my fair share of trainings. One particularly stands out these days.
I remember the trainer asked us a question: “Do you think you’re a creative person?” Simple, right? I naturally answered with a very decisive yes (I run a blog, after all! I also happen to delve into painting from time to time). He asked me to explain why I thought that and gave him the blog argument. At which point I got something in the lines of “yeah…but no” (maybe not quite the same wording, but you catch my drift). My first reaction was to feel offended. Actually, I lie, my very first reaction was to feel embarrassed and probably turn bright red all the way up to my ears (something that doesn’t usually happen to me). “That’s not what I mean”, he told the group, “that’s not creativity really”. And I was stunned; and offended still.
A few years having passed, I can look at that moment in a different light. The person who was delivering the training was an entrepreneur, a businessman if you will. So he thought of creativity in terms of how things can be done in a unique, innovative manner, so that ultimately you can bring in more money for the company. Anything else lacked significance. Sadly for him, I would say.
A few years having passed, I do understand what he meant when he referred to creativity in a business environment. If you’d asked me back then how am I being creative in my work, I’d have been completely stumped for an answer. Right now, I can list so many things: pouring myself into smaller or larger impact decisions, coming up with the right investigation route for a certain technical issue raised, applying solutions used for one client to another one I’d not had contact with up until that point, dreaming up ways to fix a problem that everybody has so far said cannot be fixed.
But the best playing ground for creativity is in the communication piece – being able to reply to an email or in a call in a manner that puts across the message you want to put across, while all along remaining polite, professional and getting what you need from the person on the other side of the table. Positioning a message in just the right way. They call this assertiveness, don’t they? Ah, this elusive and mysterious state of being. So un-straightforward, so difficult to pinpoint. It sometimes feels like walking a tightrope high up above a huge canyon – if you fall to the right, you’ll be seen as passive and people will think they can just steamroll you; if you fall to the left, you’ll be perceived as coming across aggressive and unyielding, uncaring even. It’s a very fine line you have to walk and it requires impressive amounts of creativity and going through constant decision making processes (some will be microdecisions, granted, but they still eat up mental energy even if you don’t realise it).
It was an unexpected conclusion I reached after pondering on the subject for the past couple of weeks or so. I realised I’ve been coming home pretty much exhausted after some very full days at work which involved lots of what I’ve already listed above. Guilt ensued, along with a slew of existential questions as I just couldn’t bring myself to do any of the things which in my mind so far were the only outlets for creativity. So I began delving into what creativity actually means. Lo and behold, I managed to surprise myself and at the same time give me peace of mind – I’m not stuck in a rut, it’s just a different way of being creative.
In the words of the ever glorious Alanis Morissette, isn’t it ironic how things can go from ‘thank you so much for everything’ to an unspoken ‘screw you and screw this’ in 2 seconds flat?
Just like with the things that the goddess-singer lists in her hit song, the reality is that no, it’s by no means ironic. It’s very, very sad and disconcerting however. And the situation contains in itself an equally unspeakable level of disappointment. No matter how much you may try to make sense of it, you’ll always fall short simply because basic information is denied to you. You’ve been blindsided and you have to swallow the bitter pill as it was given to you, or risk turning it even more bitter through any level of prodding into what someone’s true motives might be.
Things break, and they break down into unrecognisable bits and pieces, remnants of what they used to mean in this completely unpredictable universe, because of completely unfathomable reasons.
What I am and will forever be unable to understand is how you can under any circumstance attack someone for caring about the people around (with everything that entails). Imagine going up to Mother Theresa and saying something like “You know what, lady? You’d better stop giving this much of a damn about everybody and stop all your fretting. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?! I mean, you’re skinny and sickly as hell, better just focus on some self care, m’kay?” Now, I know the comparison is taken to the extreme, but to me this sort of reaction is this kind of level of incomprehensible.
Surround yourself with a high brick wall and stayed walled up for long enough, and you’ll soon realise people have given up on trying to climb it if they kept being hit by buckets of scalding water and then some tar and feathers to boot. Nobody is Mother Theresa except for Mother Theresa, which means that as human beings we have a limit to how much we’re willing to accept in terms of rejection and hurt.
As for myself, I care. I’m a chance-giver, a second chance-giver and a 10th-chance-giver. I care about other people’s well-being and seeing the ones close to me (or even not so close to me) suffer or experience a rough situation triggers an immense feeling of sadness and the desire to do something – anything – to relieve that suffering, to make the situation easier to face. That’s just who I am, not something I’ve chosen and something I can only partially control. I’m not ashamed of it. I won’t apologise for it. It’s caring and closeness that the world lacks, not more walls and more loneliness.
So build those walls up high, I hope the view from behind them is nice. But I won’t be part of that.
Încep să-mi pun problema în ce societate profund degenerată îmi duc existenţa. Am citit nişte reacţii în cazul cărora cuvântul abject consider că este excesiv de blând. Ce specie de imoralitate şi câtă ură trebuie să ai în tine pentru a genera comentarii ca cele pe care le văd cam peste tot ca răspuns dat unor fete şi femei care au reuşit cumva să-şi găsească suficientă putere să treacă peste spaimă, frică de moarte (pentru că da, cu moartea si violul sunt ameninţate unele dintre ele ca replică la confesiunile despre cum au fost abuzate sau agresate…), peste ruşine şi sentimente de autoînvinovăţire, şi şi-au făcut auzite vocile în sfârşit. Cât de inuman poţi să fii?
Băi, animalelor, oare dacă vi s-ar intâmpla vouă sa fiţi înghesuiţi într-un colt şi să nu puteţi scăpa din labele cuiva care vrea să vi-o tragă, indiferent că voi vă doriţi sau nu…cum ar fi? S-ar mai pune problema că „Sigur şi-a cerut-o! Cine l-a pus să meargă la sală şi să facă muşchii ăia, să aibă fundul acela care se cere f**ut? Ah, şi apoi să poarte blugii ăia cam strâmţi pe fund. Dacă nu voia să o păţească, nu trebuia să meargă in club şi apoi să plece în taxi de unul singur. Cine l-a pus să se aranjeze şi să se dea şi cu parfum?” ?
Mi-aş dori ca rolurile să fie inversate. Să simtă bărbaţii ce înseamnă să strige după tine nişte specimene de ultimă speţă, ba să-i vezi că parcă au şi pornirea să se ia după tine dacă îi ignori şi grăbeşti pasul, strigând că eşti pizdă proastă şi nefutută. Să ai 14 -15 ani, să treci pe stradă înfofolită într-o geacă de iarnă, cu fular, cu căciulă etc şi de pe nişte schele să înceapă să fluiere după tine nişte libidinoşi care ţi-ar putea fi tată la vârstă. Să te întrebi oare ce ai făcut tu greşit de ai generat astfel de reacţii. Să-ţi pună alţi libidinoşi mâna pe fund aşa, în plină zi, pentru că tu ai îndrăznit să fii femeie şi să le treci prin raza vizuală.
Mi-aş dori enorm în momente ca astea să fie rolurile inversate, şi bărbatii să simtă ce înseamnă să ţi se spună că eşti inferior pentru simplul fapt că eşti bărbat. Pentru că dacă nu ai sâni, înseamnă ca mintea ta nu e destul de ageră. Şi pentru că dacă ai penis, înseamnă ca asta te face să fii isteric şi să nu poţi gândi clar. Deci nu poţi fii plătit la fel de mult ca o femeie.
Femeile sunt încă tratate drept inferioare bărbaţilor în mult prea multe circumstanţe. Sunt tratate ca nişte posesiuni de către destui bărbaţi, de parcă orice li se cuvine şi femeia trebuie să se supună. Pentru că este femeie. Nimic mai mult de atât. “You’ve got to grab’em by the pussy,” citire de la Trump.
Lucrurile ăstea ni se întâmplă şi suntem crescute în spiritul ăsta de parcă noi trebuie să ne ferim de brutele ăstea, nu că ei trebuie confruntaţi pentru comportamentul lor oribil. Noi trebuie sa avem grijă să nu stârnim reacţii pe care bieţii bărbaţi din categoria despre care vorbim nu şi le vor putea controla. Adică, ei nu te-ar fi înghesuit şi pipăit dacă tu nu erai acolo să stârneşti instinctele lor animalice. Nu ar fi fluierat după tine şi nu te-ar fi făcut troacă de porci după ce ai ales să îi ignori şi să grăbeşti pasul, dacă stăteai şi tu închisă în casă, nu treceai pe acolo singură. Sigur eşti curvă. Sau nefutută. Depinde ce inspiraţie au în ziua cu pricina. Ce ţi-a trebuit să te porneşti singură pe stradă spre şcoală cu gânduri din ăstea de educaţie? E vina ta, normal.
Mi s-a făcut greaţă citind comentarii absolut degradante, sunt revoltată de îmi tremură mâinile pe tastatură în timp ce scriu rândurile astea. Să vă fie ruşine! Ar trebui să vă înghită pământul de ruşine, neoameni ce sunteţi ăştia care scuipaţi cu atâta venin!
One was that love you dream about when you’re a naive teenager. A beautiful boy you never would have expected to look in your direction is suddenly smitten with you and you haven’t the faintest clue how to react. He’s gentle and makes you laugh and makes you feel like maybe this isn’t real, like you’re going to wake up from a blissful dream. He gives you butterflies and everything feels new and unique. There’s only the two of you in the world, everyone and everything else are just the background for your story. Every girl deserves a guy like this for a first boyfriend.
The other one was the love that saves you from yourself and makes you believe in loving again, in loving in a different way, but just as deep. Maybe deeper even. It was the kind that doesn’t give you butterflies like the first one, but does something much better – it makes you smile the whole day long knowing that there’s no doubt about where you stand with each other. It makes you want to not just dream, but also plan. This was the love that made me feel seen after I’d been invisible in much too long. This love was deep and enveloped me without realising this was happening. This love saved me when I needed it the most, when I was close to the precipice and about to lose myself.
I miss the age of innocence sometimes, when I still hadn’t been truly hurt yet. Could you walk into a relationship from a better position than not knowing the fear of the ending? This is how one should step into it, otherwise it’s like dooming it before it’s had the chance to become anything worth living.
Love is misunderstood nowadays. So many circumstances warrant the use of another word – infatuation, lust, desire, excitement, adrenaline rush – but love itself can be replaced most times by a more accurate synonym, kindness. It shouldn’t be called self-love, it should be kindness towards oneself. Kindness is the foundation of any loving endeavour or gesture, not anything else.
When stepping into a relationship, it should be falling in love like falling into kindness. Nothing is worth it without love – I say nothing is worth it without kindness.
31 now and true love to me isn’t butterflies that fly away, it’s the love that’s kind and keeps you true to yourself.
I have a very high tolerance threshold – for bullshit, for strange reactions, for harsh words, for forgetfulness, for the simple fact that we’re all a different shade of human, therefore have widely diverse interests, needs, desires and priorities. Everyone who knows me will know this truth about me. But even my tolerance and ability to understand and forgive have their limits.
I have too much hope in people’s potential, in their capability to grow beyond their limitations and to learn how to be better, how to do better, how to care and love better. Because at the end of decades upon decades, when you’re looking death in the eye, it’s what you’ll regret. That you didn’t care more, reach out more, speak more, hug more, love more. And you’ll think to yourself that while there’s no other way to fade away but alone, at least you could have avoided a lifetime of being alone, walled up in a fortress you built yourself. If only your ego, your bruises and scars could have let you lower the drawbridge.
I’m being nagged again by that horrid, self-deprecating question I so wish I could just forget. Why not me? Why am I not deserving of more, of that thing that others appear to be so deserving of just because they exist?
This much hope leads to disappointment. Expectations lead to disappointment. Event love leads to disappointment.
And that nagging question that keeps sneaking up on me just when I thought I’d stifled it for good.
It trickles down your face, until it blurs your vision altogether. You know, like when you walk in the rain because you’ve forgotten your umbrella at home, zooming out when you’re already late for wherever you need to go. The worrying that you’re just not enough, the relentless questioning of the self and your worthiness to be happy, to be seen, the constant “why me?” again, and again, and again. And always.
Yes, you are worthy. Yes, you deserve happiness. Sorry to disappoint, but yes, you have to work for it. Just like everyone else. It won’t fall down from the heavens straight into your lap one day, but it’s not something unattainable because of some malicious twist of fate or some malevolent spirit that’s sabotaging you. It’s equal parts learning what you should accept from the universe as it is, what you’re willing to accept as it is, as well as working up the courage and mustering up the energy to fight for what should be changed for the better.
You’re well aware that you’re imperfect. How could you not be awaew, when you’re reminded from all directions, in all shapes and forms, from the oh, so very subtle, to the blunt, uncensored, completely tone deaf?
You’re bound to be disheartened. You’ll want to give up on everything and everyone. You’ll want to be left the fuck alone. All that background noise can become too much to take for even a second longer, let alone a whole day. You’ll long for silence and for a calm that you’re hard-pressed to find. How can you hear your own thoughts when they’re swirling around, joining the constant buzzing from outside yourself?
Please, don’t give up. In this anxiety-ridden society, it’s easy to fall prey to the idea that you’ll always be a fraud, that in fact you don’t deserve any of the good things happening to you and that happiness is something that’s been given to you because someone up there must have fumbled the list of recipients. So now that you’re going through a rough patch, it’s surely what you were meant to receive all along. This must be the point in time when karma re-balances itself.
There’s another side to this whole mess yet. It’s one I plead guilty of and that I’m arduously trying to work on, putting in a lot of energy and just a bit more time than I’ve been doing so far. As much as I’d like to, I can’t just do an about face to the way I’ve been approaching certain situations and relationships. After all the effort to bring forth those rare and precious moments of happiness, it can feel to some almost impossible to accept them, to take them in and just stay like that for a few seconds.
For some absolutely inexplicable reason, it can feel that if you enjoy your short stretches of happiness, you’re rubbing it in someone less fortunate’s face. As if their happiness were your own responsibility, not mainly theirs. So you stifle it, you bury it, you find all sorts of ways of reducing happiness to something unimportant, of no consequence. Worst of all, you sabotage it, to make it last as little as possible, lest it make others jealous, envious, upset.
What is happiness to you? And why might you not deserve it, even those little crumbles you manage to gather, through sometimes completely disproportionate effort? I don’t have an answer ready for you, other than we humans somehow manage to damage and break – each other, and ourselves. Putting the pieces back together and learning to see yourself as whole and deserving might be the most daunting task of your existence. But so satisfying once you manage to get a hang of it.
