Perfect

I wonder many times who am I, what is my life, how many chances will I have to fulfil all I want, who do I need to fulfuill my wishes, where do I belong, what are my memories for, why I do not loose faith. These are simple questions without clear answers, or simply without answers. But I don’t mind because they are one the things which rule me. Why are things the way they are?!...

“(…) What if the sun refused to shine?
What if the clouds refused to rain?
What if the wind refused to blow?
What if the seas refused to wave?
What if the world refused its turn?
What if the stars would hesitate?(…)”

“Apples + Oranges” performed by The Smashing Pumpkins in the album Adore

Things change, but most of the times we do not realize it, we change and sometimes we do not admit it…What rules our choices? Sometimes I feel that what is isn’t true, and I don’t know what to do, what to think, how to behave, how to control myself in order to do not make stupid and irrational things, why I do not abolish my superego more often (sometimes it ruins everything!!!). I like to be the way I am, but there are things I wouldn't mind to change a bit. Are these “The thoughts” we “cannot lose?”. Where are my restful pillars? I don’t know but when I less expect I find them, and this makes me float, feel nice feelings…
Oh…how I wish the impossible to become possible, but wishing is not enough, we must feel it deeply, intensely…”Verba me defeciunt”….if I know someday how to explain what I am thinking I will do it, but by now I feel I am not able.

Egomet

One of my Battles....

A (Má-) Emoção Controlada Pela Razão

“Há a ideia de que quando se concede à razão inteira liberdade ela destrói todas as emoções profundas. Esta opinião parece-me devida a uma concepção inteiramente errada da função da razão na vida humana. Não é objectivo da razão gerar emoções, embora possa ser parte da sua função descobrir os meios de impedir que tais emoções sejam um obstáculo ao bem-estar. Descobrir os meios de diminuir o ódio e a inveja é sem dúvida parte da função da psicologia racional. Mas é um erro supor que diminuindo essas paixões, diminuiremos ao mesmo tempo a intensidade das paixões que a razão não condena.
No amor apaixonado, na afeição dos pais, na amizade, na benevolência, na devoção às ciências ou às artes, nada há que a razão deseje diminuir. O homem racional, quando sente essas emoções, ficará contente por as sentir e nada deve fazer para diminuir a sua intensidade, pois todas elas fazem parte da verdadeira vida, isto é, da vida cujo objectivo é a felicidade, a própria e a dos outros. Nada há de irracional nas paixões como paixões e muitas pessoas irracionais sentem somente as paixões mais triviais. Ninguém deve recear que ao optar pela razão torne triste a vida. Ao contrário, pois a razão consiste, em geral, na harmonia interior; o homem que a realiza sente-se mais livre na contemplação do mundo e no emprego da sua energia para conseguir os seus propósitos exteriores, do que o homem que é continuamente embaraçado por conflitos íntimos. Nada é tão deprimente como estar fechado em si mesmo, nada é tão consolador como ter a sua atenção e a sua energia dirigidas para o mundo exterior.”
Bertrand Russell, in "A Conquista da Felicidade"

This post was written a few days ago, but I felt I needed to reflect about it....(to assume something we fight against is difficult!).
I haven’t read the book this quote was taken from, but even so I enjoyed the quote and that’s why I decided to use it today to reflect.
Step by step I have been realizing that I will never be able to abolish deep emotions, passion, love....strong feelings. All these things fight against me, and they are so strong that I have no strengths to fight against them. This is probably one of the battles in which I will not be successful. During a long time I thought I was winning battles and battles….but obviously I never thought I was going to win the war! My Reason was able to push out all the “deep” emotions, and those battles were, for me, really fair, mainly because I was being able to achieve my purpose. I am no longer able to do this…and I don’t feel I want to keep such a battle; I will keep facing other battles, but this one I don’t want. Why??!! My reasons remain in my mind, and because they are simply mine I feel it is somehow meaningless to name them. Even for me it is somehow a mystery that makes me feel just really fine. There is almost an explosion starting inside me, because I am admitting something I have been fighting against during years…like a denial.

Egomet... trying to deny something almost irrational, simply trying…and it seems that will not work.

Tatuagens

With all my strenghts I wish I was able to fly, to float, to breath under water, to curse more than I do, to feel passion, to reject passion, to fall in love, to reject love, to scream louder, the be silent more often than I am, to speak all the time, to laugh more regularly, to cry less regularly, to be stronger, to be weaker, to read people’s mind, to read my own mind, to learn more and more and more…till the day I am sure I know nothing….I wish I could be absolutely open minded to let things happen and not to make them happen….sometimes I feel I must do something….that I cannot just wait for something to happen...
This is somehow senseless because we all know there are many many things which happen to us and we do not control them….something else controls these events, but not ourselves. However, simultaneously I feel “I’m waiting for my moment” (“Temptation waits” performed by Garbage), but while waiting I deeply know that “there’s so much at stake I can’t afford to waste”….where is my point of balance??? I don’t know yet…probably I haven’t found it yet…or am I paranoid…probably I need my head to be crashed by a hammer, to be less heavy, and then I will wake up and realize that my point of balance was present all the time….I feel fine, but the fact is that all the mystery carried along with our existence intrigues me too much that I am sure that if someone would give me the opportunity to solve all the mysteries I would refuse such an opportunity….existing, and sometimes living, along with a mystery is too good to be wasted….I need to be shaken…I can’t stand still….movement is such a wonderful thing…..all kinds of movement…
I realized now this post makes no sense….is too absurd, but I'm going to publish it anyway because according to Miguel de Cervantes…“In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.”


I leave you with a wonderful lyric from an amazing album I started to discover a few days ago….the lyrics tell so much in a few words….


“Is simplicity best
Or simply the easiest
The narrowest path
Is always the holiest
So walk on barefoot for me
Suffer some misery
If you want my love
If you want my love

Man will survive
The harshest conditions
And stay alive
Through difficult decisions
So make up your mind for me
Walk the line for me
If you want my love
If you want my love

Idle talk
And hollow promises
Cheating judases
Doubting thomases
Don't just stand there and shout it
Do something about it

You can fulfil
Your wildest ambitions
And I'm sure you will
Lose your inhibitions
So open yourself for me
Risk your health for me
If you want my love
If you want my love
If you want my love
If you want my love”

“Judas” performed by Depeche Mode in the Album Songs of Faith and Devotion.

Egomet

Crestfallen

I wish I could move more...all the times I desired....
Forgot about where did I came from
Forgot about where I am going to
Lost my past strengths
Lost my present strengths
But I still moving…breathing….smelling…seeing…listening…
And I can recover everything…I can rehearse from my memory all those things I learnt
And all alone I know I will be able to do this….I am able to forget all my fears…all my inhibitions…and I will do my best to keep breathing happily.
I will get free of my fears…Oh yeh…I will….I deeply believe in it….And why?? Because now I want to move them away…some years ago I did not want…I didn’t want to move…I wanted to stand still….no risks…all the time the simplest path….But now I refuse this. I want to step out the easiest and simplest path…I want to go to a higher and difficult one….to fight against myself…I believe it has been a nice battle…during which I need to talk with my ideas, perceptions, misconceptions, misunderstandings, fears, inhibitions. This battle started almost two years ago…and it has been working for me…at least most of the times. Obviously there are not only advantages, I have been facing a few disadvantages….which I prefer not to name…so many things forgotten… not considered important for me, yes…only for me, because for most people they are important. I am being as honest as possible with myself admitting that not all the time I had the right decisions…behaviours…thoughts. And I am truly happy for being able to do this with a smile in my face, and not with lots of tears running my face.

Egomet

Probably the trick is to keep breathing.......

“Chego aos campos e vastos palácios da memória, onde estão tesoiros de inumeráveis imagens trazidas por percepções de toda a espécie. Quando lá entro, mando comparecer diante de mim todas as imagens que quero. Quem poderá explicar o modo como elas se formaram?”
Santo Agostinho


Yesterday, during a class, this quote was presented by the teacher and apart the synaptic plasticity theme, I thought about it not only the way it was supposed, but also in the way I had thought before. If we talk about synaptic plasticity we would be talking about relationships between cells with both the interior and the exterior environment….but that´s not what I want to refer to….I am thinking about the consequences of all these events outside our bodies…our brains….what they allow us to do…
What are memories?? How can they control in such manner human being behaviour…thoughts….feelings….existence…..life? Is it possible to abolish all those memories we do not want to be confronted with? Sometimes yes…other times no, but why is this? We all have things we would like to forget for some reason….Thinking about it this way I do not even question how is memory created….
However….would things be the way they are if we were able to forget everything we desire to? Probably not…..even bad memories teach us something….we learn with our mistakes…and memory is what allows us to do not repeat all the time the same mistake. Sometimes it works…but not all the time….we all know this is impossible….While writing this, I know simultaneously that this does not happen with me…sometimes I repeat the same mistake…even being conscious that I am doing it…I do not abolish my behaviour…thoughts…feelings…desires….probably because I do not want to or because I am unable to do it.
Am I being inconsistent? Probably yes...we all are sometimes….We learn all the time…and I am thankful for this…to find our own inconsistency is a difficult task…it truly crashes our “fake” homeostasis (while writing this I am laughing and admitting to myself that my homeostasis is truly truly fake, and that I am inconsistent as any other human being…and I am happy for that)…
”Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.” Aldous Huxley

Thus…let’s fight for inconsistency…because it means we are alive and well…

Egomet

What Sound.....

"What is that sound

Ringing in my ears

The strangest sound

I've heard for years and years

The sound of two hearts

Beating side by side

The sound of one love

That neither one can hide

The sound that makes the world go round

The sound that makes the world go round

What is that sound

Running round my head

Funny i thought

That part was long since dead

But now there's new life

Coursing through my veins

Because there's someone

Who'll make it beat again

The sound that makes the world go round

The sound that makes the world go round

The sound that makes the world go round

The sound that makes the world go round

What is that sound

Ringing in my ears

The strangest sound

I've heard for years and years

The sound of two hearts

Beating side by side

The sound of one love

That neither one can hide"

"What sound" - performed by Lamb

This is one of my favourite songs performed by Lamb....it gives me such peaceful moments....is like if I was floating above everything...it refers, in few words, all that makes the world move...«go round». Do we perceive things this way??? I believe most of us perceive ourselves as one purely and simply...but probably this is not true...this is not the way everything should be.... So many strenghts pushing us...do we choose where to go? Or we simply go without thinking? Obviously we have our own choices....but that's not what I am referring to..... I am talking about those things that happen almost without we have noticing them....they grow stronger and then, when we realize, we can make nothing....because they are too strong too meaningful...too obvious without being obvious. As I look outside the window next to me because I hear to much noise...the noise of the trees moving due to te wind...the sound of the birds singing happily because Spring has arrived...everything makes sense.....sounds...movements...feelings.....not controlled by us...but important to us.

Egomet

Nostalgia

How is to miss someone?? Unfortunately I know what feeling is this. Almost six years passed away since R.’s death and I truly realize I miss him a lot. All those “perfect” moments made me consider him a great person, a great friend…. The fact is that me and my friends avoid talking about this because it hurts too much. Why is this?? Probably we should talk more, remembering those crazy moments spent with him, because they were too crazy to be forgotten. During the first two years after his death I used to do something ridiculous….I used to write letters to him as if he was still alive, but living abroad. It was somehow good for me…but then I felt I was able to stop writing…it was enough to think about him and to imagine how things would have been if he was alive. His position about life was too good, too unusual, and too beautiful. But even so…I know things were better the way they happened…if death had not taken him that moment it would happen a few months later and things would have been much more painful for him. Am I being stupid thinking this way??? I believe not…At least he died the way he wanted to, not spending the rest of his days in a hospital bed waiting for death. Although I now try to think this way….an optimist point of view….it was, during years, truly hard to do it…sometimes it all seems so unfair, he was so young…. But life goes on…and I try most of the times to see it the way he all the time taught me to…everything is beautiful, and when something is not we have to try to find the beauty in it.

La Nostalgia
”De qué se nutre la nostalgia?
Uno evoca dulzurascielos atormentados
tormentas celestiales
escándalos sin ruido
paciencias estiradas
árboles en el viento
oprobios prescindibles
bellezas del mercado
cánticos y alborotos
lloviznas como pena
escopetas de sueño
perdones bien gana
dospero con esos mínimos
no se arma la nostalgia
son meros simulacros
la válida la única
nostalgia es de tu piel”

Mário Benedetti

Egomet

Glory Box....

“Pessimism... is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes child's play.”
Thomas Hardy

“In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.”

Miguel de Cervantes

Roads....

“Oh, can't anybody see,

We've got a war to fight,

Never found our way,

Regardless of what they say.

How can it feel, this wrong,

From this moment,

How can it feel, this wrong.

Storm,In the morning light,

I feel,

No more can I say,

Frozen to myself.

I got nobody on my side,

And surely that ain't right,

Surely that ain't right.

Oh, can't anybody see,

We've got a war to fight,

Never found our way,

Regardless of what they say.

How can it feel, this wrong,

From this moment,

How can it feel, this wrong.

How can it feel this wrong,

From this moment,

How can it feel, this wrong.

Oh, can't anybody see,

We've got a war to fight,

Never found our way,

Regardless of what they say.

How can it feel, this wrong,

From this moment,
How can it feel, this wrong.”

“Roads” performed by Portishead

This is a sad song...but there are moments in which we feel like this...that’s not how I feel now, but even so I felt this some moments during my life. The point is that we establish a given meaning to a given song depending on our state of mind and it is difficult to disappear due to the capacity of our memory. What confounds me is the way we get stupid when something is not right exactly how we wanted it. We hear no one, we care about nothing of what other people say, isolating ourselves in our own world, thinking stupid things no one knows (I am happy to realize those were stupid things....stupid thoughts...). All those things taught me something...we need to be stronger...to learn how to deal with difficulties, accepting what others tell us, seeing all points of view. Without abolishing our own point of view...we can, even so, try to learn from others (is a difficult task but we should try to perform it, otherwise we will never know whether we are able or not). I have been trying to do it, sometimes I am successful, others I am not, but that’s how everything is.

Egomet

Courage....

"(...) Imaginava a minha traição como um corpo desmembrado: o volume da carne acumulado no fundo do saco, a junta manchada de um castanho viscoso, avermelhado. Queria desembaraçar-me discretamente dele, esquecer tudo, mas de dia para dia tornava-se mais pesado, o cheiro fétido do seu conteúdo cada vez mais opressivo. Eu sabia que a coisa correcta a fazer era confessar; mas falatva-me a coragem. (...)"
Katy Gardner, Viagem sem Regresso, pág. 130

What concept is this? - "courage" - When I read thsse sentences quoted above I tried to figure out what is it...but simultaneously I realized I couldn't perform such a task. As I walk in the street, mainly when I am in Lisbon, this beautiful and amazing city, I look to people and think whether they have courage to face, to admit their behaviors, their words, their misconceptions about everything that surrounds them.
I believe that when perfidy happens the cause is an absence of courage to face previous feelings, decisions, options. What leads people to such a state of lack of honesty? I am talking about perfidy at all levels underlying life. Although people might argue they had to step out unconfortable moments...is the moment after perfidy a confortable one? I don't know for sure...but I have a guess...NO it is not a confortable moment....but an apocalyptic one...where the consciousness voice speaks louder, not allowing people to live their supposed confortable moments. I don't know how such a feeling is...I never experienced it...I never did such a thing to someone and, as far as I can discern, no one did it to me. But even so I know that I would never do such a thing, unless my state of madness oneday leads me to it (I don't believe so, but...)

Egomet

Metonímias da Vida....

"(...) discutir era tão natural e pacífico como respirar, o mau humor dissipara-se com a mesma velocidade com que se tinha inflamado."
Katy Gardner, Viagem sem Regresso, pág. 72


Tantas vezes se discute sobre questões insignificantes (analisadas no contexto global de experiência de um indivíduo e de toda a sociedade). O que justifica este tipo de atitude jamais poderá ser o simples facto de se estar perturbado, aborrecido...desapontado com algo extrínseco à situação em que entrámos em erupção. Poderão atitudes deste género ser consideradas comportamentos aceitáveis (qualquer que seja a conotação subjacente a "aceitável" e a sua força na sociedade)? Provavelmente, na maioria das vezes não são considerados comportamentos aceitáveis....então por que razão continuamos a discutir, a obrigar o nosso organismo a um dispêndio desnecessário de energia? Precisamos destes momentos da mesma forma com que precisamos de respirar? Provavelmente todos estes momentos são como metonímias de um enorme e maravilhoso enunciado chamado Vida.
Talvez a vida se tornasse insignificante se não existissem alguns destes momentos....todos eles nos deveriam obrigar a reflectir...a aprender...a mudar a nossa posição relativamente a alguns aspectos. Digo....apenas alguns aspectos....há que manter a individualidade de cada ego, pois é isso que torna tudo tão interessante, misterioso, estimulante.....tantos outros adjectivos existem para definir o que quero transmitir, mas penso que se tornaria redundante enunciá-los a todos. A vida e todos os seus componentes são dignos de observação, reflexão....

Egomet

Float....

So many times I listened to this song....but yesterday I thought about it more than on all the other times....First of all I question whether the world is beautiful....sometimes I believe it is not...it depends on the place we live in, on the people with live with....it is impossible to generalize such a concept, most of all because it refers Beauty and everything around it. This is like poetry...the state of understanding and comprehension depends on the eyes of those who see it....I cannot oblige someone to interpret a poem the same way I do it, as well as I cannot oblige someone to see my own life the way I see it....as a beautiful one. There are so many things that make us all different that it transports us to a state of confusion, living in a world where most people do not make efforts to understand each other (I know that sometimes I am not able to do this...it depends on my state of mind, but even though I realize when I do something wrong....when my behavior is not acceptable), not having the awareness that life is not only what they are living....I believe we all need to get a high level of abstraction from ourselves, being able to look to everything and everyone around us. I am not saying that we should addapt to the needs and perspectives of other people abolishing our own....NO....I am saying we could all try to understand each other....

"It's a beautiful world but everyone's insane
Either you swim or either you fade
It's a revolution time we're sleeping at the wheel
Apocalypse child in a nuclear field
We want to change the world but not what holds us back
I want to be for you what I've never had
And all of this time I was just trying to reach you
Through the rain traffic
As you float into space
Your white eyes hide your face
As you float in between - I am with you
If you leave
Fragile to the waves - vicissitudes of days
When I am with you I feel a little brave
The madness and the wars the circles that we run
Confusion we import look what we have become
And all this time I was just trying to reach you
Through the rain traffic
As you float into space
Your white eyes hide your face
As you float in between - I die with you
If you leave - I die with you I die you you"

"Float" - Bush in the album "Golden State"

Egomet

Laziness.....

Today I feel lazy...I truly don't want to think too much...I am tired but at the same time I feel fine. I read this poem and I simply liked it...I haven't reflect too much about it...but I will do it later.... In spite of my laziness I wanted to post something....

Estados de Animo

"Unas veces me siento
como pobre colina
y otras como montaña
de cumbres repetidas
unas veces me siento
como un acantilado
y en otras como un cielo
azul pero lejano
a veces uno es
manantial entre rocas
y otras veces un árbol
con las últimas hojas
pero hoy me siento apenas
como laguna insomne
con un embarcadero
ya sin embarcaciones
una laguna verde
inmóvil y paciente
conforme con sus algas
sus musgos y sus peces
sereno en mi confianza
confiando en que una tarde
te acerques y te mires
te mires al mirarme.”

Mario Benedetti

Egomet