365 days after Dublin…

Not so long ago actually, Ildi and I were writing in our last few weeks in Rotterdam. She mentioned that it seemed I was back, to what I admitted to have been living for six months in a ghost of who I was. I promised Ildi to save that conversation and go back to it when things were getting hard. With my head a little bit more in its place after a rather hard shake up from life, this night seemed to be the perfect night to go again over those lines. So what have I learned since then, when what brought me back to life could be what has the potential to sink me today? Well… I think I have learned from what put me cold turkey back then is that becoming a ghost is a conscious decision we can make when things are not as nice, but we can also decide not to. Oh yes, another rational tribulation as if an excess of rationality hadn’t been my problem already in some aspects. So yes, I have done some crazy stuff in the past months based on a hunch. But in Spanish we would say “el que no arriesga no cruza la mar” or well in English I could say “No pain no gain”. So… some of the troubles are still there, some others are part of the ghost that this time I didn’t let become. So how do I come to this realization? Probably I have learned to like myself more since, contrary to what one may think. So it is time to accept that more than I thought I did I come to Ireland based in a hunch, but that is not necessarily bad in the end. One can call it fate or it was meant to happen, or whatever is the optimistic cliché of your taste. The point is, I may have “lost” a bet (or two maybe I won it but I don’t know yet), but I have got some other things and people. So with still no clear future I am comfortable to know I have done things well done always and good chances are to come. I guess some friends have been right to say “I don’t worry about you” Oh well… said by so many people now… Some doors close and other windows open…wise… it is right. As an official holiday hater (no, I don’t enjoy Christmas, my birthday sucks year after year and I think that New Year and Valentine’s are absolutely overrated and put your personal life into a ridiculous amount of unnecessary pressure and expectations) something absolutely unexpected and nice happened for once… a call and a message at midnight, just when I had given up on the smallest nice things. Just like I called on a birthday careful to take into account the time difference, I got a message and a call just after midnight. A sweet message is the sign of the beginning of a new era. My knees shake… where will life take me now? As I do since I focus on the moment that is now. “Tú sólo quieres mis besos” I used to hear; maybe that was it at that moment. Enjoy that kiss for the moment in which it is happening, enjoy the moment for what it is and let it happen. Suffer it when it needs to be suffered. Life is to be lived fully bit by bit, even the 8 hours of work. Let work and play get mixed up Buda would recommend. Maybe it is not so deep, but it let’s you live with no regrets, just as each moment you are truth to yourself. Experience life with intensity. Don’t become a ghost, a nihilistic mirror of who you wished you had become, of what you wanted life to be. That is what Ireland taught me, what brings honest nostalgia to leaving. Ireland, a tiny island in the west of Europe and some of its people have brought me back to experience life and death as they should be experienced… fully. Will I be back? Perhaps… There is no plan, there has never been.

C’est la vie

The Irony of the Celtic Tiger

Happy Paddy’s Day!!!

pod-v-030309-4m18s-nobnation.mp3

Back to square one

And then I saw myself back to square one. I never thought I’d be here again, but here I am. The one that always found herself proud on taking the actions of a grown up is in a point of large questions: Will I be able to cope with the consequences of my actions? Today “growing up” is an expression that continues to take a wider and far more complex dimension that I have ever imagined, it brings me back to find a point of strength in a place in which my old definition of success and progress is long ago gone.

It makes no sense to blame the economy, the politicians or those that betrayed me. Believing in ceteris paribus or in someone that lets you down is an individual choice, and it is obvious I have taken some wrong turns to take me back here and to see things pretty dark despite the wonders I have discovered the entire world I have seen. Am I just a victim of the eternal historic cycle or have I really made some serious mistakes?

If it is truth that I have discovered and possess some things, some experiences and connections that are in essence far better than anything I could have possibly imagined or anything that I would have never lived (because their value isn’t monetary and can’t be lost) by sticking to traditional values and its inevitable attachment to the material world of currency, I can’t help but wonder if I am not deluding myself by ignoring reality and focusing on wonder and beauty life and this world have to offer day by day. Am I trading real transformation for the easy escape of self indulgence?

Is the impact of myself in this world product of pure naïve idealism or perseverance in reach? Have I done anything at all?

For the first time in my life I am truly scared of what could be, of not finding any more viable options towards improvement, of an entire system conspiring against me to punish me for my betrayal.

I watch the news and realize the irrelevance and unimportance of my problems compared to the lives others have no choice but to live, but I can’t do anything else but being horrified and overwhelmed by my mundanely own existence and its unimportant complications.

In this world, everyone else’s life continues to move with the speed of light and I am taking a couple of minutes to stand still before moving forward twice as fast, I have no other choice. How to get out of the top of the bottom with tons of experience no one can account for? Is the old and unappreciated glory I have going to count for something in the path for my all new way to succeed in a system that doesn’t like my how?

Nagoya? Vancouver? Kuala Lumpur? Is fate going to take me away from home?

A big fish in a little pond.

I guess we really can’t have it all. Ones for others. There are still some bright sparks even if what I had is gone. If it comes to it I will have the strength to go on and do what needs to get done, I will have the balls. It is not the first time I survive something I thought was almost too much.

A song that really says it. The trick remains to keep standing up over and over. Move forward. Move faster. Don’t look back.

Vancouver? Nagoya? Mexico? Home?

On becoming German… There is an anthem to learn

The melody of the German national anthem comes from the old Austrian imperial anthem “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser” (“God Save Franz the Emperor”) by Franz Joseph Haydn, which was first played on February 12, 1797. In 1841 Haydn’s melody was combined with with lyrics by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben to create “Das Lied der Deutschen” or “Das Deutschlandlied.” From the time of Bismarck’s Prussia (1871) up to the end of the First World War this anthem was replaced by another. In 1922 the first president of the German Republic (the “Weimar Republic”), Friedrich Ebert, officially introduced “Das Lied der Deutschen” as the national anthem. In May 1952 the third stanza was proclaimed the official anthem of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) by President Theodor Heuss. (East Germany had its own anthem.)

Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit	Unity and law and freedom
für das deutsche Vaterland!	For the German Fatherland
Danach lasst uns alle streben	Let us all strive for that
Brüderlich mit Herz und Hand!	In brotherhood with heart and hand!
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit	Unity and law and freedom
Sind des Glückes Unterpfand;	Are the foundation for happiness
Blüh’ im Glanze dieses Glückes,	Bloom in the glow of happiness
Blühe, deutsches Vaterland.	Bloom, German Fatherland.

The Crisis is finally explained…

This is amazing work… from all the documentaries,  analysis and sort of explanations there are out there, this is truly rocking… it speaks… to mortals. Check it out!