Youth

MO — Sun, 10 May 2009 00:20:00 +0000

Pictures always make you think about life. Nowadays technology even lets you see someone else’s pictures, even after years of your last conversation happening.

It is a boring afternoon like many others in which you have nothing better to do than to be nosy, but this time besides finding out who is married, who is not and who is already in the process of reproducing, you realize that most people in those pictures were once part of yours even if they are not there anymore. Quickly you realize how all that was familiar is not anymore, and the most interesting part is to realize what would be familiar to you if you had or hadn’t done certain things with your life.

As you keep flipping the electronic pages, showing mostly happy faces, you put away your agnostic thought – Are they really happy or just lying to themselves to make things all right? – And focus on the superficial. Most of them look old, what you would consider old back when they were smiling besides you on the class picture, and to your relief you realize you look about the same as ten years back. You can notice some of the rough treatment you gave to your body in the last few years, but overall you look young, perhaps much younger than you really are.

And as you see the almost middle aged looking men that are together with those that were your school mates and twigs at one point in time, you warmly look at your partner’s picture. He looks so young, his face and his body are wonderful… his entire entity is full of life, he is surrounded by a certain curiosity and innocence that are long gone in the faces of those men. Their holiday pictures look like they were taken out of a pink novel… in a remote place, during a wedding in Mexico:

A woman wears a large amount of make up with an over styled dress, she lets you know she once was young, and sometimes she hides a pregnant body. She is hugged by a man wearing a white shirt that strangles him a little. He looks older, his arms, somewhere between strong and chubby are around her as the Sun reflects on those parts of his skull’s skin where hair will never again grow as well as on his shining expensive watch. They are smiling profusely; she holds a flower that makes a strong contrast to her dress at the moment the photographer took the picture. You always wonder why is it that people from your generation at home seem to be so crazy about pretending they were New York’s jet set.

Your pictures with your boyfriend, they are different. Usually there are more people. He is holding a cigarette, you are holding a drink, perhaps a joint and someone else in the picture is screaming. It looks more like the pictures taken in a party that got out of hand. No one is wearing anything else than a t-shirt, an old pair of jeans and worn out chucks and knows that out of hand is actually their normal state.

Most of your electronic pages do not reveal the romance you and him have, but people that see you cannot deny it. You are deeply in love, and maybe you are even more romantic than those people in the perfect pictures because neither of you believe in perfect love and you think you could lose each other any minute. Besides that, there is something else you share that those old couples don’t have any more, besides loving each other; you are in love with your youth.

The Panic Flu

MO — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:38:28 +0000

From Peaceful Disconnection to a World in Crisis (Day one)

You live a bit in your own world. It started happening since you finished your active work in that non for profit. You take time off. Not only because almost ten years of work exhaust you and you take some weeks or even months off everything, but everything seems to slow down… there is no longer a need to be on top of hundreds of E-mails in your inbox, many phone calls and meetings throughout the day, exciting and yet draining business travel; somehow you no longer need to be on top of everything important happening in the world; and as everything slows down as you realize the weight of responsibility is gone, your attention slowly shifts: Leaving your mobile home, checking your mail once a day and skipping the news for few days or even weeks is no longer lethal, and that old set of things that you put on hold for a long time become the base of your every day.

Sometimes you miss the old days… So many nice, intelligent, and absolutely extraordinary people, different places, the constant fix you got of excitement and change, the sense of meaning and fulfillment you had through your job, but to be honest, after you got over the withdrawal symptoms of this life, you got used to the new life you have, and as your job only pays the bills, you started looking for that sense of meaning and fulfillment somewhere else, in your relationships, in keeping your body and mind in a good state, but most of all, on enjoying the present minute by minute as it was the last. It is funny to realize that it is only now that you can finally achieve a life intensity few get to have, and even more important you have learned to manage it, through the ups and downs of this new life, overall you feel in harmony. In the past you lived life so fast and so intensely that you learned there is truth to the saying: A bullet doesn’t kill, the speed does. And there was no much of the present more than the pain of a broken heart and betrayal on your face because in your head there was only the future…

Today seemed like any other day in this new life. You woke up on the side of the person you love, the Sun is shining outside and as you share breakfast, as you hope you will do for the rest of your life if there really is something as life long unconditional love, he turns on the news… BBC is on its daily ranting of nothing but bad news… bombs in Iraq, multinationals doing their usual financial up and down – more downs that ups lately-, corruption here and there an ad about a show “cooking in conflict zones”… You wonder once again how the world got to this point. Ingredients: One liter of water (of the water you carried on your bare shoulders for 20 km under the scalding Sun) one cup of rice (that you bought with your entire weekly earnings), boil the rice (in an 50 year old super dirty pan you found in a dump), after 20 minutes it will taste like the authentic meal of a displaced person in a refugee camp?

But there is something about today that is different, suddenly the news focus on your country, for more than a minute –normally your country won’t do anything noticeable by the international community-… it seems a deathly virus is spreading in the same place where you were born, that place that only gets some of your thoughts because your entire family is there and because in the end, it doesn’t matter how many places you’ve seen, how many places you have lived in, and that you call a different country home, there is always a spark in your heart about this place that will easily turn into a flame in case it is necessary. The unconditional love you feel for this piece of sometimes forsaken land has taken you as far as to only accept the citizenship of your new home if you can keep the old one. The stain of history it left in you, the stain it left in your history is undeniable.

What is really going on? (Day one to seven)

And there it is, the BBC, showing apocalyptic images of Mexico City. Soldiers are handing out masks to avoid the airborne infection that seems to be killing hundreds, in the largest urban population in this world. It seems to have mutated from pigs and no one knows if there is a cure or vaccine, which is also as a matter of fact, because the virus A/H1N1 is actually originated in birds and pigs were just a nice mixing pot, funny enough in an American pig farm in Veracruz. Maybe calling it “bird flu 2” wouldn’t be marketable enough, and maybe no one wants to get into the conditions of so many animal farms worldwide. You remember the times of SARS and Ebola, where the press was frantically talking of a pandemic that never happened, and the absolute end of humankind. The announcement is made that schools will be closed. On the other hand, more than once you wondered how that massive conglomerate of people (where you grew up) was still functioning, you studied it, and in theory the mere function of this city is a miracle, it actually shouldn’t work, and you knew this would be the worst place in the world for such a crisis to strike. If it is really bad it will get nasty really fast. You never really trusted the Mexican government. You start drafting a plan to get your family out of there, financially, legally, how… fast. Suddenly you have a thought… call home and ask.

As the phone is ringing, you check Facebook and Twitter. If something of that magnitude is happening you will see it straight away, but surprisingly there is no reference to the supposed death of hundreds. As your mother picks up and you ask about the seriousness of the situation, after saying everyone home is fine, she laughs ironically. She seems happy to have the days off and even makes a joke about “building a monument to pigs”. How could there be such a huge discrepancy between what your mother is saying and what the news agencies are saying? Maybe she is protecting you, doesn’t want you to get worried, so you speak to your siblings to conclude the only thing dying in Mexico City is the inhabitants’ social life. There is no Marshall Law in place; yet, the clubs, restaurants and cinemas seem to have closed. Your siblings were afraid they would close the supermarkets… how were they supposed to get groceries then? You don’t think there is really any need to mention that the Mexican government is not prepared or has the resources to provide for 30 million people, probably no one in the world is ready for that one… You visit the website of the national news agency… Mexico City’s streets look deserted and void of life. There is panic; but the question that inevitably pops in your head is: Is this panic worth having or is someone creating it? Who would gain from this?

The Profits and Economic Impact of Panic (Day seven to ten)

The naïve or controlled news agencies are wondering why the disease is hitting much harder in Mexico than anywhere else as the first cases in other countries start to show. Why the German patient improving but the people in Mexico City is so badly hit? As the media pops this question an Earthquake hits the city, and not a light one, but no one seems to care much about that and the real impact that would have in a real outbreak of the magnitude they describe you start thinking they want you to believe this has. The main thing that lets you know what will happen next is in the market… how sad and yet how real. As the stocks of all travel companies are going to hell, the pharmaceutical companies seem to be back to their days of glory, pre credit crunch time.

You see it in the future, the governments in panic will want to cut all travel to and from Mexico (Cuba has done it, and France is pushing the EU to do it too), a vaccine will be announced to be ready to deploy in a couple of months, there will be a random death out of the country the alert will increase, in Mexico people will get even more scared and the economy of the country will be fucked, no one wants to go to work to save their lives. You are surprised that until this point no one has come with basic conclusions:

• The virus is longer incubated in Mexico.
• There was no proof as to that point in time as of what the real cause of death of many was.
• Mexicans have a strong culture of self medication. According to my friends and family, those that died, died because they got diagnosed too late, hence few foreigners die.

You arrogantly conclude that if people did proper research before panic, they would know that for those dead, there are thousands that could be infected yet they healed with timely treatment that is far from rocket science. Yes, the disease is as contagious and as manageable as a regular cold but no one stops to see it. You laugh at the silly idea of a virus for Mexicans only and have a cynical picture in your mind: Your future travel. If you dare to sneeze in an airport you will be put in quarantine, you will have to proof you haven’t been to Mexico since before the outbreak happened. Maybe you even get a special section in the plane. Yes, that’s all you needed for your life as an immigrant in Europe to be harder and Twitter, BBC and CNN will make sure it happens.

What is funnier, at the end of the day, things are so blown out of proportion that the press starts questioning itself and if they are not getting caught in the huge scandal they seem to have created. Time confirms 2000 cases and 150 deaths in Mexico alone, everyone is giving their shot at the scary story, and in the meantime Egypt started slaughtering 350’000 pigs. No one cared to listen to the Mexican Health Secretary who said they have tested 132 cases, 99 were positive 91 of which are healthy back home, making the death count eight. Maybe Time is counting the people who are scared to death by them and think their regular cough is the swine flu… Anyone can tell you the number will raise which it probably will, but it is still far from thousands and at home everyone wished things were back to normal and the local websites get loaded with tips and hints on what to do no to die bored of their mind. At least they have to take the boredom still until May 5th. Christ! Even the first “American” death was a Mexican… but let’s makes a huge show about how we all are going to die. To be truth, no one has died of swine flu abroad either. And you really dislike being asked about it, you feel disgusted by the media.

What we don’t see in the meantime… (Day ten to date)

So you decide to go online and see any other traces of the usual “disease” of the world that everyone seems to be ignoring on their fear to die.

• In Mexico itself, the senate approved the doses of several drugs as for personal use. Five grams of marihuana, 2 grams of opium, 50mg of heroine, .01mg of LSD, 40mg of crystal or methamphetamines. Is it you or this doses are extremely high? Is it you or heroine should not be considered ok to use? You have always been a liberal on this topic and this is a bit too much. So many reforms of this type are being passed in Mexico in this week and no one really cares…
• A dude killed 12 people in a school in Azerbaijan.
• Chrysler and Fiat are bankrupt.

Today you heard nothing about Iraq. Nothing about Palestine and Israel. What about Iran and North Korea? Are they also on holidays afraid of the swine flu? What would you tell others? If you are in Mexico you would wish them this utterly strange time comes to an end soon (in case of emergency you have anyways mapped a plan to extract your family from the country), may they never be as bored as they are now and hopefully at the end of it, the economy isn’t death. Take care, and go to the doctor if something out of normal, but overall to the world you wish they’d take a chill pill.

In the end you are only mad at someone the press, agencies and governments, for causing this panic of enormous proportions. If they were professionals… oh well… we’d be somewhere else, but in the era in which news comes from Twitter, there isn’t much you can ask. Let’s see for how long the Chinese whispers continue…

Can you be wrong about all this? Maybe, but you may also be right. In the end, you mom is making a monument to pigs, not knowing she should build it to birds and for everyone else you know, they are healthy trying to live life as normal as possible. You can go to bed and sleep in peace… the chances of dieing in a car crash are still higher even if there is no special report and breaking news for that.

In the end, panic is just as contagious as the regular flu.

365 days after Dublin…

MO — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:13:09 +0000

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

MO — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:36:53 +0000

The Irony of the Celtic Tiger

MO — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:25:56 +0000

Happy Paddy’s Day!!!

MO — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:50:04 +0000

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

Back to square one

MO — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:30:39 +0000

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.

MO — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:30:14 +0000

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

MO — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:23:55 +0000

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…

MO — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:06:39 +0000

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!