Scenes from the Suburbs

I have to admit, I'm not really a movie fan.
There's plenty that I haven't seen even though I know I should.
But today I finally got myself to watch one thing-
and it was just as beautiful as I thought it would be-

Scenes from the Suburbs.

A short movie inspired by Arcade Fire's album The Suburbs.
Or rather, not even a movie. More like a composition of scenes that are virtually independent, but allow you, just like shattered pieces of glass, to make out the entire image, the entire story, if you try hard enough.

In fact, it provides what movies and video-games can only very infrequently provide: a space for your own imagination. A space for emotions that are not thrown at you, but only for those that you can make yourself feel.

A part of heart will stay.

I am leaving.
Going far away.
In two days time I will kiss the ground goodbye and set sail.
And I will not see my beloved home for half year.
Sure, it's not that long, you might say.
But as I pack my stuff, I feel that I have to leave so much behind. And not only in the literal material meaning.
I am expected to leave a child and come back a man.

To me, such a hasty change always seemed inferior.
One cannot build as fast as they can destroy.
If you burn the bridge behind you, it will take you a lot of time to build a new one on the other side. And during that time, you are stranded, stranded on an island.

Over the hill, not far away.

"Look there, on the horizon. What do you see?"
I was puzzled, why would he ask about that? "Well, there's the hill and above it a line of ugly grey clouds. Why do you ask, grandpa?"
"And tell me, boy, what is behind that big green hill?"
"Well, there's the big evil hole."
"Yes, yes. The Abyss" he shunned a little, with a fearful, disgusted and worried look on his face. "Now, how far is it?" he continued.
"Very far!" I said. He looked satisfied with my answer.
"Yes, it looks like it's very far. But what if the hill wasn't there?"
"Well... uhm... I guess..." I was thinking for some time with my confused face on, I rolled my eyes and then my expression turned into the most solemn and proffessional that I could perform, and with abundant proudness in my eyes I exclaimed: "It would be just as far as it is now."
Grandpa looked at me, obviously doubting my scientific conclusion: "Would it, though?"
I, with the look of a dignified researcher with tens of years of practice, was not going to start doubting my hypothesis: "It indeed would, grandpa. Because hill is just a big pile of mud. If there wasn't the mud and if there would be only a field instead, the distance from our cabin to The Abyss would be very much the same."
"Well, we shall see about that, young man."
I was pleased that he called me 'young man', it made me feel even more scientist, but I didn't understand what he meant by 'we shall see'. "What do you mean, gran-" I was interrupted by him saying: "Now go get some sleep. We'll go on a walk tomorrow."

He sure didn't want to go down that line, to explain me how 'we shall see'. It was rather strange, really - I mean the whole thing - grandpa usually does not talk at all. He has always been a silent wise man, he almost has an image of a wizard. If only would he ever open his mouth, that would be to teach and advise, not to talk about some hill. It's weird.
But at least, we go for the walk tomorrow. We usually go to the village and people there, recognizing grandpa as the brightest moral authority in as far as this land goes, often give us gifts. Last time the blacksmith gave me a shovel. So I could search for treasure, he said. It was very nice of him.

I woke up in the morning and stretched my back. Then I looked out of the window and I've seen something very very wrong. The hill simply disappeared. It wasn't there anymore. Grandpa was sitting on the porch, smoking his pipe. I came to him and in panic I started yelling: "Grandpa, grandpa! What is happening? Why is The Abyss so close? How could the hill have disappeared?

He looked at me, in his eyes I could see his calm wisdom and with a lowered voice so typical for him, he said: "I made the hill go away. But The Abyss, The Abyss is just as far as it was. It does look much closer now, though, doesn't it? We can no longer hide behind the hill. If we look out of the window, we can only gaze into Its darkness." He took a deep breath and a look towards The Abyss and then he went on: "I hope this will be a lesson to you. Only the present and near can we ever see thruthfully. Hiding may not protect you, but rather leave unprepared. Now come, let's pack our bags. We are leaving this placce once and for all. We will live in the village from now on."

And so, just like that, we saved our threats from the most massive threat in our lives. If the problem won't disappear, it's time for you to do it. Some things just can't be solved.

As The Abyss expanded, it consumed our former cabin not many days after that. But here we are safe. Hidden, but already prepared.

Error 4:04 (AM): sleep not found

Don't you just love it when your brains decides to ring the bells in your head at 4am, saying: "alright folks, that's it for the night, been a real pleasure. Now go out and do shit, yo, stallin' is for fools, man." And just like that, you gotta go. It's bussiness time.

I fucking love legos.

This guy who makes those, he's brilliant. Those quotes he picks are pretty cool and as much as I don't like quoting famous people, he's making it an art form. Which is simply ingenious. Just as his artworks are.

zenpencils.com

(right click - open image if you can't see the text otherwise)

Despair & Joy

A story about how difficult it is for one to love, and for another to hate. A story about how who we are can barely be changed. And that includes by us, ourselves.


Joy was standing in the middle of the crossroad. Cars were passing her by with honks. She was spreading her arms and turning around. Her tight skirt was cutting into her legs. She sniffed and attracted some rather inappropriate attention to her sore nose. Though, again, for someone standing in the middle of a crossroad, not so much attention. People didn't seem to really care about her. Every other driver nearly drove her over, but not really - she seemed more lucky than actually avoiding.
She was scum to them. Most of them were just passing this neighbourhood. Strangely, all the cars were limousines carrying self-confidently looking men in 3-piece suits.

A rather strange setting, however, it's not the only strange thing about this story.

Suddenly, one of the cars, as the driver saw Joy, steered to the side. He absolutely calmly, with a cold suverenity drove right into the traffic lights pole. Sparks came out of the traffic lights, smoke came out of the car and he, seemingly not shaken even a little bit, got out of the car, put on his sunglasses (though it was already dark) and proceeded to make his way to Joy.

He approached her silently,  with absolute certainty and only when he was a meter or two far from her, he suddenly jumped. He jumped and grabbed her and together they fell on the sidewalk. He gave his suit a few slaps to get the dust out and helped her on her feet.
"What's your name?" he said.
"It's Joy, sweetheart. And what about yours, care to share?" she answered. She was being very proffesional - at least considering her line of work - and also very proud.
"Joy, now, is it? What a convenient name for, ehm, a lady of the night." He said that, with despise and interest mixed in his voice. But then he realized he really wouldn't want to upset this "fine lady" and so he added "Name's Despair." He said it with an obviously well practiced smile, that was, just as obviously, supposed to be charming..
But she, she didn't really care about no prince Charming! She's too proud - and reasonably proud - of her job to know better than to treat customers by any other measure, than the cash they give.
"Oh, the name doesn't give promises that I can't fulfill, handsome. I can make every inch of your handsome body swivel in ecstasy just with a flick of my wrist. Or, darling, I can treat you even more fine that you can imagine, now, did I hear the whisper of banknotes rubbed against each other?" she made sure she appended some exceptionally expressive body talk to her actual talk.

"Make me feel the best you can." He said and laid out an carefully folded array of 100 dollar notes in front of her.
She did a good job trying to keep her pokerface on, when she saw those pieces of paper, her one-way ticket out of the ghetto as she imagined them to be. You could say she entered a gold rush just then. Her eyes flashed and with a seductive giggle and a fashionable smile she reacted:"Ho, ho, sexy boy, this will take you as far as heaven is wide. And when you leave here - I guarantee you, hon - you won't call yourself Despair anymore. Now, follow me up to my little bed kingdom, haha!"

What happened thereafter can everyone with imagination at least as vivid as, say, a tree stump can imagine. The question is, therefore, not what happened, but how.

Despair was very shy and evasive at first. For Joy's taste he was tooling around too much. But then again, Joy's taste was nothing but a set of guidelines. And they both knew he's not tooling around to be gentle. He did so, because he didn't know what to do. It was very frustrating. He thought: I can't let all this money go to waste, no, I'll find a way to get what I want. Just as I always say; I always do!

xxx

Just as Despair was done, he rolled up in the corner of the bed and started crying. Joy tried to approach but... what does Joy know about dealing with... despair?  Not a bit, that's what. She laid a hand on his shoulder to cheer him up, but he grabbed her and pushed her off the bed. . His sobbing turned into a rather violent mix of screams, cries and deep breathing.

Despair has been looking too long for a way to start feeling better. A sort of "emotional trampoline" he would refer to it, if he were to talk about it. However, he still didn't find any such trampoline. He really needed to bounce a little up, but he was still down. Down on his feeling, down on his luck. Joy was supposed to be his trampoline. But what he got? Oh, such humiliation for nothing! What have I done, he thinks to himself. "How could I?" - he is starting to really hate himself by now. "I have a family and a wife" he curses himself.

He wasn't calling himself Despair anymore, when he left. Joy was right about that. But I'm sure she had another name in mind than "Dead Man Walking".

See, Dead Man Walking's trampoline plan didn't really work out. His trampoline didn't bounce him up high. It broke the floorboard it was standing on and it fell down, down into the oblivion. He knew there was no chance of bringing him back to life; he also knew he wouldn't keep walking for too long.

Disagreeing makes the world go round, not understanding makes it empty

I can handle different opinions very well, unless they limit me.
I don’t understand, how people can just look at someone with hate, saying „he’s weird“, just because the aforementioned „he“ does things differently .

It’s actually very comfortable, to have a rational disagreement with people here and there. It proves our uniqueness, how various our opinions about the world around us are, yet none is superior.

What however troubles me, scares me and hurts me is if I can’t understand people around me. I love to watch people. To think how they must feel inside. I try to understand everyone’s motives and emotions.  Some people can live their lives only with hatred. How is that possible? Doesn’t that make you feel guilty and disturbed? Why doesn’t  it? It should!
This kind of behaviour scares me.

I guess that’s the limit to human tolerance. The ability to understand. Today’s everyday man, troubled most with how the society thinks of him will never understand, for example, homosexuality. He’ll think: “Why is he gay? Does he not know what the people will think of him?”. And so, our everyday man will hate the unknown.

Perhaps, the key to understanding everything is tolerating everything.
Or, rather, that is the key for absolute freedom.
But in a world of absolute freedom, everyone has the freedom to take your freedom away.

Faithempty

A sad thing about Rome, about Vatican – the capital of faith and religion is, that less people here are truly believers than in an average prison. Everyone is too comfortable to stand out of their way for religion, or they do not consider it socially appropriate. Why?

Well, I guess that’s because they don’t need religion, faith, hope. They don’t need to hope in anything. They have or can get anything and everything they might possibly need.

Piazza della Scala

Drink the blood of Lord,
I miss the wind of north.

City of piety and chaos,
Walk and feel the present gods

.

Enlightenment comes in the strangest of forms. However, it has a strange knack for symbolism. I have foun enlightenment today at Piazza Della Scala – stairs plaza – sitting on the stairs of Kindergarden building, drinking wine, talking with one of the people I admire the most – a teacher of history of art.

He gave me a whole new perspective on travelling. I could travel so much better! I feel that I waste all of the money on useless and boring tourist spots. But there’s so much beauty to be discovered!

bittersweet unknowing

Comfort fucks you up. You  have to go through some shit for your life to make sense.
Only then you can enoy the little things.
Only then you can tell the good from the bad.
Only then you can have valuable memories.
And memories, that’s all you have in the end.

Furrosophy

A furry animal is only cute as long as it’s innocent. But how can you tell, whether it’s innocent?

To an outsider a lot of ugly and cruel things may appear cute.

Is inner understanding the only way to sort that out?
I am afraid so.
And it troubles me.
There’s just not enough space, nor time for inner understanding of everything misunderstood.

pride.joy.kindness.hope.

Pride is a pretentious bitch.
You can either shut her up and use her or get slowly ruined and turned to shit by her.

Joy is a douchebag asshole.
You can only have that much fun with him until he turns his back on you. So hurry. If you want him, make him yours now. Not like it’s gonna last.

Kindness is like Quasimodo. He can be the best for you, but still, it’s not going to ever feel right, no matter what you do.

And Hope...
...well, she’s a keeper. If she’s not there, don’t go there.