The End of this Chapter.

Yesterday I finished the hardest 3 years of my life.

Childhood was tough. My teen years were tougher. Living out my father's last years were even tougher. I had many moments in my life where I felt I was having to prove myself yet again.

I do not want to diminish all those past events as they all contributed to the person I am today.

But the last 3 years... They were and most probably will be the hardest 3 years ever. Never before I had to fight myself this hard. Never before I had to understand people so different from my beliefs, from what I believe is Right. 

We are beings of infinite possibilities. We can be our best and our worst. These 3 last years brought out my best. I feel the best I have ever been. But to get there I had to face the worst people I never imagined would exist in real life. I can imagine some people's actions in Game of Thrones or a Stephen King novel. But I saw things that fiction cannot mimic. People so low and dark that no writer would ever dare to create.

That showed me that it is our choice to be what we want. The choice is quick. It's a quanta long. The repercussions are huge and span lifetimes. They will mark your soul, they will mark people's souls forever. Yet some people are not aware of the incredible effect they can impress on other people's lives. It takes a nanosecond to choose to be the your best or your worst. To be better or simply say whatever...

We can never hope to fully understand other people's actions. Sometimes all we are left with are the consequences. And one thing I learned is that sometimes judging people by the consequences is not fair. A part of me wants to believe people do have good intentions. We are not created equally. We do not mature equally. Some people are full of good intentions, even if the results are bad. Some people... as always, some people fail my understanding. I can only label them as evil, repulsive beings, unable to touch the person if front of them. Unable to connect with our core. Some people are dead inside. They lost the touch of goodness. They forgot that good feeling you get from a smile of someone touched by your good actions. They forgot what our life is about. I pity these people, I pity the fact that they exist at all, they would be good examples in fiction but it seems the Cosmic Powers that be need that they physically exist. Perhaps they exist simply to give us something to strive about. Perhaps they are proof that Karma is real. Perhaps they are part of our One-ness that somehow disconnected trying to make sense of it all and now are wailing, screaming, bitching, angry and desperate, resentfull and small, hitting their fists on the table frustrated they cannot escape their very incompetence. Projecting unto others the smallness of their own beings, the flaws so evident that people can only fear being the next target, fearing they will lose their wits and reduce themselves to that empty shell of meat and bones. Fearing the future is a bleak thing where we are imprisoned until our retirement days. Buddha teaches us about compassion. This post is my act of compassion. I hope you can feel the same way as I am feeling now. I mix of frustration and anger of the three years of living with this people. 

I am of course way happier now. I am finally free from them. If I ever have to face people like this in the future, I will be stronger. I will feel better prepared. They are everywhere and I know they are a minority. Yet I end this chapter in my life sure that I am a kinder person, someone much better than the person I was three years before.

Amber Rubarth - "Full Moon In Paris"

I am usually troubled no matter what.

Sometimes I need a break. Music helps me so much when I need it.

Here's something for you to take a break as well.



Lyrics:

A full moon in Paris
There's a full moon in Paris
A full moon in Paris tonight

The trees are dancing
Yeah the trees are all dancing
The trees are all dancing in its light

The black cards are swaying all on the avenue
Cacavonie sounds pouring from moon on roofs
And my heart's praying
For my body to cut it loose
It's no place for a lady to be alone.

A full moon in Paris
There's a full moon in Paris
A full moon in Paris tonight

A full moon in Paris
There's a full moon in Paris
A full moon in Paris tonight

A full moon in Paris
There's a full moon in Paris
I think I'll go back
I'll go back inside

The incredible ability of not following advice.

I wonder how many times I have asked for advice and then ignored it.

The mechanics are simple:

A asks B for advice.

B gives A advice to the best of his/her knowledge.

A proceeds to:

- acknowledges/repeals/discredit advice given

- do nothing at all about advice given.

Curiously I find myself giving advice on a almost daily basis. And I do not give advice without being asked first. So people actively interrupts me and then makes me stop what I am doing. Then I have to actively listen for the person's problem. And last of all. I have to think about what would I do/say/whatever. I consider that the ultimate exercise of friendship. And it goes down the drain when the person ignores your answer completely. 

One of the most annoying behaviours happens when the person actually contests your advice. I remember being extremely annoyed when that happened. Person asks me how to do "task", I give an answer. Person instead says that he/she would rather do "task" in a different manner. As if saying that he/she has a better way of doing "task. I then promptly proceed to tell person to fuck-off. But I would say that behaviour is rather well documented in my book. 

The behaviour I am ranting about right now happens when person actually acknowledges my advice. But does otherwise nevertheless. It is weird. It feels weird. Perhaps this is how my therapist feels most of the time. She always tells me I should actively meditate and do some physical exercise, and I do acknowledge its validity, but I still do not follow the advice I was given.

I have no conclusion today. I still feel perplexed and I do not know what to do about this. But at least its off my system for the moment.

Security, by Hunter S. Thompson

Yesterday was the birthday of one of my favorite writers, Hunter S. Thompson. He died almost 20 years ago, but he was born July 18 in the year of 1937.

My interest on HST started after watching "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". I bought the book but never got to read it. I bought Hell's Angels and never read it either.

But one day I saw this book on a bookstore - The Proud Highway, first of the "Fear and Loathing Letters", a 3 volume compilation of all the letters he wrote, and I read the preface... And bought it too. As you can imagine, it sat on my desk for years, and I frankly don't know when I actually read the first pages. Those first pages, his first letters, when he was younger than me... They were enough to give me the push I needed. We all need a little push everytime. I am lucky that I am able to be pushed by people like HST.

Below is the letter that gave me that little push I needed. I won't enter into details of when or what I was in doubt. But if you are a close friend of mine, you know my life as a open book. And thus I assure you, whatever moment you thought this letter applies, you are probably right. I read this letter many and many times.

HST, I salute you.

Security
by Hunter S. Thompson (1955).

Security ... what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut?

Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life.

His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? Has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better. What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes?

Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.

As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

My take on the half empty and half full cup.

Some people like to brag they have the cup half-full.

Is it anything at all?

I say it is not.

A half-full cup is just that. Cup missing half its contents. Likewise, the half-empty cup needs to empty half its contents to be empty. Neither full nor empty.

However, as silly as this post is, there is that never noticed idea of direction. What?

Yes, a half-full cup is said so from the point of view of someone that is expecting it to fill. I do not take you, dear reader, for an idiot. I won't repeat myself.

So you must always take into consideration that very subtle implication of direction.

Some people expect to know nothing, or do very little. Just by saying that gives me shivers. How can someone expect to know little about something. How can someone expect that knowing little is acceptable. That having, for example, no training (or knowledge) is exactly the excuse needed not to perform a task. I know, tonight I am not being very clear.

On the other side, and hoping to make my point clearer, I work that hard to know more. So I can do more. And so, supposedly, that takes me where I am today. As always, understanding myself turns out to be easier than understanding other people's motives.

Of course I am trying to make a mirror conclusion - that is, I am saying that other people must think exactly the opposite as me. They do not want to do a task, then they do not learn how to do it, in hope that that will excuse them from doing it. And by that reasoning (which is the part I do not understand) people are worthy less. Is that a wrong assumption?

I do more, thus I have greater value. I do less, hence I have lesser value.

Oh sometimes I wonder if that is that easy. Probably not.

Yet, this is the Log of Eternal Worries. If they were that quickly answered, they would never be Eternal.

J'ai besoin de pratiquer mon français. Donc ce post (et probablement les prochaines)
serais en Français, cette belle langue. Si vous trouvez ce post avec les erreurs
grammatiques ou orthographiques, et s'il vous plaît, envoyez-moi des commentaires.
Cela me aidera beaucoup!

J'ai decidé de écrire de mon album preferé.

«Division Bell», ma traduction libre - «La Cloche de La Discorde» (et non de la
division). C'est le album le plus émouvant qui je connais, peut-être autant que
le «Dark Side of the Moon». Cela me trouve mélancolique, fou, delirant, et par fin, plein
d'espoir et  nostalgie.

J'aime beaucoup les paroles. Je les chantes a plein poumons. Ce album m'aidé par
toute mes années de l'adolescence.

Je sais. Ce post est complètement different de tous les autres. Ou non. «Plus ça change,
plus c'est la même chose».

Missing some night life

So I received today a survey request from TripAdvisor about São Paulo.

One question inside it striked hard in me "A perfect trip to São Paulo cannot skip..."

And the answer I choose from instinct was "enjoying São Paulo Night Life".

And that hit hard in me. Damm how I miss São Paulo Night Life... Leaving office in a hurry, eating junk food anywhere, taking a nap to be better rested. Leaving in a cab, getting my name checked in a VIP list and hitting the bar asking for Red Bull and a shot of Red Label. Finding the rest of the gang near to the speakers or behind DJ's cabin. Smoking those lung burning Camels (back then it was allowed to smoke indoors). Dancing like nobody was watching. Another Red Bull, another Red Label, another Camel. More arm flapping, cheering for the DJ set. Getting out smelling like a zombie. Getting in a cab again, rushing home for a bath (bathing in the office sometimes, no time to waste) and there it was, Friday upon us. It all would begin again. My weekend began Thursday evening with a workday in between, because Friday night it would go on. Until Sunday afternoon, exhausted from that crazy life I had. Blue monday and it was all starting again soon.

Times long gone, times past. I hope kids these days can enjoy life as I did nineteen. It was awesome.