Writing Within

I forgot I write for the pure pleasure of unveiling the corners of my mind. This year, words seem not enough. Mainstream media drew my attention to its discourse. Each day, I am inundated with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of news messages that are shot like ammo to desensitize viewers and isolate them from hearing what the other party wants to say. After 10 months of going through this echo chamber, writing seems trivial. Journalism looks like an excuse to use rhetoric to forge new synthetic meanings, changing context and dehumanizing people. 

The current status of the internet and its network of entangled algorithms turns out to be nocive in shaping a healthy opinion about the world. It is harder to find dissident voices as now opposite crowds are conducted to videos or audios of their 'preferred' content. It is no longer: What do you want to see, or do you want to be surprised? The thirst for economic results through clicks is keeping people in their own bubbles, like a teenager in a room filled with posters of his preferred music groups who claim that there are no better bands than the ones he listens to. 

Your ideas might be wrong, but do you still want to feel you sound reasonable? Just click here and watch this 14:00-minute video with selected cuts taken out of context! Do you want to ridicule the other political party regardless of some of their reasonable points? No problem; check out this montage about how silly the opposite candidate looks under the sun.

But this goes far. As every expression of popular media becomes effortless, thanks to AI, I am not only losing interest in written content but also in video format. I cannot stand watching video after video anymore. The editing, flashy tempo, and over-the-pitch locution it is starting to give me headaches. My sight and perception are numb, and I ask myself to close the curtains. I need a visual bench that lulls my mental state. 

Right now, as I write this article, AI keeps suggesting me non-sensical corrections, even trying to change my apparently discouraging views into positive ones. I want to express sadness, AI! That is the whole purpose of writing... expressing your feelings. Can you read this?

I wonder if we are close to the death of the homo videns. I do not want to spend my time watching a video that, in 5 more minutes, will be replaced with another useless partisan message. I want something I can recall with pleasure, with calm. I want to read how others break bread and let the crumbs fall, how they count stars, and peruse the blue hues of the threes at night.

There is this need to return to the roots, where everything was simpler and had its charm. I need to take advantage of the moment; I need a clear mind that can differentiate lies from the truth—even my own. Many of our lives are the ones told to ourselves. I realized people don't want to see themselves in their purest form. I get that many do not want to see the devil in the mirror.

Men and women fear the truth, and it is not about sharing what they believe is the truth but more about expressing a different opinion to the group in the other corner of the room. There is no doubt that having a clear mind is no longer impossible to reach; on the contrary, it is attainable, but we refuse to see our redness inside, our warm innards of living creatures; fearful are the ones who exclude themselves from that passion. They prefer to point out to others, mocking and accusing them of bullies when they are the ones playing Scut Farkus.

Now, everybody seems unable to even yell into their own pillow. We are losing the ability to scrutinize ourselves and recognize that we are not our marketed images but ghostly bodies emitting pulsars as a sign of our demise.

Perhaps writing can glim our souls. Let the layers covering our beings fall off and reveal the wounded creatures we have forgotten we are. 

Am I lazy or just Exhausted?

The craving for coffee now seems to be a learned reaction to light. The switch is on, so I need to pump myself up. Get ready for whatever they need me. I sit and think: I may have taught myself to react instead of acting as a reflex to accomplish something. Note the word 'accomplish,' not make. Life is 50% reacting if you think about it. Reacting to somebody else's action on you.  As a result of constantly moving to play along I am in a corner now. The corner, although it might be limited in movement, is comfortable. I know now there are just a few squares I can choose to move. Having a lot of options does not help. It makes deciding overcomplicated. 

There is half of a lemon next to the sink. I don't remember leaving it there. The light in the kitchen is yellow, and there is nothing to see outside. The threes are dark slabs of coal. The only contrast is the hoary sky of winter. My hands are tired. Maybe is all this typing on screens and keyboards. My shoulders feel like I have been carrying a sack of potatoes the whole morning. I go to my bedroom and stretch my legs under the desk. A current goes through my spine. Have I been working for over 14 hours? Is this normal... the new average. It must be my new normal. 

I love drinks. I always have more than one next to me: water, orange juice, gin and tonic. I hope I regain some strength. I don't want to do anything, but I feel the need to be ready for something, the next thing. This idea that I don't do anything valuable is persistent, although my supervisor at work says I am a valuable asset. A printer is a valuable asset, too,  I think. Perhaps is routine.

Usually, 40 minutes of sleep helps me recover from this drowsiness. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Waves of purple and diluted cosmic green cover my sight. I can hear tree branches clacking on my window. I caress my neck and imagine a big thumb with hair on top. My eyes are open. I let the blood run. I said to myself: don't fight laziness; Let yourself get into the slumber. This is good, I say. Then I remembered I had to call my mother and wake up to continue my day... night, exhausted. 

The deer in the park

I was in the middle of a forest, it was afternoon. The fog wouldn't let me see more than 300 feet from me.

I was with somebody else, I think it was my brother. The trees were monumental, the treetops far away from the brown raven ground, their trunks looked thick but fragile like a dead man's limbs. Some of these had strange forms, wavy and holed, while others were split in two.

In the middle of the forest, I found a valley, and in the middle of it, there are trees aligned in two rows, like open arms waiting for something or somebody to pass through.

I can see the sky above them, some birds coming across those walls of living wood. The threes seemed to have welcomed that unusual form, the dark green leaves on top grow effervescently, and move quietly with the wind.

I can see grey wolfs looking for something, their snouts are few centimeters from the soil, what are they looking for? I am close to them, about 20 meters away. If it is not me then to whom?

I start panicking, I hide in some half-covered hut in the middle of the forest. It doesn't feel cold inside. I peer through a wall slit. I see the sky; no clouds, no substance in it, only a dimmer blue light, a dying day on a winter coast. I turn my head and there is no hut, surprisingly I am again in the open, and I see a fawn, 1 or 2 months old. It has its small tongue on one side, it looks fragile and funny. I had the need to protect him.

I extend my hand towards it, and I think: it would scare and leave, but the deer sniffs it and gets closer. It let me touch it, and a sense of familiarity awakes in me. As if I had to do something, to care, to protect this baby deer. Then I wake up sad and without any desire to work or to do anything else. I see the light pouring over the space between the blinds, as it was telling me, you can run and hide, but you can't get away from me.

I had a Dream

I saw a white horn on a white table in front of a white background. The place seemed to be a house or somewhere close to the sea. I could hear the waves and feel the sea breeze from the coastline.

I grab a conch shell, with tiny black and blue dots all around its protruding surface as if it was seasoned with color. My sight was from the point of view of a man who sees the horn while he is seated behind a desk, like an old tax collector or a white beard bureaucrat.

The man opened the horn from one of its sides, (it was a secret money box) and take out silver coins from it. I noticed his burly hands. They seem the hands of a fisherman, rude, and bronzed by the salt and the sun. I know this is happening in the Mediterranean, although I was not sure of which part exactly. The table in which the horn and the coins were, is made of greyish marble or so it seemed.

The breeze enters the room clear, transparent, pure as everything else in that room. Suddenly, The man hears echoes burst from the port, some ship has moored and somebody at land needs to greet the men after their journey.  

The Dark Path

The dark path I ran away from, years ago, has apparently been following me; like a black snake. A black two-headed vermin with no eyes and with no more occupation than stalking me.

It is now weaving at me, with its long meager hand, a palm that wants to cover me completely, remove me from sight as if I was dust on a screen.

I go out and notice that the blinking eyes of strangers reminded me of handclaps. Everyone hard sounding, like little bricks crashing into each other. All of them watching the world crumble while making deafening sounds. They believe the dark path is also away from them? Maybe they have never seen it. Are their lives so simple.? So bored and predictable than their mere existence found satisfaction in forgetting, episode after episode, that they are dying? -Am I living? -they asked every minute. No, you are not living, you are dying but you don't realize it yet.

While I am getting submerged in my grievance, I can picture myself in front of a bush made of small white flowers whose brightness has been dimmed by the dust. It is summer, 6:00 PM, somewhere close to the Pacific. The light is barely seen, there is only a hard red shine over the city. The concrete walls look ominous, while I am giving small jumps trying to smash the autumn leaves on the sidewalk.

The cats, the dogs, and the birds have left the city. There are no more animals to pet, to admire.

I can see many sick women in the street. They are licking their arms and hands, tasting the flavor over their bodies. There is one however who doesn't do it. This woman knows the truth, but at the same time rejects it. She is doubtful, but she still prays for revelation.

Eduardo Guillen.

The corrupt, the purity, and the way we are

Can a man who promised himself to work for the people end up corrupt? I have been thinking about this problem for several days now. I came to the conclusion that there is not a sudden change of heart but a shift that occurs by taking small steps, baby steps.

In ancient Greece, men constantly wondered about the purpose of life. Many believed that life's 'Logos' (purpose) was to please oneself incessantly. However, with each new episode of pleasure, the climax diminished in comparison with the first time, so they started exploring more devious ways to satiate their increasingly dangerous and pernicious hunger.

They knew a taste, a touch of the forbidden, could make you fall into a whirlwind of desire. Later, that satiated impulse sowed the seed of corruption in their hearts. -Why not? I am not the first; I won't be the last.- Suddenly, being one more in a crowd is no longer a depressing thought.

A single rewarded evil act can drill deep into anyone's marrow, whether be a teacher, politician, warrior, intellectual, or philosopher. Pride will do the rest. In time, the acts multiply, and the instant rewards continue, turning the purest souls into the darkest vessels of greed. 

In time, a person's soul is altered, atrophied, and defaced. Still, society will be the biggest victim. What is worse, the corruption of those known as the purest and most beautiful will turn into the kind of denigration that sickens society's future and its collective mind.

After witnessing case after case, you wonder, are purity and the desire to be pure wrong? Why do people nowadays see it as a stupid dream? Why do we ask ourselves so little regarding honesty and purity?

I don't want to belong to a society that drills into the minds of young people ideas of moral and ethical imperfection as the natural state of men's minds because, by default, humans are always looking for more, whatever they choose to go for: good, bad, or lame. If a man decides to turn evil, eventually, this will grow, and it will have one of two outcomes:

1) A corrupt individual who lives in anxiety, constantly avoiding being caught, and, for that reason, stops for a while only to return greedier later.

Or 

2) The corrupt dies.

Make no mistake, the corrupt will make his case to justify his deeds. At this moment, you know he has normalized his behavior because evil has taken away his senses: his eyes, ears, and tongue. He is no longer sharing our view of the world. The corrupted person is completely transformed, cannot change, and cannot be trusted again.

Sadly, I keep seeing this pattern happening to more people incessantly, year after year, which is taking a toll on me.

Falling or Failling?

People believe the enchantment is unconscious, No. It's conscious; it gets you through your five senses, being aware or unaware of it. You can feel something beginning to burn inside.

I ask myself, is this what I want? Maybe it is. Part of me wants this to happen. It reminds me of this book called: 'This unbearable lightness of being,' from Milan Kundera.

The book expresses, briefly speaking, you only have one life. And you sometimes fall into doing things you don't want to do but that you are called to do from deep inside of you at the same time. This doubt is inherited by every human being. (Christianity has a better and easier way to describe this. It calls it: 'Temptation').

There is fear, anxiety, small pinches of panic. That fire is burning, but burning what? Something must be ignited to be burn. I know, maybe dreams, expectations, ideas, hope.

I was thinking about how to describe my feelings now. It gets clearer with time. I am saying this is getting clearer. The message is that I must make decisions. I cannot keep running out of them. I have to close some paths to open others.

So, I need to hurt others to keep my sanity? I need to be honest; if that means to hurt, then it must be like that. There is no motive to keep evading the truth. Freedom is unavoidable. It is called being honest. I must speak with the truth.

This also means I will have to pay the price. I can't deny this either.