Friday 21 December 2012

breathing #15 [what's your excuse?]

My dear dreamers,

I was searching for something inspiring. Something that would blow my mind away in a heartbeat. And I finally found it through the work of Janet Echelman.

I didn't know her until today, but I saw her work everyday I took a walk by the sea in the city I'm currently living in: Porto. Without knowing it. Today I discovered a little bit more about where I live. About its story. Today I feel connected with someone would also had been rejected, but found her way in the end. Which is successful and hadn't afraid of believing in herself. Who brings a little bit of joy and beauty to the urban place. A little bit of colour. A little bit of ancient. A little bit of life.

Be amazed by her sculptures:



She Changes @Porto, Portugal (2005)

The Expanding Club, @New York City, New York (2007)

Roadside Shrine I: Cone Ridge @ Houston, Texas (2000)

Target Swooping II @Burgos, Spain (2001)

Her Secret Is Patience @Phoenix, Arizona (2009)
Target Swooping Down... Bullseye! @Madrid, Spain (2001)
I leave you with her story.


So, what's your excuse?

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Tuesday 11 December 2012

here and there #7 [good morning]

via pinterest


I woke up in the morning with a mug of hot coffee beside me, a sweet kiss and promises of eternity. It's like this every day, for almost ten years now, and I still don't know a better way to wake up.

However, for a long time, I wasted these first hours between sleepiness and awaking, between dreams and reality ...? Between the heat of sheets and the freshness of mind.

So many times I complained about the lack of inspiration, or having nothing to tell. Even when thoughts fought each other in order to have a bit of my attention. The constant fear of "losing my way" prevented me from facing the paper.

Many writers, famous or not, told me to write every day, when waking up. I, just now, decided to follow their advice, and, after three texts, I consider it to be an excellent practice.

Ideas jiggle around like popcorn, images arise spontaneously*. The unconscious invades my conscious part of the mind. I don't even need to think. Themes and approaches that in normal days (as if I had them) I do not remember pointing out are written in impermanent ink.

Patterns. It was the first word that I remembered when I look to my coffee. We seek them everywhere. In stars, in dregs of some drink, on the palms of every hand. And so we think we bring meaning to life. Wouldn't we'll be also usurping it, creating stereotypes? To what extent patterns even exist and to what extent can we analyze them? (Someone skilled in this matter please stand up.)

Is life pure mathematics? An organized chaos? How often will you need to test that A + B = C? Could we then live by formulas? Would self-help books become the next textbooks?

I never believed in absolute free will. We are always constrained by the books we read, the movies we envision, the music we listen to, the people around us, the places we attend, and by those other people we idolize. And even these may be indirectly chosen by us.

But I also do not trust in pre-determined solutions. In a world in black and white. At the boundary between right and wrong. If there is a formula, there is a god. And who does not want to be god?

* When you remember a story, do they also appear you in images? As if instead you had read them, it seemed you have seen a movie?

Originally posted at pingos de tinta.





Friday 7 December 2012

here and there #6 [pieces of pieces of...]



Little Blue Planet by *marklar on deviantART

We live by strategies. By tutorials. How-to's and pseudo-profound quotes. The life we ​​live is really ours?

"Change your life in 59 seconds", "15 mandatory no-calorie food", "16 reasons not to have children," "Sex: what they want." This is the culture of  pink magazines. This is what most women read. This is what they want to become.

Asimov was already talking about robots for some reason; sometimes we just seem machines waiting for instruction. No need to create intelligent computers that think for themselves. Because even the human species failed at this point.

But I was talking about strategies. Whenever I hear these words I remember of manipulation and war. Or is it adaptation? Update? Darwin? 孙武 (Sun Tzu)? Knowing what surrounds us? Asking ourselves? Evolve?

Since we were still half-egg-half-sperm (or even earlier) that we are fragments of fragments of fragments. I am the tail of a comet. A small portion of the nebula. I have lived in the primeval soup and conquered the sky in the form of lightning.

One day I will be just part trash, part nutritive-something. I'll contribute, perhaps, for the History of mankind, but the most important narrative will have yet to be told: the fears, dreams, phobias, victories, failures, the discovery.

I'll not become nothing, I, for so long, thought I'd be. I'll be everything. Each atom will travel through infinite times and spaces. I will return to be a falling star and fulfill thousands of wishes. I'll rest in the craters of the moon and, once again, will be seduced by the charms of the little blue planet.


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Thursday 6 December 2012

here and there #4 [she is me]

My dear dreamers,

 If they could wake up a little then they would realise they can feel enough love coming from the grass beneath their feet to last a lifetime! S. Park

Today I wrote my thoughts:

The cold shivers throughout the house. Not even a mug of hot chocolate is able to warm her. There isn't any heaters or fireplaces. The economic crisis has already attacked the bodies of the population. The soul, that one has never been free.

Between buying and throwing away, stayed the debt which will last a life to be paid. They all adorn themselves, thinking that beauty is happiness or that it wraps itself up in gold, bright paper. That one so arduous to find.

Like the ostrich, people stuck their heads inside the television. They felt so comfortable there, they can no longer leave. They were promised fame, instantaneous happiness. As instantaneous as the chocolate she was drinking. When what they mean was 'fragmented pleasure'. Brief. Priceless. But just because it has no value at all.

Sex, lies and pimba music.* Perfect bodies in putrid minds. 0% of critical thinking.

What do they know about happiness? It doesn't come in gleaming bars or frozen packages. Not even comes in books, but even if it were nobody would read them. The little they know about happiness is because they ignore the meaning of love.

Everyone is looking for adrenaline, for the flavour of the moment and sweeping sensations. But love is not the pounding heart, or butterflies in the stomach, or even the sudden sensation of heat. Love is not physicality.

To love is to understand life. It is to surrender to life. It is ceasing to be human and become nature. It is to stop being one to be everyone. To love is to learn how to die.

* Portuguese popular music


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