1914
There had been, and there still would be, years of every sort, but the year 1914 will always remain unique. So at least it seemed to those who lived trough it. To them it seemed that never would they be able to speak of all that they had seen then of the course of human destinies, however much, still concealed by time and events, might be said or written about it later. How could they explain and express those collective shudders which suddenly ran trough all men and which from living beings were transmitted to inert objects, to districts and to buildings? How could they describe that swirling current among men which passed from dumb animal fear to suicidal enthusiasm, from the lowest impulses of bloodlust and pillage to the greatest and most noble of sacrifices, wherein man for a moment touches the sphere of greater worlds with other laws? Never can that be told, for those who saw and live trough it have lost the gift of words and those who are dead can tell no tales. Those were things which are not told, but forgotten. For were they not forgotten , how could they ever be repeated?
Ivo Andrić. The bridge on the Drina (1945).
Phase Space
Phase A, in which I am happy and eager to live new stuff, to learn new stuff.
Phase B, in which I am fighting my demons and all I long for is death.
Every human generation has its own illusion with regard to civilization; some believe that they are taking part in its upsurge, others that they are witnesses of its extinction. In fact, it always both flames up and smoulders and is extinguished, according to the places and the angle of view. This generation which was now discussing philosophy, social and political questions on the kapia under the stars, above the waters, was richer only in illusions; in every other way it was similar to any other. It had the feeling both of lighting the first fires of one new civilization and extinguishing the last flickers of another which was burning out. What could specially be said of them was that there had not been for a long time past a generation which with greater boldness had dreamed and spoken about life, enjoyment and freedom and which had received less of life, suffered worse, laboured more hardly and died more often than had this one. But in those summer days of 1913 all was still undetermined, unsure. Everything appeared as an exciting new game on that ancient bridge, which shone in the moonlight of those July nights, clean, young and unalterable, strong and lovely in its perfection, stronger than all that time might bring and men imagine or do.
Faceless timeless
Beauty exists independently of time.
It is solely a moment
but one that lasts for ever.
It is solely a moment
but one that lasts for ever.
Brown leaves
It is autumm in Mexico City.
I know I love the setting, but I can't feel it.
What I am doing here? now?
A tale of two cities.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way.
Smiling
Lots of new stuff.
Lots of new people.
Things I had never tought about.
Situations I had never anticipated.
Mathematics I had never foreseen.
Understandings I had never achieved.
Ideas, feelings, thoughts, work, leissure.
I can't lie: every time I have a peak at paradise I awe at its beauty; getting and staying there is all that matters, this it is as valuable to me as to any one else.
Lots of new people.
Things I had never tought about.
Situations I had never anticipated.
Mathematics I had never foreseen.
Understandings I had never achieved.
Ideas, feelings, thoughts, work, leissure.
Exile
Exiled from the very world I helped build, from my own dreams, from my own future.
What is left is this, which can not be called a life.
You think I'm lying? come and have a piece of this.
Where
Like in a movie, that is how I wanted to live. And for some time I actually managed to achieve it.
Looking out the window I realized that I no longer live the world as character of this great script, my role is currently that of an spectator, or rather an expectator.
For some unkonw reason I refuse to act.
It's been almost a year since the last time I ventured to act in this, the comedy of my life, and then only for a short act. I wonder, where am I heading?
No, it is not a screen capture from unreal tournament 2003.
'Santa Anita' metro station, Line 4. Mexico City.
Sept 29, 2007. 20:36
River
Un puente sobre un rio.
De que sirve la vida si no hay un rio que cruzar?
Si no podemos, como ese buen hombre, sentarnos a la orilla del rio y leer, de que sirve salir de casa?
De que sirve un departamento si no se puede ver el Sava por la ventana?
De que sirve la vida si no hay un rio que cruzar?
Si no podemos, como ese buen hombre, sentarnos a la orilla del rio y leer, de que sirve salir de casa?
De que sirve un departamento si no se puede ver el Sava por la ventana?
Aire
Una noche de resaca, al tratar de despertar
Note que por el ombligo me empezaba a desinflar
Que mi cuerpo se arrugaba como un papel vegetal.
Que iba pasando, que curioso, al estado gaseoso.
Y tras la metamorfosis me senti mucho mejor.
Era un aire gris y oscuro, con bastante polucion.
Se notaba en cualquier caso que era aire de ciudad,
que si bien no es el mas sano lo prefiere el ser humano.
Aire.
Soñe por un momento que era aire
Oxigeno, nitrogeno y argon
sin forma definida ni color
Fui aire, volador
Como yo soy muy conciente, hasta en esta situacion,
Decidi ser consecuente con mi nueva dimension
Y probe a ser respirado por la que duerme a mi lado
Sin entrar en pormenores, yo se hacer cosas mejores.
Como no me satisfizo la experiencia sexual
Se me inflaron los vapores, me converti en huracan.
Di unas tres o cuatro vueltas y a la quinta me canse.
"Este cuarto es muy pequeño para las cosas que sueño"
Y lo siento por mi novia y el cristal que me cargue
Me salte por la ventana y en picado me lance
Pero tuve mala suerte y cuando iba a remontar
Me volvi otra vez humano, no falteis al funeral.
.
Mecano es lo único bueno que ha salido del reino de España en los últimos 100 años.
Mexico City.
It's been a really fine night, in the sence that I'm drunk and nonetheless I don't fell like shit, which usually happens every time I'm drunk. I've had this really exiting talk with Mariano, a friend of mine, about the city and about how we must go about it seeking new stuff, and of the really nice things he's witnessed when going arround the place. It was really exciting, it is a project for the future, something I long for. To go about the city and enjoy it, and get to know new stuff and get to be happy again.
Today, walking arround my house I realized how I've forgotten the way the city feels... I've been so inmerse in my stuff, not only in my part of the city, but also in my personal stuff, that I've been unable, even in my long walks, to enjoy the city, this city whish I love so much. It is fantastic, that feeling, of beign in Mexico City... a feeling I haven't enjoy in any other city I've beento. It's not about cosmpolitanism.. it's not about traditions, it's just about progress and a mixture of tradition and longing for the future... it's actually really hard to explain, but this city makes me feel like there is indeed a future, like there is indeed somewhere where all this shit is leading to. Not necesesarly a nice place, because pollution and overcrowding might very well be leading us to doom, but somewhere nonetheless... somewhere where a new life awaits. That is indeed the reason why I, along whith many other thousand came to this city.. because there was something awaiting... it's rather hard to describe what that something is.. but there is something.
This place is moving.. and when here.. you move with it. This place is growing, this place is fighting, this place is going faster... and we all are going with it. Every corner, every person, every streen and every building.. alll the clouds coming on top of it, and all the mountains surrounding it, are all singing the very same thing: ahead. While it is unclear if that 'ahead' is related to glory or to pitty, at least it is ahead,and the feeling of stagnation is never felt. This a place to be alive... a place to move and not be idle, a place to go further. That, indeed that is what is most enjoyable, not the sights, not the postcard sites, or the traditional stuff.. but that feeling of going further everyday, even if stuck in the traffic.. but going further.. that's what this city is all about.
That's what I want to feel.
We are heading for tomorrow.
D vs C
Everything can be, in a sense, quantified. Time is, of course, not an exception. We are all familiar with the meassurment of time, and humanity has createad increiasingly percice devices to keep track of it. And we all like to think that time is universal an idea that has long since been proven wrong.
But then, one comes to ask: what is time?
The 'flow' of time is relative to one's position and velocity, that is, the magnitude of that flow in relation to the 'flow' of space. But the direction of time is not relative, at least as far as we know, and definetely as far as normal, everyday, life is concerned. The 'direction' of the flow of time is indeed universal: no one has a neighbour who's clocks run backwards; a rather fortunate situation indeed, for it allows us to avoid aditional problems when trespassing into our neighbours backyard to fetch a ball.
There is one first concept I'd like to explain today: discrete vs. continous. Let us forget for now the math related to it. We can think of time going in two directions, one of them impossible to achieve, but only two direction, forward and backwards. We can't think of an intermediate direction, beteeen forward and backwards... nor can we think of another direction, say... further from forward than what backwards is. How ever, it is easy to imagine a spot between your house and your workplace, or a spot past your workplace in the direction you take every morning to get to work. And between any two of those four spots, you can easily imagine one more inbetween, and so on. But the same cannot be told about the possible directions one can imagine time to have.
The directions we can imagine time to have form a discrete set: forward and backward. The spots on a map form a continous set: every two points on the map have not one, but a infinte amount of them inbetween.
A mathmatician would argue that continuity is a property of functions, not of sets, that perhaps I'm trying to refer to a set being infinite, or rather complete. That is a correct remark. Continuity is indeed a property of functions. And ofcouse one can mess arround and define continous functions in non-complete and even finite sets.
But lets forget that for a moment I said!
It is the concepts which are discrete and continous, and we therefore cannot create a 'nice' relation between the two of them. Supose your neightbour has his clocks going backwards... as you aproach the wall that separates both houses you clock is still running forward, and once you hop that fence, all of a sudden it is running backwards. An aburbt change of direction, abrubt ofcourse if we consider time to be continous. These two concepts can not be put together, related, in a nice mater, one without this abrubt changes.
Take a step back
If we take a step back just for a moment, and not listen, simply stare at the picture infront of us, if we forget the fine grain and look at the "big picture", we realize that there are things arround us which have their effect on us and that we rarely notice.
Looking at the sky has become one of my favourite passtimes lately. The movement and evolution of clouds is a lovely phenomena I hadn't admired for some time. The feeling of insignificance is so conforting when things are going badly.
Nicholas Rostov turned away and, as if searching for something, gazed into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, and at the sun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm, and how deep! How bright and glorious was the setting sun! With what soft glitter the waters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer still were the faraway blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious gorges, and the pine forests veiled in the mist of their summits... There was peace and happiness... "I should wish for nothing else, nothing, if only I were there,"
...
Above him there was now nothing but the sky--the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran," thought Prince Andrew--"not as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that.
Al levantar la bota de vino con al brazo sano, contempló el alto cielo azul, claro en ese día de comienzos de verano. Tenía ciencuenta y dos años y estaba seguro de que veía ese cielo por última vez.
Looking at the sky has become one of my favourite passtimes lately. The movement and evolution of clouds is a lovely phenomena I hadn't admired for some time. The feeling of insignificance is so conforting when things are going badly.
Nicholas Rostov turned away and, as if searching for something, gazed into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, and at the sun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm, and how deep! How bright and glorious was the setting sun! With what soft glitter the waters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer still were the faraway blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious gorges, and the pine forests veiled in the mist of their summits... There was peace and happiness... "I should wish for nothing else, nothing, if only I were there,"
...
Above him there was now nothing but the sky--the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran," thought Prince Andrew--"not as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that.
Al levantar la bota de vino con al brazo sano, contempló el alto cielo azul, claro en ese día de comienzos de verano. Tenía ciencuenta y dos años y estaba seguro de que veía ese cielo por última vez.
Demons
In my solitude
You haunt me
With dreadful ease
Of days gone by.
In my solitude
You taunt me
With memories
That never die
-B.H.
We all have some sort of demons inside of us. A marvelous idea exploiting that apears in Gabriele Salvatores' Nirvana, one of the sci-fi films I've most enjoyed. The futuristic cyberspace in it pictured, strongly remembering Gibson's Sense/Net, has to offer a new sort of protection against intruders. The ultimate protection tools are called demons, virtual representations of the intruder's personal demons (which the system somehow acceses through the neural interface) which try to stop the intruder by engaging him in longed or feared conversations. In the movie, Jimi's (Lambert) ex-girlfriend and father appear, trying to solve old problems so as to stopping him from hacking into the computer.
We call the demons (daemons for the brits) because they are wretched, because they are powerfull, and because they are unpredictable. There's no scaping from them, they will always harm and you can't fully know when or where they will pop up.
My particular set of demons is a nice little pack of quite young lads. I'd never met them before until recently, but they, I think, are very fond of me, and therefore rearely leave my side. It is for the later that I call them a 'nice' pack, for their unpredictability has been reduced, I know, almost for certain, that in any given moment and time, they will be there. But of course, they are also bastards which have ruined my life for over a year now.
My particular set of demons is a nice little pack of quite young lads. I'd never met them before until recently, but they, I think, are very fond of me, and therefore rearely leave my side. It is for the later that I call them a 'nice' pack, for their unpredictability has been reduced, I know, almost for certain, that in any given moment and time, they will be there. But of course, they are also bastards which have ruined my life for over a year now.
<-------------------------------------- But I've met and old aquantiance, a demon not of my insides but of everyone's. I'll try to get him to beat the shit out of the other ones, mine. There will be better days. The weather is superb in Mexico City, you should give a try. At least roll down the window of your car.
We must not ignore the stars above us.
Redeemers
"His armour, still shining,
Though it's torn by fights
The brave man, redeemer,
He brought us back to life"
To what extent does a desire of epic greatness live in each of us? It is not a new idea at all, for redeemers, persons of utter importance to humanity who will forever be remembered, have existed in human imagination for centuries.
I've had my fantasies on the issue, have you?
It is well know that many of those who sign up to a nacent organization, be it a political party, a NGO, a basketball team or a church, do so because in their fantasies they will rise to an importante figure in this organization. And it is indeed that generalized quest for individual outstanding that normaly brings not-well-managed organizations to a prompt end. I wonder, does this have anything to do with the image of the saviour that has been presented to us since the very begining. How many christians, for example, have ever fantasied on being Jesus reborn? and how does this affect their lives? and society in general?
March ahead.
Tenemos todo.
Pero no por eso debemos quedarnos "inmoviles al borde del camino".
Hacia adelante, siempre.
La distancia entre el presente y la fuente de mis nostalgias se reduce, pronto sentire nostalgia por hoy, y despues por mañana.
--
We have it all.
But that is not a reason to "remain steady at the edge of the road".
Ahead, always.
The distance between the present and the source of my nostalgies is decreacing, soon I will feel it for today, and after that for tomorrow.
reminder / recordatorio
It must not be forgotten that at the end, one is always alone.
-
No debe olvidarse que, al final, uno siempre está solo.
Tonight we are stars... that shine on bright.
:)
Puedo pensar en tantas cosas, o pasar dias entero dandole vueltas a algo.
Pero el verdadero avance viene no en forma de pensamientos, si no en forma de eso que yo llamo el brillo, un sentimiento que acompaña cada idea, cada visión, cada palabra; imposible, al menos para mí, de describir con palabras. Es un sentimiento que tiene que ver con el futuro y con el pasado, como si toda mi historia y mis sueños se juntaran en esta única sensación.
Sin brillo es imposible disfrutar de algo. Sin brillo cada momento está aislado del resto, mis pensamientos, memorias y anhelos carecen de estructura y por lo tanto el presente es irrelevante.
Oh, como extrañaba este sentimiento! No lo dejaré ir esta vez.
No más probaditas de felicidadad, la quiero toda.
La palabra francesa de ayuda nunca había sido tan adecuada.
/
I can think about so many things or spend entire days reviewing something.
But the real breakthrough comes not in the form of thoughts, but in the form of that which I call brightness, a feeling that accompanies each thought, each sight, each word; impossible, at least for me, to describe it in words. It is a feeling that has to do with the future and with the past, like if all my history and dreams came together into this one sensation.
With out brightness, it is impossible to enjoy anything. Without brightness every moment is isolated from the rest, my thoughts, memories and longings lack any structure and therefore the present is irrelevant.
Oh, how I missed this feeling. I will not let it go this time.
No more glimpses of happiness... I want it all.
The French word for help had never been so accurate.
I was the one to build the bomb / Yo era el que había de construir la bomba
There is something about yellow streetlights.
After a very very long time I was able to grasp, all at once, if only for a couple of seconds, the beauty of this place, my childhood home. I have a memory of a comet that me and my family watched from my front yard, with the naked eye. I have the memory of those days and somehow I relate those days, those places, with a lifestile which is so different from that which I have now. A lifestille I relate with swaters with rombus patterns, with thick glasses and short hair; I relate it very much to the word Eureka, and of course to the cold war.
Science and Cold War.
That is the way I saw my future when I was four or five years old.
I cried when I visited Berlin for the first time, some 17 years after the fall of the Wall, because I felt clearly that that future no longer existed. I had somehow forgotten that future, but the moment I realized it was over, I felt like I had let it pass, while sitting in my living room playing videgames and out in the street playing football.. that future had left, and left me behind in this world.
It is a feeling I can't get rid off: that I am letting things past, that I am somehow disloyal to my past... by not purusing what I used to. I feel it quite strongly now that I am really astray in life.
I want to wake up tomorrow and work for that future whcih I longed for when I was little, that life of science, cofee in the morning, small gatherings at nights, tall blonde women with Luggers in their purses. I want to take a job in the building of that future, and I want someone to join me.
---
Algo tienen las luces amarillas de las calles
Despues de mucho tiempo fui capaz de nuevo de aprehender, todo simultaneamente, la belleza de este lugar, mi hogar de la niñez. Tengo un recuerdo de un cometa que yo y mi familia vimos del jardin delantero con el ojo desnudo. Tengo el recuerdo de esos dias y de alguna forma relaciono esos dias, esos lugares, con un estilo de vida que es tan diferente de este que tengo ahora. Un estilo de vida relacionado con sweaters con patrones de rombos, con gafas gruesas y cabello corto; lo relaciono mucho con la palabra Eureka, y, por supuesto, conla guerra fria.
Ciencia y Guerra Fria.
Esa es la forma en que veia mi futuro cuando tenia cuatro o cinco años.
Llore la primera vez que visité Berlin, unos 17 años despues de la caida del muro, porque sentí claramente que ese futuro ya no existia. En cierto modo me habia olvidado de ese futuro, pero en el momento en que me di cuenta de que se habia terminado, sentí como si lo hubiese dejado pasar, como si mientras yo estaba sentado en el living jugando videjuegos o en la calle jugando al futbol, ese futuro se hubieses ido, y me hubiese dejado a mi aquí en este mundo.
Es un sentimiento del que no logro deshacerme: ese de que estoy dejando las cosas pasar, de que de alguna forma soy desleal con mi pasado, por no perseguir lo que solía perseguir. Lo siento con bastante fuerza ahora que estoy sin camino por la vida.
Quiero despertar mañana y trabajar por ese futuro que yo anhelaba cuando era pequeño, esa vida de ciencia, café por las mañanas, pequeñas reuniones por las noches, mujeres altas y rubias con Luggers en sus bolsos. Quiero tomar en un empleo en la construiccion de ese trabajo, y quiero que alguien me acompañe.
Heaven only knows
New dreams.
Same fears.
I can only remember and cry... how I used to go about the world so swiftly and not be stopped by anything.
Yet I have the feeling that, if I get rid of this headache, everything will be all right.
sinking.
I am going nowhere.. no matter how much I move.
Sinking.
-
Voy a ningún lado... no importa cuanto me mueva.
Hundiendome.
Wake me up!/Despiértame!
Bad dreams come very often, I am sure you've had your share of them.
Two nights ago I had this awfull dream, and upon waking up, after some seconds of relief for realizing it was only a dream, I burst in to tears. It was suddenly clear that my dream wasn't at all far from reality, and that all the fears I'd dreamt were most adequate for this, the real world.
It's been two days now... and I feel awful, always aware that I am lving a nightmare, that I am trapped, exitless, in this suffering.
I'd like to wake up for real this time.
----
Los sueños feos ocurren muy seguido, estoy seguro de que habeis tenido algunos.
Hace dos noches, tuve este horrible sueño y, al despertar, tras unos segundos de alivio por darme cuenta de que soñaba, comence a llorar. Fue de pronto claro que mi sueño no estaba, para nada, lejos de la realidad, y que todos los miedos que habia soñado son de lo más adecuado para este, el mundo real.
Han pasado dos días.... y siento horrible, siempre conciente de que estoy viviendo una pesadilla, de que estoy atrapado, sin salida, en este sufrimiento.
Quiciera despertar, esta vez, al mundo real.
Obsesión por la originalidad / Obsession for originality.
No puedo andar mucho tiempo por el mundo sin sentirme engañado.
Escribir más seria engañarlos a ustedes tambien, pues en mi no queda nada original más que los recuerdos, que son penosos de contar, aburridos de escuchar y que, además, se están borrando en mi memoria.
Todos somos un fraude.
--
I can't walk much trough the world without feeling that I am beign deceived.
To write more than this would be to deceive you too, for in me nothing original remains but memories, which are embarrassing to tell, borring to listen to, and also fading off my memory.
We are all a fraud.
El mundo contra mí.
La noche de ayer figura entre las peores de mi vida.
Corriendo un SOM sobre unos datos que me llevo todo el dìa recopilar, mi disco duro se sobrecalento y ahora no funciona. No solo perdí algunos días de trabajo de tesis.. tambien perdí miles de archivos personales, mi colecion de ebooks.. y algunas fotos muy preciadas para mí.
Fue un golpe realmente fuerte... de cierto modo una cachetada del destino tratando de decirme "move on" lo cual intento desde hace mucho tiempo, pero que ultimamente no he podido hacer.
Ademas del disco duro se fue mi tarjeta de video.
El buen Diablo me ha prestado una, junto con unos cables para el nuevo disco SATA que compre.
Y bueno.. la sucesión de cosas malas sigue adelante... pero si alguien es tan desafortunado de estar leyendo esto, no quiero agoviarlo de más.
Espero que mañana sea un buen día.
Se aceptan invitaciones a comer.
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