Saturday, June 11, 2011 12:28:13 AM
Now come one come all to this tragic affair,
wipe off that makeup, what's in is despair,
so throw on the black dress, mix in with the lot,
you might wake up and notice you're someone you're not. I think they'd call it a form of cognitive distortion, or something like that. Perhaps there's even a more precise term I wouldn't mind finding. It's when you watch your past memories from the long distance and try to find ordered patterns where there might be only chaos. Let's call it cognitive distortion, so I could claim it was just a glitch, after all, if I'm proven wrong. Except I don't believe I'm wrong, not at all. You see, everything pointed there but I had never realized it until last year's summer. The signs were many, subtle and even less subtle, they all pointed there. To what I'd be calling today the Argent project. But mostly, they pointed at the key to get back myself, to summon that true, lost self. The Argent is a key, not a sort of weird scientific experiment, and it doesn't even matter that I told myself and others I was curious to see if it would ever fly, and albeit it'd be cool to see it soar in the near future, its true mission was that of being built. It really was as it seemed when the other blog was created: to heal the broken bird on that balcony; fragile and broken since 1990, but never dead, it was protected by the false one through all the time it took for it to find the will to be reborn. Looking back, within this wannabe kind of cognitive distortion, I now see many hints splatted clearly on the walls of the corridor of the past. Hints that accompanied me through years, misinterpreted at best, totally unnoticed otherwise. Whenever I looked in the mirror I could see myself, and ask myself why I couldn't manage to look a bit more equipped with flesh, extra flesh other than the basic minimum. In 1991 I was still at school, in that fortunately brief anorexic period of my life, and I remember one morning when I threw a snack into the rubbish bin, in the classroom, instead of eating it, to then find myself on the verge of crying. My parents wished I got back to eating normally, they were in pain for my condition. I never managed to get past the underweight category anymore. Someone, elsewhere, wondered whether I was losing weight to get the Argent more chances to get off the ground. I said no, that I've always been rather thin, and that it might have been a question of metabolism. "Am I really sure?" - I asked myself this evening while refining the Argent's left wing that was lying, in its final shape and complex structure, on the garage's ground, looking like something almost alive. It might have been just cognitive distortion, of course. The other way 'round sounds absurd even to me. And I may be no ordinary guy, above average or plain deranged as you see fit, albeit I'd classify myself as pretty sane now; just a bit weird, maybe, but who isn't? Anyway, the alternative is that I've always been preparing for this, without absolutely knowing. Or rather, subtly pointing me at this, by making myself compatible with the idea. Or even more precisely, with the creature that in my imagination was left broken on that balcony; it was so colorful in the dream, a creature seeking freedom, sunlight, dawn. Look above, dawn is here, casting shadows over what's left behind. Alright, they might have been over seven thousand mornings, not four thousands as I initially thought, but since some days it's here, shining clearly over the corridor of my past, the ceiling having gone, letting air, wind and rain finally get rid of the dust. Dawn is here and there's nothing more to say, here. I've been passing my time outside this house and even when I'm close enough, I'm in the garage on the other side, or writing on the other blog. Looks like I just don't belong here anymore.
Friday, June 3, 2011 6:50:35 PM
It just hurts; it's being difficult to digest, difficult to feed, difficult to cure, difficult to dismiss. Mistakes should be there to be corrected. It's also great, wonderful; not sure if promising. Not sure what it ought to promise. The future's weird, I know this for certain. Locking clamps disengaged. So painful I'm feeling ill, as always before, except it won't likely subside anymore. Lights are green. Such a feeling of being wrong, such a powerful desire to feel right. One world does not worth another, there is no way to solve the Problem, but I suppose all that remains is going on anyway, bringing the Problem as the source of scarily powerful motivations. Ignition sequence start. Damn you summer, damn you warmth, I was much better off complaining in the cold, I don't want to ignite, it hurts, I'd like to cancel that out, it's tearing me off, I do not accept, I should not be so!
- Lift off!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 4:29:54 PM
High humidity here today, it's been so since yesterday. Temperature went slightly down, the sun's hidden beyond what seems more of a diffuse fog than clouds. It's not fun, but that might not be today's problem. It never is the weather, really. Getting out in a sunny day would only mitigate this, whatever it is. Because I don't really know. I'm off-center again, perhaps I should make me a coffee soon, it might stimulate some recovery from... sort of a slight anhedonia. Don't mind looking that up: it's when you feel uninterested in anything. It should not be as such; yesterday I was happily working at the Argent, and I recently even found a certain momentum jet model for flapping wing flight that can extend the power curve toward zero horizontal speed and show that it's obviously not asymptotic, but rather inverts its slope and bends down toward the X axis. The curve happily crosses Y at about 2 KW for a 90-kilogram, 7-square meter wing area, model. The Argent's available mechanical output is 2.48 KW. Nothing wrong there. As this thing leaves the realm of fantasy and appears to be approaching reality, I suppose I should feel pretty good. You can't take challenges you know you can't possibly succeed with. Perhaps. It's not about the challenge, it's about me. I'm scared by my own activities, feelings, energy, I'm scared by that other archetype. The one making my heart go faster. Damn it, it's been like believing you were something for two decades, convinced your nature might be that forever, and then all of a sudden realize you had been incubating something else, all that time. But I'd like to forgive him, and be forgiven, and at peace, despite all these notable diversions in our paths. It's scary because I begin to suspect I - as I knew myself across those twenty years - didn't really exist: I wasn't there before, I'll be fading away for the foreseeable future. I was nothing but an artifact, possibly not a mistake, probably a defensive mechanism, much like an egg's shell, in any cases something that couldn't be considered part of... my essence as an individual, close to my core personality model. Last year, the egg began to hatch: I, the shell, am being broken in the process. Oh well, after all, from that perspective, which feels absolutely true, there's nothing to forgive, there was no fault, no victim and no alternative. Akin to a natural process, it's been just so. I came here to write something down about how I felt and simply enjoy some self-commiseration, but then unexpectedly, it looks like I really found why, today, I'm not happy, I'm not feeling very well, aside of a slight headache due to having not slept well. It's just right. The shell is breaking.
Monday, May 30, 2011 11:49:27 PM
I'm posting this from the tablet so don't mind if it doesn't feature the same look and alignments as the other posts. I won't mind, for sure, and you shouldn't as well. It's totally irrelevant. Just like my missions I don't take as missions anymore since long now. On a side note, it's almost impossible to comfortably write a post on FF4 on this tablet. The textbox won't scroll as you type, got to scroll manually and type most stuff without being able to see the result. Meh. Crappy toomuchhilevelstuff. Crappy interfaces. Now, what was I talking about? The compass went mad, but in a pleasant way tonight. Scrapped panic in exchange for freedom, scrapped the character in exchange for me. I've tried for so long to let go of the past when all I had to really do was let go of the future. I'm following the compass as it runs in circles, makes figure eights, cuts through expectations. I'm just one tonight, the other possibly took a vacation or something and I hope not to see him again. Move on, follow the compass. It may lead noqhere, but it's pleasant and easier to follow it than continuously attempting to move the magnetic poles around.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 1:17:16 AM
If there's a place that I could be
then I'd be another memory.
Can I be the only hope for you?
because you're the only hope for me.
Twenty-one years ago we moved here from maybe about 8 kilometers away, which might be about 5 miles. Whatever, they were a long road for an early teenager whose most relevant, independent mode of transportation was a bicycle. Meanwhile, school years below what would be a 9th grade on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, were also left behind for a wholly new set of faces. I was following my passion for programming computers, could not care if no former friends would come join me there. Came living here, too close to oppressive mountains circling this house except to the west, enough to enjoy all sunsets but never see dawns. Came living here among people I still almost totally don't know. Left in solitude, would have been fine to me. I'd have explored the place but would have never joined whoever was around, all of them seemed too grown-up for me to be reasonably compatible. So I left myself here, content with making a few new good friends at the new school. Face all the pain and bring it out, it's such a bad frog to keep within tonight. Yeah, I know, there's anynowhere's friends, but they're painfully silent and distant, and of course we can't know each other well enough as if we spent years face to face. Of course I love and admire them from here, but it's quite clear that they can't be enough. And I don't know... tonight it suddenly seemed there could be nobody but those I knew many years ago, and suddenly I understood why I made that silent choice of locking myself in this house and seek nobody outside. My new friends then passed on the other side of the screen, distant and silent as an email. Losing everyone's been an unexpected, and yet not entirely explored, pain. And suddenly you realize how much you don't belong here. But it's ok: once the extent of the problem's realized, it can be compensated by adequate defense strategies. What the hell I'm saying? No, really, anyway, time to move on, don't bury me yet, I suppose I'm still alive. The pulse isn't good, is it? Prepare to deliver shock. Don't touch the patient.
And if we can't find where we belong,
we'll have to make it on our own.
Face all the pain and take it on,
because the only hope for me is you alone.
Saturday, May 14, 2011 12:39:00 AM
Waked up energized, had a nice day, despite a somewhat disturbing dream. It was about Kevin. I was in vicinity of a place I know, on the mountain; the place is a narrow strip of terraced terrain belonging to dad, filled with a few dozen olive trees. But the place was laid in desolation, it didn't look at all like it is in reality; terraces were still there but the ground was completely smooth, deprived of rocks and naked of any vegetable life or residual trace thereof. It looked like the ground someway melted and washed away, leaving a layer of pure light brown mud, and I knew the process revealed whatever was buried there. I was looking for Kevin among a couple possible surfacing carcasses, evidently presuming him dead. One of the bodies was that of a dead dog, not what I was looking for, so I moved to the other side of the perimeter where the next item lied. From a few meters away, for a moment and unknown reasons, it appeared to be exactly Kevin's remains, but as I went closer the object gradually turned into something completely different. It was a baby, three or four years old maybe, showing dark wavy hair and wearing torn, dirty, dark clothes; and, he was alive. Definitely not what I was looking for, anyway. There were people around, a few unknown persons. To no avail, I asked them if they happened to see Kevin around there a couple months before, then I pointed them to the baby. They apparently recognized him and phoned his mother, who arrived on board a camper, and began profusely thanking me for finding her lost child. Envious and saddened, to no avail, I asked her if she ever saw my lost cat, Kevin. The woman turned unpleasantly arrogant, then waved a finger at me and told me I should have taught him to stay away from people, to never trust them. I feel offline now. The rest of the day was indeed warm and pleasant: afternoon was spent under the sun, napped for a while, had a shower, evening saw friends coming here to play some poker, tonight's starry and presumably refreshing. I might just be alright but I'm not. Perhaps I just won't allow me to feel alright for as much as a whole day long, perhaps I'm just still missing Kevin, perhaps he broke my scheme, perhaps it was the dream, perhaps it was an old resurfacing fear. Perhaps I'm just fine, and believe that's no good.
Thursday, May 12, 2011 12:13:20 PM
...so get me out my head,
'cos it's getting pretty cramped you know,
I'll be ready or not,
when the motor gets hot
we can do it again...
I don't have much time as I've got to get out to someone who waits me at 3:00 PM, but I feel it urgent to drop this note to myself. It's about the Scheme. I thought the Scheme was a set of weird cognitive distortions, I mean paranoias, compulsive behaviors and so on and so deep. It's not. It's much more simple, trivial, superficial: it just really is a scheme. For how to live life everyday. It's the kind of life that in my idea, and as of the closest observed subjects, most people live to get a "decent" life, one that grants you a well-defined future. And it's the kind of life I always kept away from. It's the kind of life that ties you to a schematic day, in fact; you have the same job, either the same boss or alternatively the same bunch of clients, the same family, your family to bring on, the same house, the same places, the same boring everything around. You see, Alex, it's reassuring, comfortable, but you weren't made for that. Society tries to save us from ourselves, it seems, it looks like it attempts to tell us irregular lifestyles aren't right, or better, aren't safe. Nothing is safe, not even family life. Then someone caught in the Scheme stumbles in a rebel-styled song and suddenly hopes, dreams, and perhaps proceeds, to "run away like it was yesterday" feeling that "this world is after" them. And me? What do I feel? Something suddenly, unexpectedly satisfying as I slowly realize I don't need to fake that yesterday, because it never ended for me. I never locked myself into the Scheme, I've passed life living mostly in this room, escaping responsibilities of a "real life" made of children to grow up, a "reliable" job, perhaps? It was just right, it was simply what I always wanted, and what some extra dumb part of me found wrong as everybody around was doing it different. Hey dumb me, I'm sick and I mean terminally, so go fuck yourself a good light year off of here. I will not trade freedom for safety, will you get it for good, once and forever? Because you see, you will never win. I'm stronger, I'm the one who makes you feel ill whenever you try to cage me into your scheme.
Friday, May 6, 2011 2:24:10 AM
Sun, blue sky, puffy clouds and poplar seeds.
26 degrees, T-shirt, cigarettes, small jobs.
A load of possibilities.
And between all this.
Little will.
Zero hunger.
Somnolence between the various attempts to fill up an existential void that accepts no fillings.
Might be springtime.
Or the nothing that remained to explore, say or do.
Or even.
The waters retreating before the wave.
I wished to complete the calculation.
Nothing else remains but interpreting the result.
But the result is all for nothing: living is instants, survival's all the rest.
But it's still better than nothing at all.
Willing is doing.
If I only wanted.
Might be springtime.
Perhaps some vitamin supplement might be in order.
Could be the fact of feeling good, feeling like a long time ago.
Imagining grains of dust in a box full of distilled water.
And wondering how they look, how they're living through turbulences, in a peaceful nonsense.
Scrapping all that doesn't count as in the end, nothing counts.
In and outside this room.
If I only were strong enough to recognize the circle is full, and the journey went back to where it started.
With this gut feeling to launch again for another run.
And for nothing else.
Life is this, the rest is superstructures, the rest is survival.
And you won't find a meaning in survival as it's pointless, in itself.
Life, at the end of the calculation, is what you thought to be the pastime.
This is it.
This was it.
This remains.
Ignore all the rest.
Calm, peaceful, sincere, ingenuous, enthusiastic.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011 12:01:13 AM
Said the message in the bottle, sent there by forging Linoleum's syntax so that it could tell me something and be a command for me to follow. The message sounds very pertinent again this evening. I've been idling, hiding here again, waiting to presume myself ready again, well, looks like I'm done. It may still be constrained by the good old invisible rope, but all that remains is following the command again.
I've been pretty detached and impersonal even here, lately, talked too much doing too little to spit out what hurts, still in fear, but sick of that. Yes, I'm sick, terminally bored, about to explode in some exciting way, and welcoming the sensation, pretty confident it's the right thing to feel. I fear and hope tomorrow I won't be so idle. I recognize the feeling. Scary as hell. The Linoleum statement has it right: get closer, wake up, prepare to slip, it's about time again to return true.
Monday, May 2, 2011 4:37:35 PM
Drew something while trying to pass time at sister's shop; it was the first thing that came to mind and that I could reasonably sketch with a black pen over a yellow post-it note. Realized there's no escape: it was the scary, warm thing inside, the one that crackles and roars in the void, a burning hot energy reserve awaiting to be used. Could not resist, once home, photographing the sketch and giving it some coloring and life. The result was probably unrealistic, in that it evidently emphasizes the subject's traits that show activity, and the colors were automatically devised to blast the viewer's eye. It's my beloved inner star, this one's in, powering enthusiasm and heat waves, it's not high above complaining for loneliness. And it's scary.
I've been totally idling, awaiting for something to strike, but nothing happened, I just kept idling, apparently uninterested in doing anything. I'm just covering it. I wish I had a panic attack to push me on, but it seems it won't come, it seems it's getting restrained. Not because I'm able to resist it. Because it just wouldn't be the right way, it's never been the right way. Panic is down while tension is up in these days. Looks like it is no longer time to flee, seems it's time to fight. Slowly, get up slowly from the relaxing grass field you've been laying on. You may feel slightly upset. It happens.
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