Start over again

I have forgotten where or when it was that I first met the structure of a wave. Probably I did not think about the similarity between them and life. But now, this is interesting.

Waves are everywhere. They are oscillations that travels through space and matter transferring energy. Structurally, waves are formed by cycles (red arrow), which are determined by crests and throughs. These terms mean the maximum and minimum value within a cycle, respectively. Waves are everywhere, from the sounds we hear, the communications, medicine, to the colors we see. However, no matter where they are, they always display the same structure: energy that moves infinitely up and down (between crests and throughs), over and over again. And here we have another great metaphor about life: it is all about cycles. Up and down. Like waves, after each through (which could mean bad times), everything starts again. The wave starts to return to its original shape, to reach the top and go down again and so... But what really matters: you can't corrupt the structure! After a crest, it will come a through. After a through, it will come a crest, again. No choice. It is a rule of nature.

I believe it was Maquiavelli who wrote once that humans live in cycles: when they reach the highest point of civilization and progress, and in the event of it not being possible to improve more, the only possible thing to happen is to get worse. And then again, when societies reach their most miserable point of their existence, it not being the option to get worse, they have to improve. It is a must. It can't be helped. Cycles. Like waves. Crests and throughs. I was thinking about it because my days here have been plenty of ups and downs, and I have been trying to figure out the meaning of each 'descent'. And now, I think it is simply about letting go.

Every through brings something we must let go in order to get back up. And it's not the easiest thing to do, especially since we are a species that tend to create bonds with everything. We love people, things and actions and we want them all with us forever. But the secret (and hard thing) is just to let them go, and this relates to my previous post about time. We have to get used to the fact that we can't control it! Your hair will fall, the ice cream will melt, you will leave your place, people will die, your beloved will find a new love, right-wing extremists will still gain support, the winter will come and so... like it or not. Get over it. Like the structure of waves, non-breakable, uncontrollable... every through will bring something with that you will have to let it go in order to continue with your life, in order to reach the next crest. Like cards in a game of chance, you won't be able to change them but to use them in your benefit.

You could certainly ask yourself what sense makes to live if you know that everything is finite and that after every crest you are going to face a through. Well, at least for me, it is all about how we understand time. If the climb was worth it, you enjoyed the crest... who cares about the through? I mean, you need some bad times to notice the good ones! We are here to learn, and every cycle translates into learning. If this were your last cycle, would you dare stop doing something to save it for the next one?



In this exact moment, 4.31 A.M, I look through the window to see the moon of New York City pale and veiled with filmy clouds. For some reason, I can't sleep. There was a premonitory change in the atmosphere today, a quickening of tempo, an increased volume of sound. I am probably about to face a 'through'. Maybe it is time to let something go. In the phantom gleam of dawn I can see a new ascent. And there I go.

Rolling camera

I was so filled with the thought of coming to New York that I could think of nothing else... and yet this moment of arrival has come and gone, I have scarcely sensed its passing. But I am starting to get accustomed to the fact that time will fool us again and again so, quite mindless of the future, the last weeks I have surrendered myself to the flow of time, and it started to pay off.

I'm just about to become a film camera. Since I am here, I have almost spent more time with a camera than with my pillow, seriously. And it has been majestic: I was able to experience firsthand what so many great cinematographers have felt since the very beginning of cinema. Loading the camera with rolls, checking for speed, measuring light with a light meter... those actions sound nowadays nearly archaic. In fact, as a member of the Generation Y (also called The Millennial Generation), sometimes it is difficult for me to figure out that there is no chip in those cameras, that everything is mechanical, that getting the image is just a matter of light physics and chemistry. Amazing. But what made me sit down and write today is what happened in the middle of a party in a patio in Brooklyn. I was sitting by a little fire drinking sangria when I had this epiphany that made me understand life from a new and deeper perspective: I saw my life as a film camera. No kidding! Now comes the explanation:

Film cameras use rolls of film stock to capture images. The camera I have been using, an old german Arri designed by the Hitler government in the 40s, uses rolls of 100 feet, each one with enough footage to film about 2 minutes and 50 seconds at normal speed. After filming, to 'discover' what it was filmed, the film needs to be developed. I know, it is a process. It takes time, but especially, it costs money ($$$). And a lot! Filming is so outrageously expensive that I now know why the digital market is devastating film industry. When the camera is rolling, the film inside makes a beautiful noise as it runs through the mechanism that allows the light to enter and expose it. That noise means that film is being exposed, so every time that I film a scene with an Arri, I take care of everything that I can control before starting to roll and I cut in time because I don't want to waste footage, which translates into time and money.

So, let's go back to the party in Brooklyn. I was sitting there, alone, sipping my sangria calmly, my head plotting a million revolutions per second, when I started to hear in my mind the familiar noise of the camera rolling. And that feeling that comes out when the camera is rolling but nothing is happening in front of it and you know you are wasting film... that's called desperation. I kind of despaired, and I told a friend about my feeling. I felt that I had to make a change. However, he barely managed to nod and then said: "You are right, let's grab some drinks". I don't think he understood, but anyway it became clear to me.

The point is that with film, it is evident the feeling of wasting it because it costs money and when you have to pay for it, it hurts. But what about my life? If it was a camera and time was a film roll... shouldn't I be taking care of every time that the 'camera' rolls and nothing happens? Why is it so difficult to understand that time is finite like film and it is also valuable enough not to waste one iota? I am glad I have been working with a camera enough time to get this metaphor.

Now I know how it feels to waste film (and life). And I'll try not to let myself feel that way ever again. You should too. And if it is too difficult to understand, you can always get an Arri, film stock and try it yourself. In the end, life and cameras aren't that different at all. 

People

I arrived at La Guardia International Airport last Wednesday on a sunny and lovely summer day with lots of expectations. However, my mind took a little more time to leave my country and reach NYC. So I felt as if I were caught in a dream but with the ability to think rationally. You know that epic song by Freddie Mercury, 'Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?' Well. Everything looked familiar but at the same time nothing seemed real for me. I couldn't take my eyes off of the bus window during the entire ride to the hostel. I looked out the window as wonderingly as though I had just landed on another planet. Everything was so high! Everything was so... so.

Unfortunately, the following days went from being a dream to becoming a kind of nightmare. I had never felt that way before: having no place to live. I had come here with the idea that looking for a place was no big deal. However, as days went by, I noticed how wrong I was... everyday seemed more difficult, and although I was surrounded by millions of people, I felt fragile and alone, reminding me how tiny we actually are. I wasn't able to enjoy everything I was experiencing. Anyway being here was a great thing, so I thought to myself, how could such opposed feelings coexist?  

When you are alone for more than 3 or 4 days, your mind gets used to thinking twice as fast as before. Given that everything remains inside your head, you can't actually filter anything. Heaps of ideas, places, colors, tastes and feelings end mixed up in a single nebula of thoughts. I am convinced
that everything happens for a reason. So yesterday, when I was on the verge of a panic attack and this nebula was about to explode, I sat on a rock in the middle of the Central Park and tried to clear my mind. I kind of organized my head, and I realized that the whole situation had to have a meaning. I mean, I was sure that something was trying to show me something. There was a little thing out there which I wasn't able to see.

And suddenly it came out. He, she, they... my people, the people. So easy it was. Tons of people from all over the world, connected by relatives, friends, siblings, whatever, even people that didn't actually know me directly, all of them were there for me: checking their contact lists and sending emails, calling more people, moving their feet, spending time from their lifes just for me, all willing to help me find a place to live. I felt a blast of energy, if I can say it that way. I thought 'how will I thank them?' They are so nice, and they are sooo many...

And someone told me this morning (after I finally got a place and things started to settle down and find their way): «don't worry... it's time to harvest love». And she was right, oh yes she was. I think there are specific moments in life when love just pops in... and they aren't exactly many. So, thank you people, for all your love. I will be forever grateful. And thank you life, because even though I felt terrible the last days, it was another great lesson.

End of the world, home of joy

Jesus had already predicted that the arrival of the Last Judgment was imminent in year 30. Martin of Tours reaffirmed those predictions a few years later, adding that the world would end before year 400. Days before the 6th of April 793, the monk Beatus of Liébana prophesied the second coming of Christ and the end of the world on this date. People, believing the world would end, fasted overnight. Pope Innocent III said the world would end 666 days after the rise of Islam. 

William Whiston, an English theologian, historian and mathematician, advocate of the periodicity of comets, held that comets were responsible for past catastrophes in earth's history, and predicted in 1736 that the world would end on October 16 of that year because a comet would hit the earth, causing widespread anxiety among London's citizens. Meteorogist Albert Porta said in 1919 that an alignment of the planets would cause the explosion of the Sun. Housewife Dorothy Martin from Chicago reported receiving messages from aliens by automatic writing. Such messages claimed that the world would end due to a great flood before dawn on December 21, 1954. Lots of people foretold that computers would no longer work at the beginning of the year 2000, leading to failures in the control of nuclear warheads and in all systems controlled by computers, causing doomsday. 

OK. According to Mayan predictions (which might be misinterpreted), the Judgment Day is scheduled for tomorrow. But, after analyzing the history of the "doomsday dates", should we actually believe, once and for all, that the world as we know it will end tomorrow? Because we could go further with the analysis: Sir Isaac Newton proposed, basing his calculations on data from the book of Daniel, that the Apocalypse could happen after 2060.

Let us think a little... 

Anyway, I love these occasions. Seriously, I love them. They make me think about how I've lived so far. And not in a nostalgic way, but from a global perspective. And you know what? If the hypothetical case of The Day of the Lord taking place tomorrow was true, I think it would be OK for me. I mean, I've gone through really deep emotional states, I've felt true love, friendship and infinite passion. I tried everything that this world gave me, and was thankful for everything I got. I  lived far away from the people I love, and I fell down and got up countless times. I have learned another language and understood other people's mind. I have enjoyed every single moment of the years, and I did not let one year be worse than the previous one. I have laughed to tears, I have cried until the tears turned into laughter. I sang, danced, jumped, ran... I always got carried away by the flow of life. Anything I regret? Nothing. 

So, Doomsday, you don't scare me. In fact, you make me happy. Because you show me how lucky I am. Cheers!

New ways to give Life

This is a strange post. I don't know if it suits my Blog. Or probably seems so at first. But somehow I feel the duty to write about it, specially because I am used to talk about exceptional experiences  and this one is one of them. I am now through one of those moments when excitement and emotion fill each tiny part of your body and burst gushing, garnishing all over the place around you. And I can feel my blood through veins and arteries leading light. And precisely about blood is what I want to write today.

Today I donated blood.

I was very nervous, as always happens to me when I enter into a Hospital and start to break through the dark and labyrinthine corridors full of disease and desolation that characterizes them. But the nurses were very kind and despite my extreme nervousness, I decided to go on and reach my goal. I sat on a soft overstuffed blue chair, very comfortable by the way, and within minutes a small needle allowed my blood gradually to go outside from the stronger vein of my right arm into a container bag.

Ok. I am convinced that words are not enough for me to describe what I felt in those 10 minutes. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. What I thought? I could actually see small pieces of my life flowing in that blood through that pipes, as little beings full of life and light. In addition, I felt a bliss. Then I imagined the moment when all those bits of life, coming out from the depths of my being, entered into another bodies to become a part of their very foundations and brighten their beings from the inside. I saw vast green fields and joys at high speeds. I was completely thrilled, just knowing that I was giving life, and that I would be, somehow, connected to someone else through that gift.

Time passed quickly and soon the process was over. And suddenly I felt connected to everyone in the world. And part of the whole, and full of nothing. And I smiled.

How did you know that?

How can I define a beginning and an end? I have been thinking about that fact the whole weekend. We really need to classify every aspect of our lives to the extent of expressing always its beginning and its end? Today everything must be classified and catalogued. Relationships, friendships, trips, jobs, days, movies, books. Life itself! Everything has to have a beginning and an end, as if that form of 'naming' made that each thing remained in its time period, without leaving that place... It is so stupid that it's actually funny. Since when we finish a relationship and we automatically stop thinking about the other? Since when we say that a trip is over and its emotional effects stop as if by magic with our hypothetical 'end'? No, no, no. Every day it becomes more difficult to me to define beginnings and ends. Specially when everything insists on showing me that there is no timeline on which I could build my assumptions. I could use first times as initiators of what I want to classify as periods. First encounters, first deep glances, first shared shrieks of laughter, first disclosed secrets. But then I realize that first times are actually (grandiosely) arising in our life every minute of our existence, and most of the times it feels I felt them before. So the the plot thickens... However, I would like to focus on what I call 'period of being', separated from time and nomenclatures. And if you are asking yourself the reason of my coming back after so much time without writing... this being, this 'timeless being' is the answer.

I had one of the most extravagant weekends of my whole life. It was kind of revelation, as always occurs with trips, but somehow this time was different. The Latin word Omnia is the most accurate word to describe it: everything was connected to everything, everything was in its right place. The companies, the laughter, the strength of heart. I think I need a lot of time to digest everything I learned these days, but there are points that are already fresh in my mind and I would like to share.

'How did you know that?' I realized that when we learn something, we do not acquire new knowledge, but recover lost knowledge. To learn is to discover something that you knew it before. This concept is reflected in all areas and ways: knowledge, people, places... Don't you feel sometimes, when you meet someone for the first time, that you knew that person before? Or the same in a place where you know you've never been, but anyhow you've got a feeling that you had been there before? A smell, a feeling, a sound? It's quite amazing to find out how crazy all this stuff sounds and however how close it touches us all.

I discovered that two people together build a new way of being. Not a person, but a being. That is why it is said that some people are a kind of person when they're alone, and another kind when they meet someone else. They are actually not different kinds of people, they form just a new being together, and it is incredible how our minds take these beings and create new 'personality spaces' for them, separated from their individual 'personality spaces' we created before. Amazing, ah? Quite difficult to understand, but so enlightening when understood.

Earth. It is clear to me that it is alive. And I convince myself every time I breathe the sea salt and see the waves crashing against the shore, generating foam vortices and creating new shapes on the sand. We have been connecting with nature and it felt very peaceful to find ourselves as a part of something much more bigger than everything we have never imagined before.

Then I have been asking myself when all our paths crossed? When they met together to follow as one? There were so many setbacks in the middle of the road that now, when obstacles have been overcome, I can only be thankful, because in the end, everything is better than it could be (only if you want to). Omnia vincit Amor (love conquers all). Thanks for everything I learned, for all that I enjoyed, but specially to you, for making me notice that everything is inevitable as life itself.

Reverse cultural shock

I arrived safe and sound, despite the fact that my flight resembled hell more than anything else in this world. There was a problem with the fuel pumps, they said, and we flew for about 5 hours over Europe, from Frankfurt to the Bay of Biscay and back to Germany, without any reason but burning fuel. Apparently, we had to throw fuel into the sea, I missed that part, thank God, I really got scared. There was a point in which I thought I would die, no joke. I tried to read my friends' letters, to think positively. The plane followed unusual routes, flew in circles, went down and up repeatedly, trying to land and again, back into the ring... By the way, I took a photo of the spectacle we had to see on the screens all over the plane:


Anyway, it was a key moment, I think. When I finally arrived in Buenos Aires, the next day and by another aircraft, I was so comforted and happy due to the arrival that I forgot a lot of unhappy stuff concerning the fact I was leaving so much in Germany, and I came refreshed in body and energized in soul. Everything happens for a reason.

I can't say I suffered during the first months in Germany, but I experienced a sort of cultural shock when I arrived, a shock about which I had been opportunely warned before my departure. But nobody really told me about this feeling that you have when you come back to the 'known stuff' after floating around for a while. To all appearances, this would be the panacea, and coming back shouldn't necessarily be any kind of trauma... Ok, shouldn't be. But yes, it is.

What happens when the 'known stuff' doesn't satisfy you, isn't as you expected, or just you didn't miss it? I found myself as part of a strange culture in my own country, what the fuck! Then I ask myself, how could I have lived so much time without seeing the reality around me? I have come across many people since my return, and lots of them have asked me so shameful things about my experience that I thought they were fully sick. I can't stand a culture which more appreciates those who are proud of being ignorant than the ones who try to get ahead day by day, physically and emotionally, the ones who show at least a spark of motivation, of improvement.

I have felt like a stranger in many situations since I came back. Perhaps I have become too critical, or perhaps I am just tired of putting up with so much crap for so long, and now I just don't want it. My time abroad has changed my perspective in several aspects, and I feel that the others have not evolved in the same way, which is also demotivating. In addition, my 'German Adventure' seems distant and sleepy, and I have fear because I don't want it to stay just as a reminder of the past. If there is something that still fills me, that is my family and some friends. They stayed just as I wanted, with some kind of obstinacy in a few points, but always with the ability to bring me home. Simply.

I do not want you to be confused, I'm fine. I am more observant, that's all, and the good thing is that I find it easier to get the basics of the issue to feel myself comfortable. The concept of 'home' has changed, and the point now is to find out the lost parts of the machine to make my new place home again. It is not about finding a place, but making it. I feel kind of anxious, that something is missing. I like it. That tells me, at least, that my adventure is actually not over, quite the contrary. And I can not stop looking askance at the suitcase, waiting to repack some day.