New Year Kind of thinking .2

By D. Salazar

As in every beginning of a new year, I tend to allow my head to roam around all possibilities of life design, working status, learning experiences and cleansing rituals I can get my hands on, convinced that, even if I can’t do them all right now –how impairing that feels- at least I’ll be able to do the ones I truly like the most. For this I rely solely on that power we humans have, the power of will, to keep attracting those things that attract us.

Choosing a working path is not easy, paradoxically enough we are forced to choose one at the same time our raging hormones can’t even decide on one romantic partner. University age is not a choosing age, at least not for us humans with a foggy but pleasant path spread ahead.

I prefer to live day by day.

While trying to decide a working path for this new year, I realized that the one that seems both intelligent and attractive to my intellect at the same time, requires money and time, maybe too much money and too much time. Considering that I also chose to pay for an activity that makes me incredibly happy and keeps my over enthusiastic head away from dark thoughts about the emptiness of life –and how we came to die and everything is useless and other fatalistic thoughts of the sort- I’m gonna need tons of money.

When you realize you need money to get money through a better job, and you also need money to have fun so that the process of getting money is not so tiresome, you fall into depression. A little voice awakes in my head and says “wtf man! When do I get to live and enjoy living?”

With some effort, I extracted the voices –real or imaginary- of the various people I deeply admire. I find they are the best resource against depression.

One of those voices, raspy and smoky, coming from the kitchen table, said “I have never concerned myself with the reasons I would be remembered by”.

Another one, rather sombre and smelling of wine, said “I only attempt to expose the manner in which I have come to certain truths”.

And then, the greatest woman who has ever lived says, while sitting in a corner sipping tea from a delicate porcelain cup, “Freely be, whatever you are”.

Like a mother’s lullaby, these words clear the dark cloud of depression and get my ass on my working chair again. Whatever my choice of work, whatever the amount of money and time I need to spend to achieve that choice, doesn't really matter.

We admire in others the qualities that are inside us, yet unexplored.

New Year Kind of Thinking

By D. Salazar

Faithful to the worldwide tradition of ‘finally deciding to change my life and become that thing I always wanted to be’ –for better or worse- here I am, writing at least a page a day, following Stephen King’s advices. I started the task where most of us would, googling “writing tools” and expecting to find a software that would enable me, the writer, to be an unparalleled genius and cure writers block and find that powerful will which will sweep my fingers upon the keyboards while writing the new millennium’s Swann’s Way.

Instead, I found a picture of a pen.

The right side of my brain grinned gleefully and the left side, then they both settled to write something.

The other thing that tends to impair writing –my writing at least- is the publishing issue. I’m an ambitious person, I want to see my work out there and I want fans wearing my signature on their t-shirts and standing outside my hotel window craving for a line of my magical thinking, like some South American writing messiah (then you wake up and Paulo Coelho is still there). I went around newspapers checking what is being said out there, trying to find a tiny little spot on the market for me, but newspapers are too wrapped up around politics (after all, newspapers tend to be used to pick up disgusting things you don’t want to touch with your bare hands), and I’m not a political writer, I don’t know anything about politics beyond being able to tell when someone is being stupid or downright genius -the line is very very thin.

The second before I reached that state of mental chaos which preludes writers block, I realized I have a blog and felt stupid enough to write without the urge of ambition.
My words may not be worthy of a fanatic wave, but they put my brain in motion, so as not to die completely unnoticed.

I dare you: Name the Puppy

By D. Salazar

I have been a curious child.

One afternoon when I was seven I found a stray puppy, all brown and wide eyed. Mom said I couldn’t keep him, so I hid it in the park ad visited him often. One time, there was a bag soaring nearby. I took it when it entangled with a shrubbery. I tied the bag around the puppy’s head and watched him struggle to death.

I felt really bad afterwards. So I asked him to forgive me.

He said he’d forgive me if I promised never to do it again.

He’s been my friend ever since. I've been being really careful not to hurt him.


Several years later I realized that, among the millions of people that exist in the world, at least one of them had to know the answer for my question: why had I done it? The dog came with me on my quest. His name is _______

When I found the man, I asked him: Why did I do it?

He said: You are the only one who cares. Why should I answer to you?

I replied: Because I took the trouble of finding you

He asked: Do you think you deserve an answer because you took the trouble of finding one?

I replied: Yes

So he sentenced: If you had wanted an answer so much, you would've found it on your own means.

I answered back: I can’t. That’s why I came searching for you.

He asked: Why are you so sure you can’t?

I said: Because I tried

So he finished: Then you don’t care enough.

Considerations on Lifestyle and Failure Part 2 (Women)

By D. Salazar

When you are little you want to live in a castle, with draperies and carpets and flowers, and lots of shiny toys and beautiful things. At that time there is nothing you can do to achieve those things, except through luck or ability to find hidden treasures. When you are older, a youth, you want a flat. A place where you can have friends over and they will all fit. At that time, you don’t have enough means to acquire it, but you have skills. Sometimes, they’re enough. When you grow even older, and you become a woman, you want a house, quiet and safe, comfortable, with enough space. At that point is where people tend to tell you that you shouldn't have stopped following your dreams, because that is the ultimate sign of becoming old for good, and there’s no turning back.

Then is when you freak out, when you seek loneliness, apartness, to discover which was that dream you should have never stopped following. That thing that is making you old: where is it?.

It is likely that you spend more than half of your waking time dreaming, while you do those mechanic things, like driving, or walking on well-trod ground. You dream.
Like humans, dreams evolve.

Some elements prevail. Fear, especially in waking nightmares, is very eloquent. Your mind sinks into autopilot, it wanders. It happens at every age.

Women who cover themselves completely when in public, act as an invitation of beauty. If a woman were, for example, deformed in such ways as to be shocking, she’d still act as an invitation of beauty. She stands tall, covered in a veil, wavy in the wind, alone in the street. An oasis. She is Woman, with no applicable variables. In absolute value. For the eyes of men, they are all alike, except those few he knows.

We all enjoy stereotypes. They make society easier, especially for those who don’t enjoy society too much. That way we hurt people, rather unfairly.

For women, many things depend on when they fall in love. The subconscious reasons that made us fall in love with a man. It can happen more than once, each time will be different. Generally, we can’t control it. It is a little like dreaming and having bad dreams. The subconscious factor is controlling.

Symbols are in charge of most of our perception, they affect our mood. They are different for everyone. Some are collective, to the point of creating a culture.
A man is a symbol for a woman, as much as a woman for a man. A man in absolute value, with no variables applicable. What is he? A tower? A shelter? A pet? A father? A teacher? A zoologist would say that human females evolved into their current role, because of child bearing and all its consequences on our symbolic baggage. In the beginning there was the house, the male hunter and the female. She had no job definition, she came with a tool kit for certain things that had to be done. That was the birth of society. For women, men were the suppliers. The meaning of the role of supplier is ever changing. Some women expect men to give them everything, to provide even for the most basic needs. Others expect good conversation. Since rather recently, historically speaking, women want good sex, the social equivalent to the animal’s attraction towards healthy males. Every need may fall into the supplier’s duty. If the male fails to supply (money, sex, comfort, company, etc.) it is cause for break up. Men generally are unaware of what women want. The solution is for women to find out, and for men, patiently aid to do so. Two heads think better than one.

The amount of drama we apply to our life, also depends on our symbols. Guilt has a big role to play, as does selfishness. The very language we use to build our thoughts, affects them. It seems sometimes like a matter of décor. Some women may be over controlling. That is a sign of a weak set of self bestowed values, a weak shield.

As long as male provide, women are soothed. Socially, we feel no pressure. We will not be questioned by an invisible social judge on the decisions our heart’s impulses made.
Pressure of any kind will smother any life form. Company sets us free, on a communicational level. The ability to share our perception is priceless on an evolutionary level.

When we don’t stereotype, we use symbols to give explanations to events or people. We mix them to create something else. Life fills us with symbols, daily. Some people call them signs, life telling them what is happening, or going to happen. Some use them as inspiration, they seek the bottom of them through they craft. The second one is wiser.
Sometimes, evolution feels too fast. Then, we can only trust. When symbols change suddenly, when our dreams seem to mutate far away from the original path, it is best to accept it. Our control over our own lives is very limited, though possible.

As human evolves, so does perspective, so do symbols. When our dreams change, we tend to look back. It’s healthy to do so. What we were was no more controllable that what we will become in the future. There is only the path we tread through time, the lines we draw in the universe.

The Powerful Will

By D. Salazar

I read online that feeling suicidal comes from the existing relation between pain and the ability to cope with pain. If you put both in a scale, and the amount of pain surpasses the ability to cope with it, your system may shut down, causing a suicide.

Suicides start in your head.

I’m not suicidal, I’m merely dramatic and unemployed.

Nevertheless, when thoughts of emptiness and visual representations of drastic suicidal techniques appear in my head –generally while I’m getting myself from one place to another- I do tend to desire a shut down. It may be in the form of sleep or a very long vacation. It may not be death but it does require a solitude that comes close to it. Social death, complete disappearance… and then I picture myself requesting it to someone, “at least for a while, may I please? It’s only a short death!”

A number of images cross my head, Orhan Pamuk’s The New Life, Hermes, Hermetics, Morality, the Network, Catholicism, life after death, Eternity; then they transform into a blurry headache and a stomach ache.

When thoughts turn into aching, you are clearly worrying too much.

The truth is that you are going to die. You don’t realize it yet, because you’ve never been in a position to do so. Since you will inevitably die, you may do one of several things: i) despair, ii) have fun, iii) do something useful for humanity, iv) devote to children, v) search glory, vi) play golf…

There are two things that one must understand, first, that whatever you choose is fine as long as it’s fine with you, and second, that no one said you have to choose now.

I feel like I’ve been choosing what I have to do with my life since the age I could walk, but my decisions change rapidly, so I can’t really cling on to any of them. I’ve grown used to not caring about them and only go with the flow.

When I feel suicidal, I generally feel I’ve lost my flow.

My ability to cope with pain has leveled. I feel that, to increase it, I must find a purpose, it’s the one thing that seems logical, but not make it “save the world” or “cure cancer” or “devoid the world from all demons”, no, something for mortals. I thought that maybe I could just make something beautiful.

I thought about all this during a bus trip. I focused on the image of beauty, pure beauty. The image that each of us finds in unique.

I pictured that something beautiful had to begin with a falling spiral.

The image may be different now, but it is still perfect.

This little mental token started to clear away some of the clammy headache I was feeling. Now I could concern my head with more practical things than Hermetics and Morality. I wanted to find a way to bring it to life, to make it exist in the physical world.

So, humbly, wrote this article.

(It works)

On Meeting People

By D. Salazar

I don’t really like you.

It makes me feel sad and all but, really, I don’t like you. Everything about you makes me nervous. Your proximity is a disturbance in the force. It’s not your fault of course, nor should you care what it is that I, or anyone else, think about you. It’s just that… forgive my sincerity… I really don’t like you.

You see, meeting people is like staring at a mirror. There’s always that small tinge of fear, apprehension, before you look at it. If you stumble unexpectedly across one, you’ll be scared; if it’s dark, you’ll be really scared. That’s the way it works with people. Facing one, having that person stare at you in the eye, worse even, conversing…
I envy those who can do it so easily.

As I watch you in the distance you may seem interesting. There’s a glow about you, like an aura, a colorful haze that I find really pretty. I watch you perform small tasks and think “wow, that is a cute person”.
But then, as expected, I come closer. A few steps further and I can already find some aesthetic mistakes, pimples, bags under the eyes, a mismatched shirt, shitty nails… Anything, your beauty is now imperfect –not that it is your fault, it’s just who you are, who we all are- and then, suddenly, I start wishing I hadn’t come closer. But then again, I know it’s impossible for me not to come any closer whenever I think “oh, how cute is this person”. So I did come close and the beauty I had seen about you fades a little.

And now I’m there, I can either go back and remember how pretty you used to be before I came closer, or I can go even further and see what you are really like.
I hate being stuck in the middle.

So we talk, and I am so aware of the reasons behind your words, the wording of your phrases; I can see your discomfort so clearly. I can see flashes of your past in the tones you used, things you would only remember in front of a professional; you allow me into your head a little.

But I don’t really like you, maybe because I really don’t like myself. You’re especially annoying if we start talking about yourself, if I take an interest. Because, obviously, once I couldn’t stop and turn around instead of coming closer, knowing that it would result in me not liking you, once I’m this close I must dwell on you, and delve in some dark cavities. I believe that’s the definition of a sadist?

I write, again, without knowing.

What I do know is that I don’t like you, unless you are at a safe distance from me. Because if I start delving in your armor I can find holes filled with poison, or bugs. I can cut myself on your sharp edges; I can even get sucked into that huge emptiness inside you.

I am a small thing. You represent a huge danger.

Maybe that’s why I don’t really like you.

Considerations on Lifestyle and Failure Part 1

By D. Salazar

Imagine you are approaching thirty.

It feels like a thin line between two territories. Whether one is good and the other is bad, or one interesting and the other one boring, is only a wild guess. You haven’t really crossed the line before, although you have met some who’ve crossed it.

What do you think of these people? Are they your parents? Teachers? Bosses? Are they boring? Are they severe? Are they lonely? Are they anything you’d like to be?
That’s just too many questions at the time.

Consider the line. It’s thin, you will cross it barely noticing its existence. The first question that arises may be “wtf man, why can’t I stay on this side?”
And then someone on the other side, right on top of the line, who is wearing a cowboy hat against the sunset, throws a rock at your head and yells at you “Get over it punk! If you stop walking the game’s over”.

And you’re like “shit, he’s right…” You realize that if you don’t cross the line you’ll have to turn the power off, because you can’t really stop walking.
The second question that arises is “what will happen to me when I cross?” Panic sweat starts dropping from your temples.

The man in the hat notices it, takes a puff of his Cuban and says “You’ll continue walking” Smoke rises dramatically against the reddening sky.

There’s still some distance between you and the line. You may feel a mixture of impatience with regret, and a big amount of anxiety. Questions start to knot again inside your head.

So you sit down and have a nice nap. Questions can go to hell for now.

When you wake up the questions are still there and you have a headache, at least there’s two of them you’ve already answered. You check and find the weird man with the hat is still standing against the sinking sun.

So you put your mind in order and choose one out of the scrambled bunch. “What if I can’t make it there?”

“You made it this far” says the man, now sitting on a rock right next to you. You startle.

“I thought once you’ve crossed you couldn’t come back?” you ask, carefully sliding away from him, just in case.

“’Course you can” he replies, smiling slyly at your ignorance. “You can always come back, you know the road. Problem is, you don’t really fit in anymore. You grew out of that pair of pants”.

And that makes so much sense you have to remain quiet for a while to hide your shame.
“Let’s keep walking, shall we?” says he, and you both rise and continue towards the line.

“What’re you so afraid of?” he asks, in a casual sort of way, as he lights another Cuban.

You don’t really know where to start. Is it fear? Probably is, otherwise you wouldn’t be writing this article in the first place. “I guess… I don’t know what I’ll become, you know?” The man seems to consider your question and remains silent, so you go on. “What if I’m a failure?”.

The man’s silence punctuates how stupid you feel at the doubt you were mongering about. That doesn’t mean, however, that the doubt is less real. And while you spend a lot of precious concentration on keeping yourself from blushing like a bride, the man stops walking. You turn around and face him, now standing against the rising sun.

“You’re gonna die” he says. “At some point between the place where you started and the place you are going to, you’re gonna die”. He seems to consider something for a moment, spits hard on the ground and approaches you. “That’s the trick, you see?” he strongly grabs you by the arm and steers you forward towards the line. “If you’re a failure, it means you’re losing. But all you gotta do is walk from point A to point B. Point A is where you start, point B is where you stop. How can you lose?”

He keeps walking, but you, in shock at the simplicity of it all, cannot move.
It makes sense, right? It seems strangely correct.

Another gush of questions arises, what about dreams and hopes and goals and plans and all that stuff? What about wealth and success and first class air trips and cruises? What about your life partner and kids and grandkids and glory?

But as you stare blankly into the air, the man was steadily approaching you. He’s now standing by your side, offering you a Cuban the size of your forearm.

“You like traveling?” he asks, depositing the Cuban on your outstretched hand. Since you keep staring at him numbly without answering, he goes on. “Have you travelled?”

“A little” you say in a hoarse voice.

“What do you do when you travel?”

“You mean on the trip or while you’re already in the place?”

“You worry too much… It’s all part of the same” he takes a quick puff. You look at the shadow his body casts on the ground.

“Well… many things. I can’t think of anything in particular”

“Yes, whatever. But do you have a clear picture of it on your mind? Things you do when you travel?”

“Yes”

“It’s the same thing” he says as he casts a sly smile on your direction. “Going from point A to point B… There’s no difference”.

For a while, you simply can’t speak. The both of you walk side by side towards the sunset. You have lit your cigar and you ponder. The line was still some distance away.
“So, you can’t lose?” you ask.

“Not from where I’m seeing it” he replies.

“But, what if…” you start. But you must cut the phrase when you realize the ‘what if’s’ are not occurring to you immediately. “What if I become a beggar? Or a homeless person? Or a drug dependant? Or…”

“Do you really believe that is possible?” he says, cutting you in middle sentence. “You think that as a possibility in your future? Becoming a beggar?”

“Everything is possible, I guess…”

The man seems to reflect for a moment, biting the tip of his cigar as you both kept walking towards the sunset. “Yes and no…” he says. “What do you see around you?”.
You briefly describe what surrounds you. He continues, “do you think this is likely to change abruptly?”

“Not likely. But it does look a little boring.”

The man laughs at this and says “Could you perhaps be looking only at the big picture? You keep staring at the sun in the horizon? Of course you’ll get bored if you only look at that.”

At this point you don’t really feel like talking anymore. You just want a little silence and a good night sleep to clear your head. Life feels a little more depressing now. You wished you hadn’t asked so many questions. You try to cheer yourself up by thinking of those people you love, those who you admire, everyone you feel connected to. And then you get a terrible headache, and think “fuck it, I’m going to sleep”.
You wake up a little sore. The man hands you a glass of orange juice. You continue walking. The line is drawing closer.

“Listen” he says after a while, “I’m gonna go back to where I was. I have some stuff to do. I’ll leave you with this: You are travelling from point A to point B. Enjoy it”.

This is enough for a first consideration on lifestyle and failure for one day. As you forget about the line and continue walking, you realize thirty is still a little far. You’ll know when you get there.