In a couple of hours, as a matter of fact, I’ll be turning 32.
After reading my last post treating this subject, back to May 3rd 2009 when I was living in Singapore, I realized that part of my actual thoughts can be conciliated with those expressed 3 years ago.
Many people say that you fully start living only at 30, others at 40 and someone else even states that real life starts at 50. I don’t know… is the increasing wiseness and self-awareness supposed to provide us with enough appropriate temperament to handle the human condition in a less reckless and more cynical view? or should it guide us towards a balanced, peaceful and not superficial, but “light” point of view?
Embracing some aspects of the existentialism, I’d say that we start getting old when we stop dreaming; when there is nothing to wake up for, when we start to let go too often and when there is nothing that can make us turn the table upside down. There is no age for feeling that no matter how forgotten it was, there is still a small fire burning inside us; a fire that if fueled, will burn as big as if we were 25 again… becasuse we’ve still got something to learn, teach, share and conquer.
May 3rd Update: Anyways… there is nothing more irritating than receiving greetings from somebody who normally wouldn’t give a damn about you, but they are prompt to send messages when there is facebook or skype reminding them about your birthday. Im confused, should I send a thankful reply to facebook or to the person…? I mean, come on, during the whole year you couldn’t care less, but magically, for one day only you’re making the effort of sending me 2 words… “happy birthday”, then disappear again for another year… fuck you and give me a break.
Almost a year ago a friend of mine living in Singapore asked me to reply to this question, but the email which contained the question went soon overwhelmed by other letters. Im now feeling guilty for seeing myself postponing to offer my opinion to such an intelligent topic. So here I am on a quiet Sunday night grasping for flashes of inspiration, afraid of being hit by that terrible blank-state as if were back to high school trying to write an essay on an historical fact that I couldnt study. It must be because I waited for so long to reply, that I’m now seeing a massive stretch of readers ready to judge and whispering to each other that I’d better come up with either a short, sharp and revealing answer, or a long and complete analysis of the matter. Ok enough for daydreaming, here is my take… Starting from the basis where we all know what we are talking about, I’d say that to my logical reasoning, It would make sense to turn the question around and ask myself, would I still be the same if I hadnt experienced “happiness” to any sort of degree? It really goes beyond my limits of understanding to try finding an explanation that does not require a prior answer to another universal question. Like, can you first tell me if we are ought to be in the universe for an evolutionary purpose that leads to a total eradication of pain, as pain is scientifically considered counterproductive in the long run? Or, if we consider pain once again as a simple projection of our own representation of reality, why should our true-self be so much in collision with the subconscious? I am always good in complicating things more than they already are, but let’s get to my very subjective interpretation. If I look back in history I see uniquely beautiful creations coming out of the author’s “pain”: songs, poems, novels and so forth… well I do not need to remind you that many of those literary works were made possible by the presence of a “love-pain”, caused by women just for a change. So why was there so much intensity under the influence of that negative-connoted state while on the other extreme there were as well intense emotions but somehow not reaching to the most inner existential sphere of the individual? I cant explain why, but I just “feel” that only pain can indeed breach the understanding of our self-awareness, therefore it’s not a matter of intellingence, experience and raising our own limits, but i’d say that it’s about embracing pain and turn it into a compass to navigate the boundaries of our fragile self. And the more you are sensitive, the more you’ll se the world assuming different tones and shades, while the average “stupidly-happy” person is probably watching the the same image with less colors. And for the mass, well not more than a black & white picture. Drag your own conclusions.
It’s the christmas night and im at my relative’s countryside house, sitting alone at the head of a long table, wearing 2 sweaters and working on my laptop. Yes, seriously working for cash and not for any abstract reward this time, at least in the short term. Outside in the garden is foggy, cold and malencholic. Is it not funny? Just a couple of years ago I imagined myself ending up in a hot place far away from here, with hot chicks, hot pots and talking about hot topics…
Accepting the idea of temporarily re-settling in the very first place that I thought I was going to leave for good, isnt easy at all, but it comes with some benefits as well. I have my own car and im free to drive to any place at any time across the whole european union which is giving me freedom of action. I have splendid networking that gives me protection and injects freedom of choice, I got a place where I can decide who gets in and who gets out, where I can finally play the role of the host and not the guest. A stable lan that allows me to download tons of international movies, stream any live show and talk freely and clearly to any friend around the world without bearing with tedious loading times.
However, I am embracing a solution of truce just because I was way too fed up with 3rd world settings; tired of seeing disorganization, scarce hygiene, uncontrolled birth rate, dirty, dusty and polluted cities but on top of all unlimited ignorance. Threatens to your propriety, your bank account and your person whoes life-value is worth less than a quarter compared to a civilized country.
Thinking about few months ago, while landing at Milan airport, I felt surprisingly happy to be back…for the first time ever.
It’s the early morning and I am about to leave a country, any country; no matter how much I hate a place, I cant help but feeling a vast sense of abandonment mixed to an embittered motion of leaving to the indefinite. The pain of destroying a current set of adaptations and start everything from scratch once again, for the millionth time. Leaving behind repetitive tiny shreds of simplicity and fulfilling meaningless actions, I feel like I once I’ve left, I could never return under the same circumstances and state of mind. So I feel like I’d like to stay forever, despite everything…then a part of me dies inside, wanting to disappear and simply be everywhere at the same time.
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When I cant cope with the bottleneck caused by the difficulty in operating with an intricate multitasking lifestyle, I often strive to have the imminent option of updating my brain’s ram otherwise having a bigger brain or alternatively keep wishing that the day could long enough to handle the multitude of those never ending I/O.
It’s scary to observe how deep the menkind lifestyle change in the last millennium has influenced and physically transformed our brain, to make plausible even radical shifting of values, secondary goals and perception of reality. At today, the gold rush and the information-era have made the earth-day 80% shorter than it was a century ago, however while information and daily tasks grow exponentially, the human body stays too dependent and fragile: just think of how much time we lose to sleep, rest, eat, cook, discharge, freshen up…it’s practically taking at least 50% of our daytime considering also the time spent for its maintenance. What i mean is that only a small fraction of our 24h is really productive.
Of course, unless we want to live like fat-lab-rats, for instance it averagely takes about 2 hours to go to the grocery store, buy food, cook yourself a decent and healthy meal and wash the dishes, while it takes only 10 minutes to eat your sensational creation. And this is only basic maintenance…it takes averagely 1 to 2 hours of physical activity per day just for keeping a normal and healthy shape…so forth…to maintain a car is costly, in terms of time and money, maintain a social activity (friends, lovers and so on) costs time and money too… by the time you get 30 or earlier, you may need to occasionally fix your body because it starts to brake down slowly.
I wanted to put focus on the huge gap between human flesh and technological advances; it can only exists in this precise moment of history in which trillions of information, options, tasks are so much bigger than the human body 1.0. I said in this moment of history because there will be unbalanced ratio until we the day we upgrade our body with bio-mechanical devices that can diminish maintenance and increase productivity. Ha, ha, can you imagine having to defecate once every 15 days instead of so often?
Human body 1.0 of prehistorical age is indeed made for daily and short survival, but it cannot match with human brain 1.5 of today, sorry. And the day it’s too short, time passes too fast, it’s dark too soon, we get tired too fast and we need to rest too long, but the insatiable minds are still hyperactive. For the restless ones, there is one planet in the solar system where the day lasts about 6 earth-days. It’s called Pluto.
