Insomnia

The age we live in is one of extreme speed, of constant change, one in which the pictures of our surroundings rush past us at the velocity of the vehicle that carries us. It just might be that we are missing some magic upon doing so. We rush to work, run for busses, nervously push carts through immense halls called hypermarkets to oversatisfy our shopping appetite, we expect our diets to show results urgently, all that is not fast and not on time is not good. We need to study French in two weeks and then get a lifetime certification that we are “connoisseurs”. Our food needs to be ready in a handtwist and we use microwaves, kitchen robots and the like only to shorten our minutes in the kitchen and run towards the next event, which in turn ends more quickly than we’d expected. We don’t even get to know people well because we move on before getting the chance of seeing past their faces. All we get of this world is bits and pieces out of which we form our own little islands of understanding which rarely interact, more often collide and almost always look down on one another full of the despise and containment only low souls can have.

We get up early in the morning and we run towards meetings in which we spend endless hours trying to harmonise our seemingly different views and argue even more when we realise how similar they really are. We get bored of every task faster than it would take to really understand it, start another and another and another until we forget where we left off and get tangled in a web of things we needn’t really do. But still we do them to prevent that inner gap from screaming aloud.

This life that we see rushing past us… as we long for even more and cut down endlessly on what seems unimportant … is the only one we have (at least until further notice). I just wish I felt more often how alive I am.

My mood melody for the night: Motorcycle Emptiness, by the Manic Street Preachers.

Life lies a slow suicide
Orthodox dreams and symbolic myths
From feudal serf to spender
This wonderful world of purchase power
Just like lungs sucking on air
Survivals natural as sorrow, sorrow, sorrow
Under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
Under neon loneliness everlasting loneliness

Je suis une urbanne / I am urban

This post needs to be in Romanian, so I send all apologies to my readers who can't deal with the language (if any). I'll provide an extra translation on request (please don't :) ).

Sunt o urbana. Traiesc intr-un oras mare, cu multe masini si suficienta poluare cat sa nu ma tem ca o sa mor din cauza potentialei caramizi care imi va cadea in cap, ci din cauza masinilor si a fumului de tigara inhalat la mana a doua. Ma trezesc dimineata dupa ce suna trei alarme de la trei telefoane si tot nu sunt in stare sa gasesc usa baii. Ma spal pe fata cu fel de fel de substante care cica ar trebui sa ma faca sa arat "pretty"si mananc un iaurt care sa imi ajute digestia (si asa data peste cap). Ma deplasez cu taximetrul si ma intretin cu taximetristii despre ultimele barfe din "Libertatea", despre cum ar trebui tratati politicienii ("mitraliati pe stadioane, domne!"), despre cum e sa fii tanar ("dvs aveti toate usile deschise, domnisoara... da pe mine cine ma mai ia?") si despre vremea de afara ("I watch the weather channel", pentru cei care au vazut Laws of Attraction).

Ziua mi-o petrec la birou. De plictiseala, imi fotografiez uneori colegii cand avem sedinte. Pun pasiune in ceea ce fac si uneori mi-o iau ideile inaintea vorbelor, se produce cate un blocaj in sistem si nu mai sunt in stare sa spun nimic. La pranz mananc in cate un restaurant cu nume obscur, de cartier. Mananc supa de obicei, pe asta nu am cum sa o aduc de acasa la pachet, si oricum e mai distractiv sa mai ai o sedinta de proiect in timp ce te chinui sa invarti spaghetele pe furculita si te intrebi la ce o fi buna lingura. Alteori mananc trei banane si un pachet de biscuiti dulci. Nu ma intreb dupa aceea de ce ma doare stomacul. Cand imi gasesc cate un moment liber, citesc alte bloguri sau citesc stirile zilei de pe 9AM (in special rubrica mondena, ca sa am ce povesti cu taximetristii). Cand am rabdare, citesc articole din industrie si le recomand prietenilor (care probabil nici nu le citesc si bombane "iar nu are ce face").

Seara ajung acasa si imi revad mailurile de pe serverele "neoficiale". Raspund la ce nu ma enerveaza, mananc ceva nesanatos, vad o avanpremiera pe laptop si adorm cu gandul la vacanta din Spania care nu mai vine.

Sau poate viata mea e in alta parte si nu are nici o legatura cu faptul ca am ales sa fiu o urbana?

Interesting to listen to is Mylene Farmer's Pas de temps de vivre. Makes you wonder...

Je n'ai pas le temps de vivre
Quand s'enfuit mon équilibre
Je n'ai pas le temps de vivre
Aime-moi, entre en moi
Dis-moi les mots qui rendent ivres
Dis-moi que la nuit se déguise
Tu vois, je suis
Comme la mer qui se retire, de
N'avoir pas su trouver tes pas...

Piece by Piece

There are two kinds of people in this world, the latter of which are quite a few: the ones who are changed by the systems they enter (read: adaptation), and the ones who change the systems (read: influence the change). Not at once, not through a sudden revolution to overthrow the world, but step by step. They bring their uniqueness in the systems they need to function in and help others to discover their own uniqueness, as well. Although they also need to adapt and grow with the system, they manage to change the settled cheerfulness of the ones around them into joy of life and willingness to breathe more than just the dull grey of every day.

Ideally, there should be something more for each of us than just work. You can, of course, indulge in work and play hide and seek with the other parts of your life, but this is usually a short term solution that takes more than it gives. Lately, an article about a super-performing workaholic lawyer who killed herself in spite of a great career (and a missing life) spammed the inboxes of most yuppies - and not without a reason. There still are people who think that a 300 hours-a-month career, three SUVs in the garrage and two kids alienated by seeing their parents every other week means finding their life's calling. I was quite stunned yesterday at an abroad studying friend's remark that he would sacrifice everything for a career, and keep love and feelings in a background. "Basically how to make money on the stock exchange" is what he values most, in the spirit of a - in my opinion overrated but hey, everyone is free to form their own opinion - new-found Western capitalist life philosophy.

I'm going to practice some more merengue tonight :) and watch Dirty Dancing for the 10th time, not before recommending you the mood melody of the day: Piece by Piece, Katie Melua:

Piece by piece
Is how I'll let go of you
Kiss by kiss
Will leave my mind one at a time
One at a time

Dejalo si quieres continuar (hermano)

Tonight I took my first latino dancing lesson. Moving to the music felt great, although we were only drilled to do the basic steps for salsa and merengue. At some point our teacher had us move our hips in a peculiar way (left to right and right to left, slight ditch on the leg of the moving direction). We were supposed to only move the legs, swing the hips back and forth and keep the shoulders aligned. I had difficulties with finding my hips :) and an inner voice told me it’s because of the biscuits my friend the shopkeeper is joyfully selling to me. Perhaps I should follow the advice of a friend and harmonise my body and soul... (eat more fruit and vegetables, plainly put).

One of the melodies we danced to was Ibrahim Ferrer’s Putumayo (not sure about the title, the one which starts "un compositor / que s'equivoco"). It led me to such a good mood that the moves came naturally. Thus tonight I am listening to some Caribbean music (especially Buena Vista Social Club and some Brasilian Putumayo Lounge extracts). If you have some latino music recommendations, I'd be glad to listen to them.

Just before declaring the melody of the day, I stumbled across the Gorrilaz' Latin Simone, which has some really motivating lyrics (btw, the Spanish version, recorded 2000, featured Ibrahim Ferrer as the leading vocal):

Get up
If you wanna survive
Get oh so alive
In your life
Everything falling out the sky
On top of you
Now what you do
Fill yourself up now
It's the love of your life

Sundancing

For the past few weeks I have been listening a lot to Kent, a Swedish band that sounds like a combination of Coldplay and Radiohead in a slightly different language, seasoned with Scandinavic nostalgy. The melody that inspired me the most (besides "Mannen i den vita hatten", of course, a song about being afraid of death, extremely well orchestrated and even able to claim originality - if only one were not reminded of "Clocks" or "Daylight") was "Sundance Kid". The name probably comes from the eponymous 1969 western "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" starring Robert Redford, basicly the story of the friendship of two outlaws who eventually die together. The song is sung about a lost friend, a complaint about the pain of the loss and the hope that the friendship can somehow be re-created in music. The last line of the lyrics in Sundance Kid reads All we did, all we felt became a song for you.

The essence of sundancing should thus be the one moment of the day when you let go of what has been, a moment when you resume your path after breathing in the magic of a few words or people. The one moment when you suspend your working condition to reconnect to being human.

I'm only putting up the choir of Sundance Kid, by Kent. The rest is in Swedish, so you probably won't understand it anyway :)

Hör du mig?
Hör du mig?
Kan du höra mig?
Allt vi sagt, allt vi gjort blev en sång för dig.

The beauty in the London Skies

I've made friends with my neighbourhood kiosk shopkeeper. We greet one another every morning when I go to work and sometimes see each other at noons when I need some cookies and two bananas. Then we talk for a few minutes, know if the other is ok and then carry on with the daily routine.

She has a small, ugly dog I've even come to like, after I learned that his name is Rex and that she got him the third day after he was born. We felt alike after my confession that I had a dog too, at some point in the past. Mine was nice, of course :)

She was the last person in Bucharest I saw when leaving on Friday and the first one I showed pictures from my little mountain adventure when I returned. Not that she would know me or even care, but she had told me we would have rain showers and that I should dress warmly, which I luckily did.

When I get my biscuits from her, she never tells me that I eat rubbish and that I will probably get an ulcer someday, though her look clearly shows these are her thoughts.

I don't even know her name, and I am sure it is better this way. Two anonymous strangers sharing their own bit of intimacy from time to time.

Oh, yes, the melody for today: Jamie Cullum - London Skies

Will you let me romanticize,
The beauty in our London Skies,
You know the sunlight always shines,
Behind the clouds of London Skies.

I don't want to fall in love (She Wants Revenge)

Yes I am back. No, all is not ok yet but hell, I got some energy to last through this week.

This is a post I'd been meaning to write for quite some time. It has ocurred to me that my generation has a big problem with love. More precisely, it is either afraid of it or completely ignores it when it happens. The daily work and the associated imagined pleasures (like going out with friends, hitting a club to "pick up a chick" or simply hang in front of the computer with CS screens rolling on the eyeballs) take priority before doing something really nice for ourselves, our families or our beloved ones. We are stuck in a maze of not being able to express our emotions without rationalizing about them or without surrounding them with that aura of triviality that makes every feeling dull and gray. We don't recognize the signs of love when they appear, much less listen to the invisible songs our heart can still sing. We talk endlessly about love and never give ourselves way to feel it without being so scared that we'd rather hide behind our glasses and our three mobile phones (have you noticed how many waiting people simply pull out a mobile phone and either play, make a call or stare at it?). We are a generation that is mad about being in control, and admitting real feelings is a pain for many of us. This needs to change.
I promise to get back to the topic at a more decent hour :). Meanwhile, I'd like to hear your opinion on this.

Melody of the day: I don't want to fall in love - She Wants Revenge (album reviewed by Tina on the Musicblog)

Right face wrong time, she's sweet
(But I don't wanna fall in love)
Too late, so deep, better run cause
(I don't wanna fall in love)
Right face wrong time, she's sweet
(But I don't wanna fall in love)
Can't sleep, can't eat, can't think straight
(I don't wanna fall in love)

You get the point.