Yep, I've heard it all before

I am definitely not the telephoning type. Tonight in the French class I was asked to say why (in French!). The truth is, even though on the phone I am often missing all that ellaborate body talk to illustrate the subject at hand, and the control of the discussion is eluding me, phoning helps me become a better listener. There are things that are easier to say on the phone, than face to face. Even today at work, in a longer meeting, I noticed that few people sustain your look when you honestly look into their eyes when speaking. Well, think that you have something really personal to say, and you don't want (or simply cannot) say it in person. What's the best option? Telephoning, of course. On the phone I've said (and heard) lots of things that would probably have taken much more guts to say face to face. The im-persona of the other person makes you let your thoughts stream free, as if you were alone and the sole gesture of holding the phone up to your ear were only a reflex gesture you'd make every time you were speaking to yourself.

Nevertheless, this makes me no lesser an opponent of telephoning. There is nothing that can replace a face to face conversation, a decent answer to decent questions, the smile on the other's face when you say something pleasant, the touching of hands when agreement is reached.

I've given everything i have to give but it's not enough
And this might sound a little negative but i'm not that tough
(Cinerama, Your Time Starts Now)

Easy like Sunday morning

A question that has troubled me of late is why we make friends or become lovers with different people. Of course, there are relationships that develop because of sheer sympathy and liking for the other person. They are rare though. Most relationships are based on a role typology: I expect him / her to fulfil a certain role in my life. Be it that of saviour, secret lover or mature coach (the ranges vary from person to person) – we all need someone. What we do not expect is that everyone who enters our life has an own deck of cards. They all have luggage, left behind by the culture they come from, by the family life they led, by the amount of loneliness they had to share alone. Of course, this luggage needs to be got rid of – and there are more than one ways to do that. One that is very familiar to most of us is shedding that luggage onto the other and making him / her be a part. There are people in everyone's life who live by this “shedding” - more or less obvious, more or less intense.

The trick is in how much blame you choose to accept for somebody else's life... To understand what the boundaries there are to your responsibility – and to the other's, and act accordingly. All the love and goodwill you have cannot always rescue somebody who has already been hurt so much that all you could do is just sit next to him – and inflict a new wound even by that, by being a signpost for the loss.

And the thing that gets to me
Is you’ll never really see
And the thing that freaks me out
Is I’ll always be in doubt
(Cranberries, Animal Instinct)

Walking the right streets

A friend of mine did a brave thing a few days ago: although he was one inch away from getting a certain job in Bruxelles - very badly I may add, as I saw his enthusiasm from the beginning of the application - he still had the inner strength to put down all the pro and against arguments, and decided against taking up the position. The decision involved a financial component, but it was ultimately the fact that the job would have made him sway from his chosen professional path that convinced him to renounce.

It takes a lot of nerve to do against your heart's bidding - but as long as you feel that is the right decision for you, just walk on. Dreams are often fulfilled just around the corner.

Aint no angel gonna greet me
Its just you and I my friend
My clothes dont fit me no more
I walked a thousand miles
Just to slip the skin
(Bruce Springsteen, Streets of Philadelphia)

Octavian Paler - thoughts

"Când aveam posibilitatea sa-mi îndeplinesc visul, mi-am dat seama ca si pasiunile îmbatrânesc. Nu stiu daca pot pretinde ca am stiut ce vreau de la viata. Nu mi-au lipsit tintele false si entuziasemele naive. Cam toate certitudinile mele, câte au fost, sunt acum ciuruite de îndoieli, ca niste haine roase de molii. Mi-ar fi greu sa numesc una intacta. Nu exista fericire de care sa-ti amintesti fara tristete. Am început sa-mi dau seama ca, din actor pe scena vietii, deveneam un figurant. Tot ce pierdem, pierdem pentru totdeauna. Ceea ce nu traim la timp, nu mai traim niciodata. O viata mediocra poate fi justificata. Mai ales într-o lume mediocra. Dar mediocritatea iluziilor nu are nici o scuza. Nimic nu ne opreste sa visam fara masura. Forma cea mai subtila în care se poate înfatisa un mister este banalitatea. Dumnezeu a creat lumea în asa fel încât sa regretam aproape totdeauna prea târziu. A muri înseamna a te muta într-o stea."

Sweet sweet sweet....

At some point in your life, after being smothered in the childhood thrills of knowing and controlling everything that goes on around you and indulging in the belief everybody tells you everything (count in the part where friends would come and whisper in your ear “Do you want to know a secret”) -- silence falls. You hear little to nothing from others, so you have to create your own secrets and stories, and plans.

And yet, sometimes these plans don't come out quite as you had drafted them. People around you will make sure you will have more obstacles than initially thought of, they will try to keep you from your stories and your dreams. Perhaps it is legitimate that they do so – it is all but legitimate to claim another person's life, when you love her and want what is best for her. How do you manage to merge these two, though? How do you lead a happy family life and follow a great career without hurting the one you're with?

It takes great strength to try and follow both - and sometimes you just wonder if loss is worth what remains behind. But I guess it's all up to what you really wish for in life.

Sugar wishes don't change what is real
Or how it feels in the bad times
For whatever is he is mine all the time
And we'll get by with our troubles
(Macy Gray ft Erykah Badu, Sweet Baby)

While travelling

What do people on the bus do while they are travelling? Well, they listen to music on ipods, watch movies on laptops, look out the window, comment about the length of the road, the technical abilities of the driver, talk on the phone loudly enough to piss everyone off (about family inheritance, children and the technical abilities of the driver), and there are people who make up stories about the ones who are travelling. Like me. I saw a guy's female best friend trying to attract his attention. It was clear they were sharing something - reading in the same positions, both wearing glasses, he showing her certain landscapes or giggling over certain lines from the books. The girlfriend was a bit resentful, however compensated by owning the right to kiss the guy, at which point the best friend looked out of the window. Quite funny to watch, actually.

Tonight she told me she'd known I had been rushing back to you.
What she didn't know was there was nobody to come rushing back to.
Or is there?

So now you've got the best of me
Come on and take the rest of me
Oh baby
(The Real Thing, You to me are everything)

Those things we will never say

There are, for every one of us, things we will never say. Be it that we like someone to the point of melting, or we have our own secret little plans, we are not able to verbalise those things, speak about them properly or even touch upon them in daily interaction with others. At times, they come up in our mind Even then, we cannot let them out of our head, because we constantly think about either what the other will think, that we will scare him or her or be scared by what the other will have to say – or even worse, that it will not matter to him or her as much as it matters to us and we will then be so disappointed.

There are small things – such as what we like about the cloudless weather – or what we fancy about ice-cream (like licking the ice cone when it melts) – or even bigger things – such as what we really think or how we would go about seducing a green-eyed blonde. Or how we feel about being betrayed. It never matters what it is, we just cannot talk about it – because it has taken a deep seat within our emotions and ration tells us this is uncontrollable. The interesting part is that everything that is in our head is looking for a way to get out, and so we start dreaming about what we cannot speak about. We draw it. We sing it. We ultimately do it, or even worse – we come to be it.

I've known the secret for a week or two,

Nobody knows, just we two.

(The Beatles, Do You Want To Know A Secret)

Those things that we will never say, we will do (such as, being fatty, you tend to go out with slender people, in the hope nobody will notice). If we do not find a way of expressing them, they will express themselves – like it or not. And some of them we will come to regret we haven't said ourselves.