Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta age. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta age. Mostrar todas las entradas

lunes, 1 de junio de 2015

Twenty seven

   No, this is not a tale of fiction. What I’m going to be saying in the next paragraphs is all real and why shouldn’t it be? It’s not all about having wild different ideas everyday. Today I decided to try something different because it’s my birthday. No, congratulations are not demanded or needed but they are appreciated. What I want to talk about is the effect this day had over be, what I think about turning a certain age, about the day, about all the fuss around it and how I feel about everything related to turning twenty seven years old today.

 Yes, I’m not that old and maybe you’ll think that I have nothing to complain about or valuable to say but I do. Because I’m only three years away from a limit that separates me between adulthood and been a young man. Of course, adulthood may begin before turning thirty. Many say the body stops growing at twenty five years old, so maybe that’s the real limit. Who cares? It’s not only a biological boundary but also one that, in this society at least, confronts us with who we are and how we do what we do. And to be honest I haven’t done anything worth stating in my thirtieth birthday as a great achievement.

 I personally don’t count education as an achievement. Why? Because I do not live in difficult conditions or at the edge of society. I have a relatively easy access to education from where my parents put me in society and there’s no real challenge in me entering or coming out with a diploma out of a academic facility. I’m not saying at all that I’m smart. Maybe I am, maybe I’m not, and certainly I cannot tell for myself. But the truth is that anyone who pays an education will receive a prize for it after a while. It’s not a prize because of what you learned but because of what you paid. And that may be a hard reality so let’s move on.

 I have a school diploma, a college diploma and a postgraduate diploma. So, I’m set right? In this society, according to my educational stats, I should have a great job and a nice seat from where to look at life from. Well, I don’t. What I have today is not a product of anything I’ve done but of the efforts made by my parents. Being my birthday and all, I think it’s appropriate to thank them for all of that big effort, for everything they’ve done over the years to make sure my life is the best they can give to me. I have clothing, food, a bed and I have never worked in my life. I think it’s fair to say they did a great job.

 However, every person must be capable to sustain itself without any outer help, right? In this society, in any society to be accurate, people are required to start making money as soon as possible, first learning a skill or doing whatever there is to do to have money and then going up the ladder that leads to a better life, a better job and son on. Well, I haven’t got that. I ‘ve never had the need or the yearning to work. Maybe most people won’t get that but I just haven’t had to work. That’s it. If I could I wouldn’t do anything for life but after my last diploma was shipped to my house, I had to start looking for a job and that has been the story of my life for the last two years. And no one has given me a chance to do anything, at least not for a pay, and I’m too old to be bullied into working for nothing. So there you have it.

 I don’t really like to talk about it because I know what people think when I tell them I don’t have a job. People think that if someone isn’t paying you to do something, anything, it’s because you’re just not good for anything. People that have jobs tend to think they are superior to others just because of that and it’s always more obvious when you are this age. People like to feel they have power because they have money: they pay trips, they have a car (which I’m not interested in having, but that’s another story), they move out of their parents home, they have social lives and so on.

 I have nothing of that. Do I want to? I guess. I don’t really know. There are many think I don’t know and all I do to avoid getting crazy is writing. Because I don’t write only because I feel good doing it, because it’s the only thing I feel I can do right, but because it avoids entering into territories I prefer to live alone in myself. In the past, I have been known to hating myself so much, so deeply, so violently, and I don’t want anything to have with all of that again. I want to be far away from that black pit in which all of those hurtful feelings are. The last time I fell, it was awful. And… I always walk by it. Maybe one day I’ll finally for good.

 On a more cheerful note, I don’t really like birthdays. Surprised? I bet you’re not. I think it’s just one of the many ways to control time, to be ashamed of things that you can’t control and ashamed of the things that you can actually do something about, like that job we were talking earlier. Because I know very well it’s pointless to blame others for my failures. I am my problem and, possibly, I am my answer. But how to answer when the question is not all that clear?

 Birthdays to me are very personal, moments that I prefer to spend almost alone, only with my family close by. I don’t like big celebrations because, to be honest once again, I don’t think there’s something to celebrate. Being alive is not good enough for me, not to celebrate at least. And going old is really not something that I like to think about. Because it reminds me of what I haven’t accomplished and who I’m not and that, obviously, unsettles me. I just like to have a piece of cake, something to drink and to eat and that’s all. I don’t like big gifts or parties or going out because of that. I don’t see the point in all of it.

 I would love for someone to really read this because I feel it’s the most personal thing that I’ve written on this blog. I know most hits are just people that open the page and then close it when they see they have to read a lot. Or maybe that’s not interesting at all but it’s kind of a big deal for me because this blog is all about my writing, my fiction creations, not about me as an individual. Actually, I don’t think I can call myself a writer because I write. There is a weight, a universe to the words and I don’t think I have what it takes to be considered an actual writer. Will I get there? I have no idea. I don’t think I can answer that because I don’t like to pretend I know things that are impossible to predict. Optimism isn’t really my thing and reality doesn’t care about what you desire, about how cute you think the world is.

 Besides all of this, there is the “relationship” side of turning a year older. Of course, we don’t get old only on our birthday but every single day. The birthday is only there to mark the change of a number, that’s it. So what have I achieved, relationship wise, in twenty seven years? Shit. That’s it. I haven’t done shit in all that time. Maybe there’s no surprise here either, but I don’t really believe in love as everyone imagines it to be. That beautiful romance full of stupid little phrases and words and corny moments. That love is bullshit. Same for the one that lasts forever, another piece of bullshit. Love may exist but it’s something beyond we can express in words and not only purely romantic, romance is just the stupid part of it. But I don’t really give a shit to be honest.

 I do think seeing is believing, so I have no way to think that love exists if I have never felt it. And I haven’t. I’ve had close relationships; I wouldn’t go as far to say they were deeply committed relationships, in no way profound or enriching. That is the truth. Sex? Sure, like a hundred years ago but sure. But sex is just biological, we are designed to have sex, to enjoy it, to just do it and that’s amazing. But I grew tired of it once I realized people didn’t see me as me when we had sex. They saw me as something else. Yeah, something and not someone. That didn’t feel go and with my personal issues, it wasn’t the best combo. So I just stopped.

 Anyway, this is my twenty seventh birthday, meaning that I have three more years to be a proper adult in the eyes of the public. Of course, to me, the public can go and fuck themselves, unless they start paying me for something. Because let’s face it, that’s all we are about: money and how to live through it. If you don’t think so, you’re in denial. And fuck, I want that money to stop feeling I’m a failure so fuck it. But who knows, maybe things will change a lot in the following year. My experience tells me nothing will change but who knows.


 To finish, I have to state that I’m not being ungrateful. As I said before, I thank my parents every day for what they did for me. I will always be grateful for that. But I’m not like others, I do not parade myself around people and tell them how proud I am for doing things everyone does or at least everyone I know does. Because, of course, I can only care for my micro cosmos and not for the whole world, at least not now. I just think I haven’t done shit yet and that’s it really. Will I ever do something that makes me proud? Who knows? Certainly not me. But hey, I’m turning twenty seven so fuck what anyone thinks. For today, and for many days to be exact, I just don’t care.

miércoles, 22 de abril de 2015

The concept of friendship

   Many people say that their friends are actually family as they have known them for as long as they’ve known heir parents or siblings, and have spent the same amount of time with each one. Some friends meet first in a park, when they’re babies, or because their families are acquainted. That is known to happen although it’s not the norm. Many people meet their friends later in life, when they reach the age to go into school. That place is the most common one to make first friends and to make alliances that would mark a person’s life, for good or bad.

 In my case, and like many people, I also made friends in several playgrounds and places of conglomeration. Kids have that innate ability to communicate with others, without all the contamination that we have as adults. They don’t see beyond a face and they make friends for life in a matter of seconds. Even if they only see each other once, for a couple of hours, they label the other kids friends. Why wouldn’t they? They understand that people who share a taste for something or a passion are friends and, actually, that’s what the base consists of.

 But as adults, we do not make friends that easily because we know a lot more about people and because we are more worried about been safe that about meeting new people. It’s not something bad. Some adults don’t have that protective sensibility and that’s when attacks happen, whatever they’re reasoning or lack of reasoning is. As adults, we don’t really make new friends. We meet people and bond but it is very unlikely that we connect as easily as we would if we were kids. Because we know people and we know what they can do.

 Nevertheless, we meet people and often share a connection. But friendship built on adulthood is much more sensible to changes and it isn’t likely it lasts very long. Why? Maybe because you’re not really evolving anymore. You are the same person day after day, year after year. Many people start being friends because they share a growth process and they need someone to share that journey with. But when you’re an adult, that journey is much more slower, less satisfying and not very thrilling to see, only to live.

 Although, the real key is to know on what you have based your friendship. Is it built on shared experiences, shared tastes, a likening for the same kind of people, a feeling of loneliness, a need to speak to someone, …? What is it that makes you someone friend? Many people think it’s because you share opinions but that isn’t always the case. It is impossible that two people agree on every single thing. Maybe on key subjects. Maybe that’s where friendship lies: in connecting in a couple of things you consider to be most important in your life. If you find someone who sees life the same way you do, on those two subjects, maybe that person would make a great friend.

I, for one, count myself in the group of people that don’t really have a lot of friends. How many friends do you think it’s “normal” to have? Some would say ten, some others twenty, some even might say only one good friend is enough. But, as most of things in life, that all depends on the person you are talking to. After all, we are not all alike and we all have different lives that make us different people. Besides, it takes a lot more than a couple of shared opinions to be someone’s friend.

 Let’s take my high school as an example. I went to a school were parents with an above average income would send their kids, so they were many connections on that level. Many people’s parents were friends so naturally their children were friends too.  Then, there were some people with average or below average income that had been able to pay for a good school for their children. Those kids were, strangely, not always on with the other. Those were the ones that felt the need to blend in so they tried to have a wider range of types of friends. In fewer words, they played it safe.

 Was there any bullying? Sure. It would be a very uncommon school if that hadn’t happened. It was always about the ones that came up as unusual: the very nerdy guy, the very nerdy girl, an effeminate kid, the new kid,… They are many types of people in a school and it’s normally very easy to put every person on a box, even if that’s not the best idea. But that is what the kids do. Girls, from a young age, know that it’s far better if they have an athlete as a boyfriend than the nerdy guy. Unless that nerdy guy happens to also be an athlete but that rarely happens.

 And men also know which girls they should date: the physically prettier ones because they need each other as prizes. If the rest of the people know that they are dating someone especially “hot”, then the other will know who is more important. Of course, we are talking about young people’s dynamics. They are many times vicious and calculating and they have learned all that from their parents and media. No one can wash hands when we see a terrible teenager in a mall or small brat in the park. It is a shared blame but blame all the same.

 I was the new guy. I was the new guy for about two or three years. They saw me as an outsider because, although it was common for new people to arrive, they preferred the ones that were outgoing and had something to bring to the table. I didn’t. So I was an outcast for many years in school until I made some friends. But we didn’t have a strong connection, like common goals or tastes. We only had one another and that was enough to be friends.

 The years went on and I made some more similar friends and realized the concepts had slowly shifted. It wasn’t like when we were fourteen. At seventeen, girls want to date the bad boys and guys want girls that have been around the block. That is the truth and the biggest truth about it all is that it’s all a lie. Must people, and this is a proven fact, have not have sex until after they leave school. So it is statistically impossible that every single person with whom I graduated, had lost their virginity. But anyway, people claimed they have had sex because that was the next big thing.

 Kissing, having sex, alcohol, drugs… You name it. I doubt that it was only happening in my school. All kids have that rush, a need for what has been forbidden for many years. And they love it or at least fake they love it because at that age what you do most is faking and lying. Whether it is to your teachers or your parents or your so-called friends, doesn’t matter. You just do because you learn lies can take you where you think you want to be.

 I didn’t really lied back then. I didn’t have anything to lie about. Alcohol was fine but I was not interested. My sex life was better that many other’s in the school, which is something that does not make me proud but I find funny. But there was no love, no childish romance. I never experiences that. I never knew how it was to feel that stupid feeling of accomplishment when you haven’t really done anything. And, obviously, I will never know.

 In college I had the best time of my life, no doubt about that. I started learning about what I loved and met people with whom I made deep connections. I understood how it is you build a real friendship, balancing those similarities and the opposing opinions. That’s when I became and adult. I did it when I realized how society works and I refused to play by the same rules because I had learned them and wasn’t going to play that game of hypocrisy and lies.

 My rule in school was to make time pass and not to attract any attention to myself. And I think I did a tremendous job at it. But in college, when I realized who I was and why I was that, I started not giving a shit about what people said or thought. I think many saw me naked, not on campus of course. I attracted attention to myself a couple of times and did not care. I felt free and all because I was happy. I had never felt so fulfilled in my life.

 Nowadays, that freedom is blurry. I have no job, no prospects; the future is bleak at best. But I keep the friendships built on solid ground and all that I learned while growing up. The friends that I made on sandy ground are not there anymore. To be honest, I don’t know if they are really friends at all. I like them and would never say anything bad at them but it’s the truth when I say we needed each other back then but now what made us be together doesn’t exist anymore. We have no reason to be together as no real lasting connections were ever made.


 Friends, in any case, are important. We need that connection with others because it’s the only way we built ourselves up and realize our potential and how we can make this world one worth living in.

lunes, 9 de febrero de 2015

The Age of the Lammergeyers

   Kotor was what we would call a bearded vulture or lammergeyer. What was special about Kotor was the fact that he had an owner, or at least, a human companion, that used him to his advantage. Did not bother the vulture at all as the human always gave him prizes consisting of dead animals, his preferred meal. The bad thing there was that he would rather hunt than eat an already dead prey, but anything was good as long as he was feeding.

 The human used Kotor to survey the mountains. There were a lot of snowy peaks and deep valleys. Also frozen lakes and cold rivers. Kotor surveyed it all and had been trained, for a long time, to look for humans. This proved hard at the beginning because lammergeyers did not really like humans. Granted, they left food everywhere they went, but many of them hunted or chased him for various reasons and that was not acceptable.

 Kotor, however, had been a very young chick when he saw the first human. He didn’t remember if he had been born in the mountains or elsewhere, but he didn’t feel that mattered. The feeling of wind between the feathers was better than any freshly smashed rabbit. It made him feel powerful over all other creatures in those mountains, the fact that he could see them from above. Of course, the land animals were not very thrilled about this and so they tried never to encounter any lammergeyers when hunting.

 This was silly as Kotor never hunted with another bird. To be honest, he didn’t really have any good relations with other animal, except the humans. He was sure that wasn’t a very good thing but the truth was all other birds were scared of him. They even treated him like a pet, saying he worked for the humans than only wanted to invade their mountains and drive them all out. It wasn’t unheard of that every so often, a man would be hit on the head by rocks or bones thrown by lammergeyers. Of course, human thought this was an innocent action but Kotor knew better.

 His job with the two-legged creatures consisted in helping other humans, locating them if they appeared to be in problems. An image of him was stuck on a post in the nearby human settlement. He understood quite soon that it was there to tell the humans to trust him if they ever saw him flying above them when walking the valleys. He knew that if they had blood on their faces or they seemed unusually loud, more than the humans normally were, he had to help them.

 He would normally take something from them and then fly back to the settlement and alert the human called Karma, who would call others, in order to look for the human in distress. They would follow Kotor through the mountains to help. Then Kotor would get his food and could depart in order to fly, hunt, sleep or simply wander around. He thought the humans must have trained others to do the same because it would have been really stupid to make him do all the work by himself.

 What Kotor did not understand was what made the humans penetrate the mountains. Knowing the terrain like few others, the bird knew humans were not properly equipped to live there. Of course, they never stayed, and that was even more incomprehensible. It was like they wanted to suffer on purpose; they wanted to be deprived of food and sometimes companionship, on purpose. It made no sense.

 Kotor envied that from the humans. They were never truly alone and he didn’t understand the one that tried hard to be it. He was alone every single day and it got to be boring. Of course, having someone besides him to compete him was not a very good idea but sometimes he thought it would have been preferable than flying alone so often, not enjoying the rats or rabbits he ate with another vulture.

 One day though, he got to know another lammergeyer. It was a female and, after a few days of courting, he was able to mate with her. They had several eggs and that made Kotor very proud. Due to this happening, he wasn’t as present as before in the human settlement. When he returned after many days of absence, the human he had known wasn’t there anymore. As a matter of fact, no humans were there.

 After checking his young in a tall peak, he decided to fly farther this time in order to know what had happened. He asked other birds that roamed the mountains if they had noticed the disappearance of the humans but most had not noticed it and thought it was better that way because maybe it meant that had left their mountains for good. But Kotor wasn’t pleased with that. He needed to know.

 He flew over the settlement and then followed the course of a river that grew wider and wilder as the terrain began to flatten. He saw many other human towns and cities from above but no trace of the two-legged creatures. Kotor had always thought they were so many, like rats, coming out of every single place. But now they had vanished or maybe they had fled. But why and where?

 Back in the mountains, he informed of his survey to other lammergeyers and convinced them to tell other creatures about it. Of course, they wouldn’t speak with the lesser animals but they agreed to inform the eagles and hawks, as well as some of the land creatures such as wolves and foxes. Many of them had also noticed the disappearance of the humans, specially those that lived from eating the garbage the explorers always left in the valley.

 They all agreed that it was better if no creature left the mountains, at least for now. The humans were not perceptive animals but maybe they had noticed something was wrong and fled because of it. Although not many believed so, it was possible that those creatures knew things they didn’t know. So they decided to do just that, live their lives like they had always done.

 Kotor was surprisingly pleased with this new life. It was a bit weird not to work for the humans but living for hunting and feeding his young, wasn’t bad at all. Yet, he still flew over the human settlement. He didn’t really know why. He didn’t really miss any of them but he had become so attached to them, it was hard not to think about them. Besides, many animals, especially those that used to be hunted, started coming down the mountains to the settlement. Kotor had not realized there was still food there.

 As the lesser animals had not attended the meeting on the mountains, they didn’t know the humans had disappeared or that it was better not to wander too far from their natural environment. They just wanted to eat the free food and in a matter of days, all the food had been eaten. The rats and similar creatures did most of the job and even some foxes and birds had arrived too.

 Kotor, however, never ate anything from that place. He flew over it every so often, but just to check on the place. Many animals had also moved closer to the biggest lake among the mountains. They did not like it before because every human that came into the mountains arrived to that point and camped there for many days. Noisy creatures they were. But now only the wind and the water made sounds and it was perfect.

 Then, one particularly clear day, Kotor noticed something in the horizon. It looked as if the sun had come out again. It was an orange and red glow but it seemed to be increasing in size and the air suddenly felt a bit hotter that it usually was. Kotor landed on a tree and looked at the colour show, that disappeared some time after. Many other animals saw it, and they too went on with their lives, not even thinking what that glow might have been.


 They had no idea that the age of man had finished. The planet had no ruler anymore.