Of a Train of Thoughts Induced by Lack of Sleep, and Of the Always Unbearable Lightness of Being that Triggered The Creation Of This Blog
I admit I am (pleasantly) surprised. First of all, this mail I got. On an old account, one I should shut down soon. It was telling me someone wrote a testimonial for me on my page on friendster.com. I have to be honest and point out that I open that page very rarely. I don't know why it doesn't really catch up with me. Perhaps because in the end, I am too talkative. Many things can be said about me, but certainly not that I am coincise. Well, someone said that too but he was probably on high.
Anyway, I got this testimonial notification, and noticing who wrote it, I just couldn't wait to see it.
Look, let's be straightforward, for once in my life. Who wrote it knows I am talking of her words. I'll be frank, my friend. Your esteem almost moved me. Really. I don't exactly know what is it that I have done or said to deserve so much from such an intelligent human being, but know that, for an incredibly long time (entire minutes!) you left me wordless.
And that is quite a feat. For anyone.
Then, there is the sudden "popularity" of my blog. I never really thought it could be of interest to those who don't know me already. Actually I thought I was going to be the only one reading it (and actually I don't read it). Nonetheless it seems that a number of people, whose comments evidently indicate an interesting mind behind the hands that typed them, have come here, read my words, and (with my pleasure) keep returning. I feel the urge to apologize for not taking into account the fact that more people are reading me now. I'll keep typing as if I and few others were the only readers, because that's how thoughts flow out of my mind. And if you keep returning, you will always have my warm welcome.
Hopefully, Miss Izzy, the Singaporean famous Party Girl, will excuse me if I quote her by saying that blogs are strange. Although not for the reason she mentioned in her entry, a few days ago. More precisely, for other reasons too, one of which is that they drive people close to someone else's mind, even when this someone is faraway, and never met.
Heh, what am I saying? I must be really sleepy if I can't see what I am saying: blogs are like books. Good philosophy books, sometimes, or good diaries. Or bad books, depending on who the writer is. When we open a book, a magic box of immense power, we hear and feel the words and thoughts of someone who is not near. But you need to be an accomplished author to publish a book (which is a nonsense, if you think about it). Anybody, instead, can type a blog. And read it for free. Does this equal to say I am writing a book here? No. Not really. It's just a flow of thoughts, although I admit my entries are often connected, in subtle ways.
But I am writing a book after all. A fantasy novel. But that's another of my fixations, fantasy, and nobody deserves two fixations on the same day.
Hadn't I loved English so much, my blog would be in Italian. This means that no one would probably enjoy it unless they were fluent in Italian. But then again, I do love English. Many things happen by mere coincidence. Human beings find it very hard to accept that, very often, there is no reason why things happen. They just do happen. Or actually, there is a reason in the sense that whatever happens is always the result of something else that happened before and triggered a chain of consequences. In this neverending game of causes and effects, our brains, or more precisely, living things, are the chaotic element. A micro-current flows through the synapses of a certain brain of a certain living being, and triggers an unpredictable and unforeseen action, which in turn activates a flow of consequences that branch throughout the spectrum of possibilities. Sometimes I entertain myself thinking of what would happen if something apparently insignificant never took place.
During the early centuries of the glorious history of Rome, the Gauls came very close to razing the city. Their plan was to attack at night and catch the Romans by surprise. But geese (I mean the birds, yes) on the Capitol (which is the main hill of Rome and not the Congress in Washington DC) were disturbed in their sleep by the approach of the Barbarians and their quacks waked up the Roman soldiers. The plan of the barbarians failed, and Rome was saved. By quacking geese.
Absolutely beautiful. If there hadn't been geese on the Capitol Hill that night, I would most likely not be here today. I would not even exist. It makes quite an effect to think I owe my very existence to a quacking goose. But it makes much more an effect to think that somehow, everything that happened after the geese woke up the Romans actually led to some of the most beautiful pages of human history: the pages that tell us of the Roman civilization.
Those who started reading my blog only recently, in my opinion are missing the best entries. Why is this blog called "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"? It was the topic of my very first post. Those who wish to know, should have a look, perhaps.
When I started typing this post, I wanted to mention the fact that I do not believe in God. Then I realized I did it already, in my post number two. Perhaps I should start reading back my old entries. Lest I start repeating myself. Not that I don't normally repeat myself.
I once talked about my blog with a Russian girl I adore. I know she wouldn't agree with most of my writings, especially about Art, although of course I am not going to change my opinion on what Art means. Her opinion, anyway, counts a lot (although not hers alone). I tried to explain then, what this blog was all about. Why I am typing it. What I am trying to do by typing it. I thought it would be very easy to explain, but then it turned out it wasn't. I had to think about it seriously before realizing this is an exploration. I am probing my own mind, in the same way I loved to dissect and analyze pretty much anything I've come upon. If a pattern exists in everything, then a pattern exists in my mind too.
There are certain milestones, in my way of viewing the world. One of them is weight. I need it. I crave it. I yearn for it. I do not gain pleasure from lightness. Perhaps it's a limit, but I am proud of it in my own way. We live in a world where light, inane things seem to be what counts the most. Buying the newest trendy wear. Going out dancing. Having mindless fun. No thinking. No fusses. No hidden meanings to find. Just instant satisfaction.
Don't you feel it's void? I do. My own experiences at the Disco were tragic if not melancholic. First of all, few things I hate more than dancing. Especially because I *really* can't stand disco music. Much less loud disco music. I am that boring and proud of it, yes. So I sat by the counter and watched them, and thought about them. Them, the people. The Saturday Night youngsters that paid more than they'd probably milked out of their parents in one week, to be there and dance. The loud, ultimately empty music. So loud they were numbed by it. Their minds devoid of everything. Emptied. All that existed was the mind numbing sound, the dance, and the hope of taking a girl home and have sex. Mindless sex.
Then I understood them. In the empty world we live, the world of brand new SUV and soft-porn pop videos, the world of grades and exams, the world of social restrictions and mind-boggling threats, these people were just trying to flee, to evade, to find a way out. To clear their mind and stop thinking. To just go there and dance and let the music daze them bringing them to the verge of being dancing machines.
For a split second I almost envied them. I would find no pleasure in this empty replacement for a vacuous void. Then I realized I couldn't envy them. Instead I felt there was a melancholic lack of weight in the world. I suddenly knew why most of those very dancing guys and girls end up taking ecstasy and then something else. And then something tougher than that. And at the end you find them half-dead on the corner of a decadent building in the peripherals of our civilized capitals. They are squeezed not by weight, but by the unbearable lightness of being. This lack of weight is so destructive of humanity, that we almost feel the urge to fill it. Because if we don't, what's life worth?
But then again, I am repeating myself. I know already that I, for one, feel a desperate need for weight. Just that. I love thinking. I love being induced to think. I love reading things that make me think. I am perhaps a thinking machine. And then I love typing my thoughts.
And so the people get convinced that, for sure, they aren't dealing with a normal person.
But that's what I love the most of myself, after all.
