Ever since I read it, years ago, the following poem keeps knocking on the door of my mind at regular intervals. Each time, depending on what’s going on in the background, it changes colour or unfolds
to reveal a different meaning.

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

A friend insists she’s in love with a person she met online. They’ve been chatting for three months now, and are planning to travel together in January. After endless hours of my life spent in front of a screen, I still find the situation quite absurd. But the more I tried to disagree, the more persuasive her arguments sounded.

She said she’s met so many guys in person, but no one is like him. She said they communicate perfectly. From what I’ve known of virtual communication, it can be a sign of actual understanding, no matter how detached. Perhaps they have the time to learn important information about each other, before getting properly involved.
They may open up without risking much.

Not to mention that, when you only see a particular side of somebody, imagination can easily fill in the gaps. The result
might be the perfect partner- half fictional, half real.

In the end, there was only one question she couldn’t answer-
and quickly dismissed as trivial. I, however, remain convinced of
its uttermost importance: How can you fall in love with someone
you’ve never even…smelled?

Wouldn’t it be nice to bring down all the barriers, if only for a
while? To say what’s on your mind, what’s drawing you here,
what’s pulling you away…

Imagine, a whole day dedicate to Openness, people encouraged to express their thoughts honestly, without fear of any consequences, as if they’re on a plane about to crash. Comments, complaints, secrets, arguments, past lies, unshaped wishes and dreams, disguised compromises; they would all rise to the surface as we’d empty our overfilled deposits to start again.

Taking any appropriate action would be strictly prohibited that
day: no dismissals, lawsuits, divorces, violent attacks. Then,
just before going to sleep, we’d all take a magic potion to wipe
the past few hours from memory. The next morning, life would be
as it always was- apart from the occasional, strangely familiar though inexplicable dream.

Do you think we’d still sense the difference? A certain feeling of weightlessness? Would the temporary release from guilt and repressed emotions make us better people? Or we’d become much worse, totally careless, uninhibited and dangerous, without the heavy accumulation of regret holding us in place?

No I don’t believe in character-forming restraint. Being
ourselves would be a welcome alternative to routine pretension, notwithstanding the monsters we’d have to face.

I’m doing it again, shuffling my priorities until a random path
is opened before me. Passing the time like I’ve always done, in
the most self-destructive of ways. On the whole, not an entirely unpleasant experience.

Error. You’re losing control. One more time. For no particular reason. Certain infatuations are starting to overlap. A clash may be inevitable. Don’t know what I want, so I try to get it all,
but whatever I manage to get hold of loses its desirability
in the blink of an eye.

First golden rule of dominoes is you have to remember where you started from or the circle will be broken, penguins will fly, highlight the sunlight and the pine tree isn’t even hallucinating. Sorry for infiltrating your universe with synthetic colourants; the initial plan was to jump on the stray bubble as it was casually sailing by.

No, said the animated stranger, we have unfinished businesses
to deal with, don’t forget to feed the hedgehogs in your brain,
and he dissolved into thin air.

Human existence is such an interesting mess…

Last extract from Cloud Atlas. I’m doomed never to write anything remotely interesting, cause he’s written it all before me.

"The lovelorn, the cry-for-helpers, all mawkish tragedians who give suicide a bad name are the idiots who rush it, like amateurs conductors. A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. People pontificate, “Suicide is Selfishness”. Career churchman go a step further and call it a cowardly assault on the living.
(…)
Cowardice is nothing to do with it- suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what’s selfish is
to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to
spare families, friends and enemies a bit of soul-searching. The
only selfishness lies in ruining strangers’ days by forcing ’em to
witness a grotesqueness. "

When I was 16, my boyfriend at the time insisted that my room looked like it belonged to a 12-year-old. Quite funny, considering how close we both were to 12, but his comment must have hurt me, otherwise why would I still remember it?

In the meantime, and thanks to a tendency to (over)reclaim my surroundings from the persistent embrace of anonymity, furniture has been rearranged repeatedly, decorations have been modified, replaced or disposed of, and the walls have been painted twice. (Lesson: a dark red ceiling is not exactly uplifting.)

The result? Well, my room still looks like it belongs to a 12-year-old. And guess what. It probably does. And that’s perfectly fine with me.

Since I’m once again indulging into self-affirming narratives, the following hypothesis won’t be entirely out of place: Perhaps the extreme shyness/self-consciousness haunting my nights and paralyzing my days is simply nature’s balancing gift.
Imagine what a narcissistic arrogant bitch I could be.

When she said I’ve got nothing to lose, they both knew she was lying. What she should have said was, I have something to lose, but I’ve lost so much before it doesn’t really matter anymore. Which would be closer to the truth, though still a misleading statement.

If she wanted to be completely honest, she’d simply say: I understand that my chances are slim, yet I am forced to take the risk by powers beyond my comprehension.

The risk was insignificant. The loss was almost tolerable. The disappointment was exaggerated; the fear was not. Fear of
days to come and her inability to trust anybody, not as a consequence of past events, but mostly due to her general scepticism towards other people’s motives.

Polished by real-life experiences, her scepticism now shone like a dark mirror. Whenever she looked into it, she saw her face beneath its mask of hardness, and instantly knew she was no match to the ruthless cynics of this world. Her power was purely defensive- and she didn’t want it any other way.

Some pictures are worth a thousand words.
Just don't ask which words I had in mind.

No, I don’t really have that much to say anymore. As I’ve confessed before, inspiration necessitates the presence of a certain…lack. You desire something that’s out of reach, so you attempt to recreate it in a parallel reality. A very common state of mind for us hard-to-please humans. Still, life occasionally keeps us too occupied for melodramatic self-reflection. Are we happier this way?
Or just shallower?

I won’t pretend I’ve got all the answers. Time flies; we’re never completely satisfied or we’d find no reason to keep trying; we’re never totally hopeless or we’d quietly walk away from this world. Perhaps we have forgotten what we'd been waiting for, but we’re still here, and that’s what matters in the end.

What is the written equivalent of small talk? I’m struggling to keep the monologue flowing. Not an easy task for a stubborn- though often inadequate- perfectionist. Being around people on a daily basis brings out a different side of me. More at ease, possibly more superficial, yet capable of dealing with real life situations efficiently- unlike that terrified, introverted snail I tend to become in solitary and sun-starved periods of time.

The snail thinks more, lives less. It carries the weight of the universe on its shoulders. It might be wiser, but moves too
slowly for its own good.

See, I did it again.
Shutting up is, indeed, harder to achieve than talking.

Rereading more David Mitchell. Of course I've got an obsessive personality, but that's anything but news. One day I'll meet him somewhere, I know it. From Cloud Atlas:

"How vulgar this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards would be at one's throat all the sooner."

Back to a city of ghosts. Strange, that the setting of my childhood dramas and teenage rebellions should remind me mostly of one thing, one person, one way of life. I- we- used to fantasize
about this moment, when time (and space) would no longer be
an issue, when joy wouldn’t have an aftertaste of quiet desperation.
Then, as the dream began to resemble a possibility, I was overwhelmed by insecurities. My determination to see it through evaporated. I gave up.

And now all I can do is walk around disoriented, surrounded by threatening what-ifs and could-have-beens, constantly sensing that something’s wrong but unable to put my finger on it.
And all I've got left is a burning, though purely rhetorical, question: Who’s to blame for the fact that every single time I acquire
strong feelings for something- for someone-, the road is laden with obstacles? Bad luck? My ill judgement? Or are the obstacles what makes the feelings so strong in the first place?

More random stuff:

Midnight
And my thoughts sound off tune again
Like the wind.

We’re waiting.
Just waiting,
Filled with anticipation
And doubt,
For the ghost of eternal recurrence
To rise theatrically
Over empty streets.

The stars don’t care if we’re looking
Yet you’re still struggling
To make your voice heard.
They threw you in this pointless game,
Your audience,
The saddest bunch
Of witches, pirates, miners.
The bet? How long you’ll stay alive.

Cold days are coming
To the poles of light.
What are you looking for?
You say you’re thirsty
They say oblivion has run out.

Remember to put windows
In the castles of your visions.
The day might come,
When you are forced to jump.

What is life if not a trip that has already began?
No going back, all you can do is sit back and enjoy the ride. Some people reassure you that it’s worth it, that what you’ll see will be wonderful, unique, mind-opening. Others warn you of the dangers: delays, bad weather, terrorist attacks.

You know that you must take everything into account, yet follow your own route; wear your seat belt, but resist the urge to close your eyes in fear, whatever happens, or you might risk missing the best parts.

Let it be. Let it go.
Only time can ever show
What shall stay. What shall fall
And the meaning of it all.

Yes, I was composing stupid little swimsongs again. A childhood habit. Another week here and I'll be five again.

It’s so easy to understand why they use water in rituals of catharsis and rebirth. Walk into velvety seas, emerge slowly, blue skies reflected in your eyes… you’re someone new. Until they taught you how to see yourself as a Body and a Mind, you were whole, open, capable of pleasure and pain.

The maize is left behind. It was never my dream anyway. Had
to prove I could survive its darkness, and to a certain extent I did.
As the sun embraces me I peel off my snakeskin of cynicism. It
will grow back soon enough, but for now I’m allowed a break
from everything that’s hard and harsh and soulless. I’ll let my
self be hopeful, innocent, naïve, until the time is ripe to embark on different challenges.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to communicate this feeling.
It’s not like I haven’t done so in the past. Breathtaking moments they were, yet always shaped by the certainty of an imminent Ending, making them all the more precious…and devastating.
Real tranquil happiness I’ve only known in solitude; either dark, enclosed and melancholic or moonlit, awe-inspiring, elevating. Solitude nonetheless.

To be alone is not to be lonely. Beauty doesn’t need to be shared. Still, long ago they instilled in us the hope of mutual understanding,
which we can only ever pretend to overcome.

The double-edged, suffocating blessing of having other people’s happiness depend on you…But then again, caring about others
is what makes us fully human; what disrupts this process of egocentric reflection and auto-exploration and self-justifying analysis that knows no limits. Existentialist ideals achieved via (almost involuntary) socialising.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to adjust to constant distractions. The phone rings. I’m forced to make up the focused answers I lack. Charlie the cat demands my attention. Tasks need to be completed. Now. My wardrobe is filled with someone else’s clothes- a hint, perhaps?
And of course, the heat is mind-numbing. Why do I feel more alive when I can’t think properly? Ignorance truly is bliss, but knowing without giving a damn is even better.

By the way, who gives Blogger the right to translate itself, and where on earth did this absurd greek word for blog come from?