Storytelling : Neuropolis

I once read a sentence on the pages of a book, which impressed me so strongly and created such a vivid, lively image in my head, that i decided to write it on a piece of paper and keep it, with the purpose of framing it and hangin in it on an unspecified wall of an uncertain place in my unfocused future.

Now i am 45, i am a smoker, i am recently divorced and write essays like this for a living, which means that i have a stroing chance of not having anything like a future, or at least not one that involves walls that have the puprose of showing enlightening turns of phrase to my friends and neighbours.

Those word, though, are still in my head.

"Their weaving is stronger than the fabric of reality. It's tight and rhythmic, it's made of sounds, lights and fury. Of laughter and tears, bonded together in such perfectly symmetrical way that makes both resonate stronger. It's a fabric that wrtaps the reality of the daily mundane things and it's hole, its broken edges, its flawed texture, and almost lulls it to sleep . waiting for the day in which it will incorporate us all"

Those words might sound like the ones you might hear from a self absorbed philosopher or a writer that hasdnt yet learned the lesson thatr all writing is nothing but a breeze in ahurricane, and still believed so strongly in the topic of his description that rhethoric took him over.

And what could be so important and unique that would drive who i discovered later, was an adult man, an atheist, a scientist that ceased to beluieve in science as hope long before, to write something almost embarassingly driven by emotion and hyperbole.

I can tell you, but you'll have to rpomise to try and understand what you will accept with an open mind, and give me advice by the end of this.

The man's name is Charles Kane and he isn't talking about humanity and the strength of their beliefs, politics or religion. He isnt talking about ideas.

He is describing what his research institute has grown to name "The Collective Of the Deceased Unconscious".

Or, in a moment of truth, with the name that everyone sues when theyre not addressing the presss, Neuropolis. The invisible city of the dead.

All of you know what i am talking about and possibly know where i am going with this but let's assume none of us know. Let's pretend to be blessed with the gift of ignorance and start from scratch.

Kane's longtime partner, Grant Madison, a neurologist whose name would be reviled and loved equally in the years following his discovery, ha patiently and relentlessly devoted his life to study the very own essence of human  minds. His mother, a famous novelist, whose last years of life werer reduced to a parody of living by Alzheimer's disease was, together with an almost compulsive curiosity towards what amkes people tick oin an organic level, what made Madison discover that the impulses of the brain could actually be preserved and maintained after a person's death.

With a mixture of chemicals, and the correct timing and technology, parts of a person memory, personality and fragments of their thoughts could be kept into existing. If not living.

The ethical aspects of this were grey at best but wait, it gets worse.

When Madison died of leukemia some years aftyer, his partner and husband Charles Kane decided to develop his discoveries and turn what was mostly a faithful dream into one reality.

The key, surprisingly, was interaction.

The impulses of one single being were mostly scraps by themselves, but were much much more when led to interact with the ones from other deceased people. The more varied, different in age, preservation, type of death the impulsers werre, the more they interacted and the more completely uncanny results they created.

And yes, the word created fits perfectly.

The human remains became brick. They created a world. Neuropolis

Their fragments of sensations, memories, jolts of senory conscience joined together and made what were legitimate interactions, voices, faces, sounds. Lives.

The threads of the souls of the deceased made a building that they went to rest in for eternity.

Still, up to then, all of this was mere speculation. No one knew what exactly thsoe interactions were. We coudlò only see that the cobweb was made but not what it implied and what the shape of  iuts movements formed. All we saw was a series of patterns and numbers.

There came technology to help us again.

A software, created a by a renegade governemnt hacker, whose name will be kept unmentioned, with the purpose of deciphering neural impulses during torture and interrogation sessions and make them into intelligible visuals, sounds and words, was taken (with sheer democractic force) , adapted and made into the key for the Neuropolis cypher.

Now we coudl see what happened in there.

they were dreaming eternally. It wasnt a word uttered by a drunkenb èpriesyt at a funeral or a half arsed metaphor used by a childish hack writer like myself. It wads a reality. What was there was the ones we loved and lost creating a tangible, endless loop of moments taken from their past. Memories, sensations, worlds, faces. Sometimes fgrom their own memory of the living, sometimes created by mixing with the others. A life of the unliving that had no boundaries of time. A true, real collective unconscious of the dead.

So the discovery made its biggest leap, or its greatest mistake. It became public.

The tiles of the city grew in numbers while people started to lead their loved ones' neural remains to the system.

As a man that has always believed in the basic indecency and inability of progressing of humanity, i was impressed at how many were glad to join the project, instead of rejecting it in the name of religion of lack of ethic and morals.

Sure, there werte critics and naysayers but generally all it took to move them towards Neuropolis was the special wave of crushing grief that took you over when a person you shared your soul with disappeared.

Mothers made their lost children jpoin the city where there was no aging, soldiers were led to a place where their bodies wouyld not get torn to pieces in the name of possessions.

The crushing, suffocating punishment that life set on us with illness was only an illusion in a land were all were free of a body.

Still, being humans, we had to fall at some point. Our conviction was bound to fail.

It was discovered that lots of people were commiting suicide por refusing medical treatment in case of illness, in the hopes of joining the project.

Why blame them? This was the first time someone was giving them a tangible proof of an afterlife, a form of better world where the chains of living would be lifted.

But, of course, the wrath of medicine and morality and religion came down.

People had no right to join what was perceived as a false idol, a shameful alternative to their "cures" or the very profitable attraction of religious numbness.

Crusade after crusade, they wanted Neuropolis gone. And the afterlife to return to a benevolent fairytale. Why letr reality exist when it endangers the manipualtive power of myth and illusions.

And then another dangerous discovery was made. One that woudl make the axe on Neurpolis' neck real.

Neuropolis wasnt a fully innocent dream. At least not in the sense of our deba5table human morality.

Some people died in violent circumastances. Some had unresolved demons in their heads. Some were plain sick or just evil.

They built their parts of the city too. And being a product of an unbridled subconscious, the world they created was a pure repetition and realization of violence, fear, abuse and feral cruelty.

They relived their moments of violence, the abuse they died for. tehy commited revenge on uynknownb assaailants or sometimes on the living.

There was darkness to the light of their souls. An underbelly.

Few accepted that. Very few. The majority reacted violently.

Now, Neurpolis risks to be turned off. In a few months, the decision will be made and the city of the dead will be burned to the ground in the name of morals or let prosper with its own monsters.

I have been recently diagnose with third stage sarcoma. I will not live.

After this piece is published, i will commit suicide. I have no family left. Nothing.

I will be another citizen of Neuropolis or the last one to walk through its doors.

I leave it to you. You will vote to one of the greatest decision humanity has been asked to make.

All i wanna tell you is, read my words again. Try to udnerstand. And then decide.

A Moment

I dont think people have ever fully realized the power of an Enabler.

Or, more correctly, i do not think people have ever realized fully, especially in the age of black and white emotional filter, where suddenly every single individual is entitled to act in any way they want , as long as they provide some dramatic excuse for it, the absolute , corrupting, viral power that the people called enablers have.

Let me clarify: i hate this blog. After using it as a place to express my emotions and in some case pushing them upwards to put them on display, ive grown to despise the practice.

I moved away from putting thoughts and feelings in the open for everyone to see, even from wrtiting them for myself.

Cause there is one truth that nobody wants to face, these days: the act of "opening up about your feelings" is a fruitless masturbatory game that hasd been severly overhyped after years and years of psychoanalitical mumbo jumbo. It's the end game of years of absence of real proiblems, and the mutation of a noble thign like expressing feelign to few selcted good people into parading them on a virtual screen for everyone to gape at, and possibly expresss unsincere sumpathy for.

That is also enabling. Pushing poeople into the delusion that they have "someone having their back". Someone who "cares" so that in the end they neglect the oens that really matter, in the name of tragedies on steroids. Creating a grotesque Soap Opera where everyoen makes daily monologues on their afflictions but they do not really care for each other and honestly are just waiting for their turn to speak.

In the end , the quiet ones are the onethat really feel.

But, this time i have to speak. Cause yeah, when you go to AA or therapy, people makelong talks about the neablers of substance abuse , or co-dependence or all the fuss that is ok, since magazines talk abotu it. And even more, in the age of the self serving weep blog, everyone is in love with those phantom figures that you can easily put the blame of all your dysfunctions onto. I am not a cunt, i was enabled into being cunty by my passive aggressive daddy.

But i faced it today and ive been facing it daily for months now.

My mother is ill. Seriously ill. For Months ive been trying , if not to help her on aprtactical side, to lift her moods in simple ways.

She is an alcoholic, suiffers from severe depression and is basically a recluse, almost unableto really do much more than getting through the day.

Since she cannot  be forced into rehabilitation or medical attention, because that woudlrequire the law to mark her as unable to take careof herself, which she is, my only main resource, as a son that has never been able toi do much rather than take more trouble to her heart, is to attempt, from a distance to make her slightlyless msierable, and in that feelmless uselss myself.

And i try, constantly, daily, endlessly.

And i tried again today.

I will get you new clothes, mom. I will bring you places. You will havea bit of ahppiness. I wont go away, i promise. Smile

That's all i could do.

And it kinda worked, cause it was true and sincere. I want to hrelp, but she has to want to be helped, she hasto say yes and give me her hand. Which i woudl gladly take,cause she is, after all, the only other person i love, besides the woman that i want to share my life with.

Andthen. after a few hours, everything goes in the toilet.

He isnt evil, my father. I wouldnt dare being one of thsoe spineless people that i keep meeting and seeing, who write horrible tirades on their parents, claming abuses that never happened, crying for injustices that were never there.

They owe you nothing.

So, no, he isnt evil. He was a goodman, he raised me well. he is still occasionally generous, and i know hed help me if i needed, always.

But he is old. He is ill. He is medicated. He is cruel and small and feels powerless. Cause he never amounted to much in years of life and never solved issues that he had that just stayed there and rot. And he saw that things werent working in his wedding and with his son and he got bitter, and popped pills and got worse.

So he enables her sadness cause thats what runs in his blood. He sucks away positivity, not cause he is a bad person but because all that he is is sadness.

So he tells her "No , that will never happen"

So he reminds her that she is an invalid

He reminds her that she isobese and sick.

He says that she will have not long to live.

And she falls back and drinks and allhope is gone again.

And i learn about it and all i can feel is that it was pointless.A gap grows larger and to not feel sad, i become numb, cause numbness is good.

And i know that one day that gap will be all there is. And i am lookign forward to that day, bvecause i will stop feeling like shit. Even if that means being guilty of nto caring.

Cause i wanna not have emotions, cause emotions to me are a burden and everytime i feel sympathy or compassion in the words or eyes of others i feel weak and more pointless.

So we enable each other's loss.

There was a point when this could be solved.

I feel disgusted at myself for writing this down. there is nothing noble into pouring your heart out cause some feelings arent good for anyone. Cause what you end up doing when you do this, whether you want it or not, is just taking your misery out on others. And no matter how they l,ove you, they will grow tired of it. And they will leave.

The only good there is to this is seein what happened and what is going on inside of you.

But that said. I hope ill never do this again.

Night Time Prayer

I stand in my night pyjamas on the  balcony of my house. A day of november . Earbuds should be blasting talk radio or music in my head but fir a second , i turn them off.

Tha air is cold, makes my fingers and toes tingle. I should go back to the tepid, cuddling safety of the room. Buit Not now.

Light up a cigarettte, vicious remain fo a past of toxines injected and expelled from my body. I might even looked grotesque to anyone who passes in front of my building. Pitch Black, cold, only cars drive by with that sound you just hear in late november. That icy wet rumble of the cars. Prrojecting themselves rapidly towards their destination, to meet routine, stress or maybe temporary joy.

And me, slightly chubby and a bit balding, with a severly overgorwn beard, looking at the horizon, the cigarttes diying off between my fingers.

I have been in that exact place beforer, i have stood like a sentinel, drugged out of my mind or drunk, or filled with sleeping pills, anything that would gave me a buzz powerful enough toi calm my anxiety down and fix my holes temporarily.

I stood there for years. At hours much more later than this. Sometimes even seeing the dawn rise with bleary eyes.

Always alone. I wasnt desperately alone, i caused my solitude as a precise choice. I wanted those moments of calm contemplation, of freedom of addiction, where i just waited the alcohol to lower and the nausea and vomit to float away from my body. Those were dark times.

Or i just listened toi epic or sad music, grasping those moments with that incombent fear of death looming over my shoulders. And it manifested as soime sort of vertigo, more close to an attraction for the void than anything elose. Will i fall from the balcony or just throw myself down. Not cause i desired death, but just to see if could do it or stop myself from doing it. An action in a life of passiveness.

But i always poickjed the slowe coward death to the actual suicidal one. I was gonna die one day at a time not in one theatrical act that was supposed to make no one cry.

And my brain filled with thoughts, each one darker than the one it followed. and my heart beating steadily with a sense of weight and pressure, and words that were connected together with web of toxines exhaled at times with the smoke of entire packs of cancer sticks.

But now something has changed.

I am smiling. I stood there, being myself, and yet my mind made me smile with what all my memories are made of: her voice, her face, her scent,m her warmth.

Somethign sweet, clever and funny that she said, that gave me the energy ti goi through days of empotuibness, aching back and scary insecurity. A person that gives meaning to me, cause she loves me and is always there anmd at the same time makes me more motivated than i ever was at anything towards the simple act of living with a smile of my face and the fierce feeeling of tenderness in my heart.

She makes me smile. And i love her. We are one. And i love her.

Its all in one smile and the memories it brings and those meoiries are woirth half a lifetime of trouble and pain.

And worth the eternity.

We All Fall

I dont get through a full days, in these late times of misconception and trouble where i dont encounter at least a very opinionate being that thinks they got their mind right on the subject of addiction and drugs.

I know one fact and of that i am pretty safe: addiction are a high number and all of them are a sign of a weak mind and soul. And i am not saying this from a moral high pedestal. I am an addict, i wwill always be. I have no sympathy for my oewn condition. I despise it, but its almost impossible to live through life without an addiction or some sort of hole that you make less gaping with the help of a crutch.

And if you ever have met one of those individuals with an  attitude that words like "i have no addictions, i am high on life", they usually are the oens that cause others to be addicts. People so self absorbed in their being maLignant soul tumors ., who thrive on sucking the life out of others with such millimetric precision , that their complete extermination would probablòy be ana amzing solution to a lot of problems regarding abuse.

Besides that though, let's not fool ourselves.

You migth enjoy the type of alcohol you drink and moistly take momentary pleasure out of it and be somehow in control of what it does to you. You are still a person that somehow needs booze. There are exceptiuons, sure. There's people who really do it for enjoyment. But they have had at least one moment wwhere the intoxication was the key, and life got so completely uneventful and suffocating , the people surrounding them, the ones they used to love, got so barely tolerable , that they needed "somethign to take the edge off"

And that is where the real core of substance addiction and the hook is. You do not get born an alcoholic, or an addict. Ecven the harshest cases always had a reason.

My mother is a raging alcoholic, now turned into a prescription med abuser. She used to be sober. She tried to clean up, also recently. But with the push of an enabling person that is also her main reason for a need for peace and self destruction at the same time , she slowly made her mind and her body into a dysfucntional puddle that needs anything to not completely fall together and at the same time is consciously marching against self destruction.

And without getting so personal and up and close. Think about it. Theres people everywhere who consciously ruin their body, gradually mutilate themselves, make their lives extra difficult, for the side effects of their own "safe haven". Wahtever that is.

Mine is sleeping pills, most of the time. I got my liver, stomach and brain messed up with, first to obtain sleep, then just to have the incredibly short moment of quiet that they gave me. And when that became shiorter and shorter, i increased the dosage. And now im too weak to try and kick and face the withdrawal.

Pot smoikers, you dont get off that easy. I know how your culture has spread like plague on society with your delusional thoughts on how pot is a completely harmless ., almsot religous, magic herb that allows you to live better and would turn the world into a paradise if everyone used it. It is a lie.

You used to be a functional person at some point, then you discovered that excisting and having a normal brain causaes anxiety and you went on that route, cause with ti you found a whole army of enablers who cuddled you into thinking that it was a solution and not a problem. A culture, a family and a philospophy , not just  another momentary fix. The system made people  think pot is wrong, so they lie when they say that potsmokers end up being demotivated sacks of nothign that have no drive towards anything or liveliness. And all of thsoe were lies.

And if you use medicines, and they fixed you at some point but you kept using them cause they made you feel good or sleep better or anything: you're a drug addict too. Do not use your illness as an excuse. You are exactly the same as the disheveled guy who shoots heroin on tyhe streest. Only difference is that his fix is illegal and yours is state endorsed.

Cigarettes? We all know about them. But at least smokers arent delusional about being self destructive.

My point is this: hacve an addiction, whichever it is. Everyobdy has one. But do not lie about it. Do not say yours is more acceptable. Do not think it makes you special. Or that you have a condition that grants you to be above other addicts. We all have it and we all will fail. Period-.

Summer Venom: A reflection on Human Failures

Its a summer day, and while looking outside of my woindow doing chores, i am brought to a weird and sudden memory.

Ages ago, during a aummer night strategically placed in heated, sticky, mosquito infested months like this one, i made a big mistake, that i will remember forever as one of the worst faux pas of my existence. Well one of many. 

I did the mistake of believing in the absolutely non-existent possiblity of fixing of a dying relationship and went ona trip around northern italy with a girl. We were in that unnerving phase of a dying romance where you cant really stand each other but youre still "trying to work out things".

First off: There is no working out things. Life is a powr struggle and war. When you enter a relationship, whther its romantic or evena good freindship, you enter a realm of unspokes compromise, where you sorta have to accept giving out sense and logic in the name of something higher and stronger. 

Most of the time that higher and stroner thing wasnt there to begin with. Most of the other times it was but it was very frail, and as soon as it debilitattes a little, you find yourself dealing with another human being that, as most humans, is by nature hostile and dangerous, and will jump at your throat at any excuse. IOn most cases every little thignthat ocne was a reason for your delusions to thrive, will become a weaponagainst each other. 

The delusion of love easily turn into the very palpable reality of hate. 

Also, you havce to add that often this person will know things about you: what was some beautiful and romantic sharing is now a weapon to hurt you in the softer spots. Thats what people are in the end, when stroipped off from the layers of rose tinted dreams they dress themselves with.

SO at that point, theres no working out. It wont happen. Theres silent hatred. unspoken issues. Lies, cheatying and deceit. No working out. people dont work out things. they act like thyre trying but in the end they hurt each other, whiooch is the basic communication of humans. 

So yeah, in the end we camer back and had a huge fight under my door. We threw things we bought oin the trip at each other. We shouted, hurt each other where it was more painful. I cried. I was exhausted. She tried to drive me over with her car. 

And my other thought is how i still clearly remember  how she thrived on huirting me physisically. And i cant take out of my mind one thought: she did it because as a man, i could not react to that. She could hit me, hurt me, even badly, she wasnt a feeble girl. Let's not bullshit each other with the lie that all women are less strong than men on a principle. But i couldnt do anything and i took the hits. Why? Cause if i even dared to opush her back, she would have sued me or worse. I would be labeled as a woman beater. 

I am sure of that. It's another dark shade of that. Social double standard work as a weapon too. Just ask to any divorced person. 

Dont talke any of this too seriosuly but realize i am right too.

Storytelling: Silent Lucidity

Scientists used to say, in that pointless rambling manner that men whose only goial and pupose in existence is to milk rhetoric out of nothing, that sometimes the quickest way from point A to B is not a straight line. 

But until tonight, all he always thought about scientists, philosophers and men of the wrod, was that their inane refelctions and their endless elaboration on the actual meanings of chains of events, were much like a giant, perfumed, wall of smoke surrounding this huge secret that humanity, as a flawed, terrified species, refuses to see: nothing has meaning. 

And you will get years, centuries of groups of people, some smaller some bigger, to conince every single indidivdual that they figured out the secret mathematics and rules to waht connects cause to effect and most imnportantly they have found the real source of life and the reason for living. 

You will face people that will point at you for seeing through all this, say youre bitter and angry, jusge your realism and guilt trip you into denying it. They will widen their eyes when you hide your realization of what you have figured out in the middle of a good day and ask you "swaht's wrong" or what's the inner meaning of your words. And you will feel so sick of that condescending compassion, that whole series of maks that feel so superior to the faces that wear them, that you will just pretend you were being hu8morous and joking. Partcipoate in the play even if you saw the rotting corpses in the backstage. Play like you dont know that this whole charade about fdinding the murderer has no meaning cause theres no ending anyway.

And whenever you hear someone say sorry a thousand times you cannot help of thinking about how your father did the same, apologizing with teary eyes after drunken rants, insults and  violent outbursts. And how he would repeat the same actions all over again a few seconds after the aplogy. cause apologetic words and declaration of love and feelings mean less and less weach time your repeat them. Cause the more you do the more it means theyre just a desensitized sound that coems out of you liek a trigger reflex when your swatting a fly. Youre not really thinking about killing the fly, youre just doing it. So you say you're sorry, and you say you love, and you say youre sad. but if anyone called you out on it, youd snap like a kid caught with theirt hands in a cookie jar. 

They werent supposed to know that your gentle words are just a tool, or a shield, or a habit. Cause in the end youre just empoty as those words are.

Buta fter four hours of driving, on a hot old car that is loosing its grip on the radio and loud radio playing some sun cooked tape filled with classic rock from the reightoies that now sounds deformed and messed up by time, your head enters a limbo where its actually empoty of any thought.

Which is what you try to obtain with binge drinking weekends, drugs and pills. To not have those thoughts or at least have an excuse for when they erupt in disjointed pained rambling out of your mouth. I was drunk, i didnt mean that, Cause yes, people say that "in vino veritas" b ut everyone is so terrified of that being true. Cause so many decnt people become monsters when they drink. So that would mean that everyone is a monster within. And that woudl make everytyhing crumble wouldnt it.

Cause when youre drunk and howling you can actually sscream out loud to everypone how a fight on the phone with your girlfriend who was supposed to be your true eternal love has just cemented yout thought. Which is that trusting another person is the most inhuman deformity that people have tricked themselv es into: Cause all you can trust is what you can see. When the other person is away from your eyes all it takes them to fail you is a mintue. And then youll have to forgive ort forget or just not know it. but in the end those things will pile up. Cause no matter how strongly you worked to build a castle. all it takes to destroy it is one night of breeze. So all those words of tyrust are just a trick to numb the truth, which is just the fatc that in the end, it will crumble. 

And while you are not thinking about that, cause all that stuff is out for once, on vacation in hell. Your car spoins out of control. And you spin and smash your head. And you feel no pain. You feel epaceful cause you're about to die. And all that yammering about living your life has now no more purpose or meaning. The fear of not living right, the doubts, the bein afraid of death, has no meaning. its over nwo and theres nothing you can do about it. Done. 

And then Its blackout. if you live, its all over again. Cause like adicts to pain and awareness and biotterness as soon as you started being close to it youll do it again. If you die it's over. 

Heads or tail, you choose. 

How To Kill Your Heart

There's a curious and unsettling side effect to the evnts that life places in front of you, that is hitting me hard today. And since i am plagued by self awareness and some sort of vaguely morbid love for introspection, i am trying to decipher it.

As a scientist of the non-existent, which means that i generally love to analyze things that could be eaily left alone with no consequence, and do it with some sort of borderline obsessive method, i have to observe this phenomenon and realize what it is.

Step A: I Have Seen it happening before

It was almost like a seasonal blossoming of flowers and fruit. Or the pus oozing form infected wounds. No matter how passionate, how smart and sensitive people i knew were. After a good amount of frustrated dreams, a traumathic event like an illness, an accident or an unwanted, or too wanted, pregnancy, they would become numb. They would, maybe twist and turn like fireworks, focusing their anger towards ways of thought they never had before, turning conservative and almost fascist when they used to be liberal. Becoming hyper aware of encvironmentalism or, in many cases, settling in the land of mental oblivion that is the world of conspiracy theories. But in the end, the winner is apathy and cynicism. Always. The numbing, almost cozy embrace of irnoic indifference got them all. Why did it happen? they were not born that way. What happened to their spirits. How did their soul die?

Step B:  Being Hit Slowly By The Phenomenon

I am a passionate person. After defeating depresssion, which manifested in me through violent explosions of emtional distress, whether it was over the top manic anger, happiness, or  the like. The cure, as i mentioned before, was a chemical treatment that suippressed any sort of emotional peak, making the down moments more bearable buit also nulled any sort of high or edge. Trying to get off of that, forced me to put a stron ordert in my life and a strong control over my emotions. I had to learn how to not feel "too much" but also to be able to still have any feelings at all and deal with the eventual pain or disappointments. Things seemed to be changing again.

Recently earthquakes, recession, frustration and a lot of strange holes in logica are all around me. I am equally disgusted by people who show utter indifference or the ones who show obsessiveness about the problem. The over intellec tualizing people who spend waxing paragraphs on the reasons of tragedy. The ones who use irony and cynical inappropriate humour tpo detach themselves from everything that happens, but aòlso the obsessive weepers, the people who seem to thrive on sadness, who seem to be dwelling in a permanent state of complaint instead of actual action or need for information,.

I despise the obsession for knowing the truth, who naturally takes people towards rambling ridiculousness but i also despise the gleeful indifference that has one rule: fuck everything and everyone except me. And id espiser how the total lack of interest for news or culture seems to be the key to living.

And yet.

It is the easiest way

Step C: Understanding the Symptoms

Let's face, thertes no amount of words, essays and arhguments that can be used or written about how "love conquers all" or "indifference wont win". It is not tthe truth. For two very simple reasons:

- The very people who say that "love conquers all" and "indifference wont win" are often loveless and indifferent towards anyone except themselves. Same can be said for the ones that treasure culture, unity, tolerance and reason. Their arttitude rejects others, negating those very principles. That is because, u undeniably, hate is a natural aspect of people. And even when reworded as love, its still hate. And 9its more hoinest than any from of bogus love. And in the end that brings us to the very corte of this thing

- Being numb feels good


There is a reason for which people get on drugs. For which they follow cults that help them into mass hypnosis. For which they are loveless and indifferent and end up settling into a complete stasis that takes away their passion, feelin gs and interest towards the world and its inhabitants.

When i talk to someone who is numb and apathetic, they dont suiffer. I do.
When i have feelings towards people and the world, they often bring pain and fear with them.

Opening up the heart, caring, trying to convince people, is torrturous.

In various degrees:

- You love something strongly, a musician, a place, a movie. You try to convince others about it, to spread the word. Youre meeet by indifference. You're the one who suffers, not them. So, fuck it.

- You care for a cause por invest emotion into a situation. Eventual disappointment will come. You will suffer. A cynical person wont.

Apoathy is soothing. And if youre a good actor you can mask apathy as sensitivity and actually exploit people's good heart. And win.


I dont have that disease in me, but i understand it. Not sure what that makes of me. But i had to analyse. Thats also a disease.

For You.

I'm writing this because i have to.

See, i love you. I love you more than anything in the world. You are the reason i live and breathe. And not in the usual pseudo poetic way that people use to make their love declarations sound more powerful. I do live and breathe because of you.

Because at morning, when i wake up, my mind is at its lowest, weakest point. Its downb and juices, aching for pilsl and at oits loneliest: And all i can think of at that moment is that youre ou there somewhere and i have to drag myself out of bed and stand and gnaw through anything with claws and teeth so i can be rewarded with ebven one smile from you.

And you're strength and light and joy. Youre enthuisiasm for small and big things. Yoiu make me feel emnotions when i chose on my own to become numb cause even joy would've meant to hit rock bottom sooner or later. 

But with you, its natural: The joy is always there and its for small domestic daily occurrence. I am happy for sitting in the sun, for seeing a cat picture, hearing a song, thinking of a joke. 

The need for you is aching and strong and hits me, always. But i welcome it, cause it makes blood rush through my vein and reactivate my limbs and the heart beat.

And i always was scared of that: Terrified of feeling, cause to me, feeling good with sopmeone also means, sometimes, if not most of the time, to feel ten thousand times worse when you're alone.

Cause when i loved somebody i would become terrified of losing them. In the most wicked ways. Cayuse i have a beast in me and it is subtle. It makes me see my small inabilities. My mediocrities. My tiny flaws that can make everything crack: My lack of money: My temper. My weird mood swings. My sudden melancholy that always looms  oiver my mind like a shadow ready to cloud any thought and make evrything panicky and horrifying.

So i would choose not to feel anything.

 But the feelings were so strong when you came along. Cause you loved me for me, with all the package. With all the flaws. With the temper and the problems. And you started to actually see them as ythings that made me what i am.

And after falling for your eyes and smile, and voice and body, and mind and personality, i fell in love with what you didnt like about yoiu either. Your moments of insecurity and fragility. Your emotions and how they took over you at times. Your stubborness and your quirks. I love them all so much: Cause i know them well and yet i always find new ones.

And you know what they all complete mine. You understand my flaws cause you have some too. And we make them fit. And we make the work together for those moments of awesome. Which are every single second we are together or in each other's head.

This is why i love you. Cause no matter how dark, lonely and forlorn my world is, youre a better world i can go to. And which i never weanna leave. And because you're you. And that you si perfect for me. AN d it will always be.

And i ve never felt more secure of anything in my whole little life.

I will always love you

The Curse Of Writing

Creativity is a blossoming flower that fills up your brain with exhilarating pollen.

It roots inside your brain feeding on your ideas and thoughts, and memories and turns them into gorgeous looking flowere. You look back at those flowers, their shaded petals and you barely ebeliev how glorious a simple set of thoughts has been able to become. All it neededf was to be cultivated. Alll it needed was to be worked at. And yes, it might not be perfect or special, bhut you made it.

And It's yours damnit. You have wakean up with ideas and decided to shape them into words. Never thought about writing before. Youy read, for sure, but you never thought you'd be actrually able to form redable sentences. but as soon as you planted the seed, they started to flow out of you like a cascade of naturally interconnecting pieces of a machine. And there it was. Yoru creation. And yeah, it might be bad, but it's yours. A child. That breathes and lives and brings emotions.

But, sticking to that awful and overbearingly childish flower metaphor, the beauty needs dung to grow. Fertilizer, they call it? Still smells like shit.

And what it really is, is people. Humanity. Readers. Cause theres this horrifying conviction that a writers writes for others. And wants others to tell him their views on hsi writing.

No Bigger lie was told since the story aout children beign a blessing. (otr that god loves all of us). So allow me to give a quick list of a few of the abomninations on two legs that have caused me to quit trying to be creative once and for all. If you're one of those, kill yourself. no one will miss you and the gene pool will be improved by your absence.

1) The Unrequested Reviewer


This one is painful and spreads out more than STD's. They read a few pages, they know you, probably superically, like theyre horrifying third degree relatives whose usual reading abilities are very close to illiteracy, or theyre the drunk suburbia fucks that you sually cross the street to avoid. But damn, somone, probably uyour mom, gave thema copy of your creation. They read one or two pages and decided they were literary critics with a Leonard Maltin soul. So youll get this "Hey i really hated it. I tried  to rerad it but i gave up". And list all the ways your chidl disppointed them cause it failed to be as deep as the only two books they read since they were ten. The major point behind that is the sorry idea that an authors WANTS criticism. And the even more messed up one that tellign abrasive point of views to a person on something they care for is "telling ti like it is". No one wants your opinoon. Ever. Keepo it to yourself.

Same goes froim Grammara Nazi and living spellchecks. If i want an editor, i'll get one. You shut the fuck up.

2) The Requested Reviewer That Is An Asshole


And also, whiel criticism is fine, a dispshit with a blog that decided to "revbiew" your book after yous ent ti to him for free, in hope of a dignified reaction and decided to dissect it like he's the lweastr hope for humanity's literary dingity, is pointless. A few web hits get to their head, they think their geniuses and in all your humblenesds you become their way to be legit. Fuck you, scab. Get a real Job

3) The Curious Fucks


No one likes interviewers, even when theyre professionals. And Repeating the sdame things to people that apparently need to feel intelligent by makin groudnbreaking questions like "How did you get the ispiration  for this". And even worse, is the ones that dont understand that fiction and reality are usually two separate things. So what you write isnt necessarily aurtobiographical. And even if it was, its none of theyre goddamn business. Seriosuly, writing about murders or sexuality doesnt mean you ahve issues. ITS FICTION: Grow up.

4) The Assholes Who Tried


Look, im glad you tried to write too when you were 13 and then gave up cause you realized that writing is stupid. I'm also glad that your first novel was about a talking Mushrooms that discovered the true meaning of christmas. And also had sex scenes. Yes i am ok with eharing the story behind it. And how your dreams were crushed when you had yuour tenth baby. Can we move on now?

5) The Cyncials And Yoru Family


When i wrote my frist and only novel, this was the worst part. I know it was a leap of faith. I know i wouldnt probably amek money out of it. But hearing a parent tellign you every time they see you that "if you dont make a livign out of it then its a waste of time".
And it'0s even worse whena  loved one or a friend does it. You dont have to udnerstand it people. All we want is support. And it doesnt atke much. If you love us, let us dream. Even if you think our dreams will eb shattered. tehy will, but we need you now and we will need you later. You shoudlòve known when you fell in love with an artists. We soar high and we fall hard. But thats part of the beauty, innit?

We Aim To Displease, Miss Steele

Forget technology, forget the shape of human relationships, forget the economy.

 All of those are nothing but slight variations of old and vaguely stale concepts, sold top us for the millionth time by media and brain washers that are lacking ideas.

Theres always been lack of jobs, hope and poverty. The future, and by future i am speaking of amll goals, like the week after, has always been hazy and confused. The current state of economy in most countries is just one of the various tragic moments that are inevitably occurring after years of indefference, neglect, and self centered, slef absorbed actions. In laymen term: if you only think of your own immediate gratfication for years, with no interest or regard for rules, other people, society and a minimal decency, you will be eaten in the end. And being that man is a negative animal, it is just obivious that after a constant craving for feeding on each other we are now spiraling into despair. What really has changed now is Concepts.

Words, connected to meanings.

 One of the few notions i studied in Sociology that actually stuck with me is how language and human interactions are strictly connected. We, as humans, think through language and words. And by those words we create concepts that shape our thoughts and lives and the ways we behave. To put it even stronger : It doesn not matter how we THINK we behave in life or to others or what our safe beliefs arte. Its how we perceive the concept behind those that counts. And there are no wrong or right mindsets. Only mindsets that could or could not clash with the ones that society has deemed acceptable. Which is the real problem.

Some Examples

 Love

Think about how many layers this simple word has on its own. Think how , in your own personal experience, you probvably cannot grasp what it ecxactly is. Nowadays, it has become a word that has been neutered and deprived of its powered by sheer overuse. You can read, hear, talk and interact with people that think "love" is some sort of idealistic force present in any human being, with an unlimited power to improve the world, solve any situation and turn dystopias into utopia. So you can hear people talking about how "love is stronger than hate", hoiw everything can be worked out or won through love.

Fact is: love is rare. It isnt a natural instinct for most. People arent born loving. Not even mothers love unconiditionally. A mother loves her son, because it represnts a part of her, something that she has put an effort iunto creating. A phsysical maniofestation of part of her life. And let's face it: parents love their sons because thyre a possible investment of ego, money and dreams of immortality: Ypou have children, because you want to see yourself mirrored into them, give them ideas to grow with, have them act in a certain eway that you shaped and constructed into their malleable minds. But it isnt the unconditional or pure feeling that a lot of the modern naives have. Some animals feel a connection towards other being that is close to apure love. Most humans dont. It isnt in our nature to do so.

But, once ina lifetime, and this is my point, that it happens rarely and it has to be treasured, since it might not happen again, you might find another person who simply copnnects with you, gfills the gap in your spirit, helps life get a meaning.

In your mind your own natural instincty of self preservation is erased. You put this person before yoursefl. Because they ARE a part of you and your wrold. ANd your world withotu them would have no sense at all. THAT is love. Now using that same concept for anything else, is diminsihing. You can feel affection. Interest, warmth. Not Love.

  Hate

In a chemically opposite way, theres a misuse of this word which is equally as powerful. Hate is a poweful force that drives a human beign through life as much as love and more than any belief. Whats really behind a lot of religiously motivated action, is hate. Its not the belief in politics, god or the absence of such. Its the energy and power of hatred.

It's focusing your energy to destroy someone, or a lifestyle or an entire group of people. It might not be violent at all, it can be just a verbal, quiet slow corrosion of their peace and living. Its still hate. Hate is a force that substains peopel that have an empoty heart. The desperate and the broken will never find love, most of the time. They will find a belief. But what that belief weill teach them will not be a strength that they will find in themselves. That would be futile. A broken person doesnt fix herself with her own hand. WHat they need is an enemy, a sense of righteous disgust: Hate. That makes them live, feel superior, feel revitalized. And survived. And its much more in human's nature, since humans are vile and destructive. Still. Hate is now a weakened almost pathetic word. Which is making people loose sight of where it really is.

A disagreement is not hate.
A criticism is not hate.
An angry, even sarcastic answer is not hate. In differtence is annoying but is not hate. None of the aforementioned people are hatrers.
BUT a person that is constatly bent on being the cenre of attention, and accuses of being "Haters" all the peoiple that slightly perturb this degocentrical fanstasy IS full of hate. Words make concepts. And Concepts are the only truth.

 Family, Faith and Normality

First, society has forced a concept of family on people that is based on a dysfunktional idea.
The traingle Mother/Father/Children isnt nevcessarily the right, positive choice. It can be in the highest number of chances a receptacle of bitterness, violence (psyuchological or phsysical) and mistakes. We feel forced coonection with people that are tied to us with blood, and oftren those peopl,ewill destroy us. We have the diseased idea that only through proxcreation and a nuclear family we will be able to reacha positive life. Most of the time forcing that option will cause bitterness and pain. And also the type of pain that will be unleashed on innocent ones

Faith. I am an atheist and as one, you think i have no beliefs. That is wrong. I do not belief in any form pof treligion that tries to tell me that i have to bow down to an impalpable, non-existence presence to handle my life. I refuse to be part of beliefs that use such invisble idea ads a back up for their own dysfucntions. But that also includes the average condescendinty atheist that uses its own sense of mental suyperioty to be cruel and condescending to others.

I have faith and belief and complete trust into what is good for me. What makes me happy and makes my life worth living. Music The eprson i love, to whom i would give my life at any minute. And myself. I subscribe to that as my normality: Your idea of normality is corruptedc, crippled and fuill of doubts.

You are all freaks.

End of argument

Out Of Context

Terrorism. A man enters a building, eventyually owned by the state, filled with people. He has weapons. He takes hostages. Fear and violencer is used to make a statement. The common reaction of the police force should be to incapacitate the person and save the hostages. Negotiations might occcur, but in some cases, theyre not possible. So a grim ending is the only available output. What happens next is also key. In some insatnces the act could have been driven by insanity or despait. In others, by need of money or as an extreme gesture of assault against the system represented by the state. Or in most cases, the person is a fuckup. The reaction of the press will generally talk about the terror of the victims, the intervention of the police. What could've been done. The person with a gun is the viaìllain, and thats how its supposed be. But. The crisis changes things and half the world seems to ignore it. Even the countries that are supposed to acknowledge their own despair seem to revel in some sort of self pity or, worse, some sort of poetic romanticization odf despair. Thjere's no need for solutions when we can cru about the problems and wait for a hypotetical "Someone" to solve them instead of us. A man, yesterday, entered the local fiscal agency. He was bankrupt Entrepreneur. His business hadf failed and he was indebted to the poin of despair. Where some commit sauicide he decided to react by making a grand gesture. With weapons he took hostages and asked for a "Resolution". Police arrested him after a whole day of tension and fear, Herte's where the change sets off. The man, indesperate times, where people have no job, no money, and mostly no hope, becomes some sort of a symbol. Papers, and worst odf all, social commentators, let alone the mass of unfocused sad humanity thatr is the intertnet decides to make him a herpo. A symbol. Someone that pushed by desperation has decided to use froce against an indifferent state that has decided to set the balance straight by crushign the citizern with increasing demands of money. And there lies the flaw. Because, if desperation is largely understandable and must cause empathy, the point here is very close to self made justice. Because now that the public opinion thinks that a man using wepaons and taking hostages out of despair, in times where there is NO future or anything at the horizon unless you run far far away, is doing the right thing, people will copy his actions. Or do worse. In the hope that using louder and louder statemnts, maybe things will change. Because thanks to years of indifference and shadiness from the big wheels and yesrs of sermonizing wordmsiths have created the idea that if you actually use force, you can obtain results. What this will cause instead, after the spreading of the infection, is a brutal answer. Less freedom. more punishment. And so it begins the unraveling of a scoial system and the descent into chaos and looting in the streets. We watched snarkily when it happned to greece. Then more worringly when other countries had the same. I see a future where terorism is born and blood is spilled in the name of resolputions that are just impossible. I honestly am scared.

You Are Wroing: WhyA Lot Of Activism Is Failing

I do not have anything against activism, in any form. I believe in activism, although my heart sits with the strength of actual risky activism. I believe in taking stance. I believe in change. And i deeply despise indifference and cyncicism. The world is a c rumbling place not because of evil, violence or separation between humans. It is unbearable because of indifference.

I have mor eunderstanding for racism, Mysoginy, homophobia and all forms of hatred than i have for indifference. Refusing to vote, shrugging your shoulders violently and taking the stance tro not care, is the real poison that enables the slow and unstoppable decay of the social organism.

Yes, i am aware that most of action, stances and fights are probably pointless, wrongly done or will probably end in nothing.

I am aware that most social fights (one big gaping example is the recent Occupy Wall Street campaign) are handled largelky by obnoxious people that are unfocused and disorganized and driven more by a generic disdain for authority, rather than an actual interest for change.

I am also aware of how many cases are oyut there of good causes that revealed themselves to have been manipulated into lies and treachery. When i learned how the Joseph Kony case was a big mess, i was also disgusted.

But indifference is not allowed ina democracy: If you wanna live in a social context you are required to take stances. Real ones.

In the digtal era, its eems that maximum effort for change is Sharing slogans on Facebook. postign videos and pictures. That, in most cases, does NOT promote awareness. It drives awaty the focus of people on the real issues.

To make it clearer: animal activists, please do not post heavily photoshoppes of abused animals that some ill advised friend shared with you to promote a shady cause. You wont make everyone vegetarian by showing nearly pornographic shots of abused cows. All you will do is make me disgusted.

Use words. The right ones. "Hate" is a powerful word. As much as love. It is supposed to mean something. To act as a fuel and as a weapon. Spreading ity everywhere mnakes it loose meaning.

A person that does not agree with your belief or has an opposite poin of view to yours is NOT a hater. A person who wants to argue is NOT a hater. And you yelling your belief and how much your heart is wonded because people do not agree with your ideas wont change minds, no matter how right the idea is.

You will not win people over with gruesome images. Not with obsessive over the top slogan, not with constant whiny monologues on how nobody understands you or endless sob stories.

On the opposite, that will transform potential people on your side into indifferent ones. Or REAL haters.

And as much as you thrive on the ideal that you "do not care" about other people's opinions, you do. And you need them, because youre one limb of a functioning body. You work on your own but you need the others too.

So the ideal is strategy, psychology and actual activism. Make people understand and they will follow.

And please stop yelling.

Storytelling: A Soft Place To Hide

THUD.

The blow echoes in the empty room, reverberating in the barenessa of its sickly green, sterile walls. There is no music in the background now. Thnere was before, some sort of churning, joyous,m jangly pop, with compressed, plastic guitars and robotic vocals spreading through the ghastly skeletal tracks like a gangrene in a child's body. But then the tunes dropped out and silenmce strated filling up every inch of the air, leaving the whole natural sound of the scene to unfold itself. J. yelps, recpoiling from the hit. The pain is still sharp. Her body hasnt numbed yet. The wall hasnt been reached. She doesnt know if thats a good thing or not. 

She has survived throyugh the dark years, thanks to the invisible sticky wall that her own body built for her, in porder to preserve what was left of her mind, from the aftermath of her wedding. Her husband, still not an ex, maybe never, had a peculiar set of invisible tools to slowly peel down the layers of her soul and inflict wounds that could cripple her min, for his own delight and amusement. He was a skinny, slightly bloated man. With brown eyes and an empty glassy stare. She remembers the smell of the cologne and the thought itself makes her gag. No time for gagging. She holds the wave of vomit back, straining to do so. The pain in her mouth, after the punch, is warm and pungent. The metallic, sweet taste of her own raw flesh and blood, which till then just lingered in her becomes a reality. Her mouth fills with red juice. She spits it out and sees one of her teeth,m cautiosly pauid for fixing by her expensive professional Dentist, doctor Lucius Freeeman. The wall is there but being scraped at intently. Good. 

Her husband paid for dental work on her. Surgery, Constant control on her image. Even amphetamine based diet pilsl so shed neever get thin. Thois was one of his favourite tricks. He was rich, he worked hard to build his own wicked fortune since he was eighteen. Going through humiliating roads of degradation so that he could eventually afford to become enough powerful and safe to be able to rest on his own possessions. Another punch, harder. A bone in her nose cracks, emitting a sloppy wet sound. The wall cracks. Her own inner wall, the powerfvul measure that she built to be impervious to phgiscal suffgering. Where other had limits or safe words, she had this. An ability to become numb to the pain while still being re ceptive. To allow the pain to hit her while still feeling it and being aware of its presence. To subvert the impulses of her nerve endings at her own will. But this is so hard. Almost every inch of her bosy is burnt, cut, bruised, sore. Broken. Even after her long, tenacious expereience and testing, her shapely, built body is giving up to the external overtake. Husband married her when she was young. She was broken. LOnely. Unable to have kids after two miscarriages from her past lovers. He took her and nurtured her despair and solitude. Made her feel loved and safe from the humiliation of a family that pointed a finger at her and yelled "Whore" and "unable to procreate". His shielding, welòathy chivalry made her feel beautiful and light. The gloved hands dont rest. After The punching, they grab the pliars. They playfully snap them in the air making a rusty, disjointed sound. The room is now glowerin with the scent of blood urine, vomit and sweast. But still not as dfisgusting as the polished smell of the surgeon's room por the always clean stench of her picture perfect house.

He owned her. Had her surgically made to be the perfect trophy wife, the fair animal. Paraded her in front of his friends and family. Gave her money to be drunk, drugged up and numb so she would have a rictus on her face that could apss as a smile. All the time, in his name. But sadly, bodies get used to alcohol and drugs. She couldve killed herself. She could've taken herself out of his picture. As a reward for the mental toryure he put her through everytime the world wasnt paying enough attention. But that would've been so quick and easy. The gloved hands pinch her nipple, almost seductively. In the sea of ab ysmal pain, her body almost gives a hint of pleasure. The first one in years. Her husband provided her with boy toys to keep her quiet. He did not care. They were on hsi paybook. EMpot minded servants that gave her rides, fixed meal, and jizzed on her face. They wouldve not crossed him: And yet she didnt really feel anything. It was gymanastics. No saviour lovers to take her away. No prince to plot his murder with and live happily ever after. Until She meet X. Her nipple is hard and elongated, the hands stroke it lovingly. Then The pliars close on it. Severing it with "SNIP". The impulses in her head are so strong, they kick down the wall. She screams and then dry heaves, drool and blood coming out of her mouth. X. was a street thgug that her husband picked up from the gutter. Hardened by life. Empty eyes. Abuse made him soulless and the tons of drugs that he was provided by his employyee made him even less able to eprceive any emotion. But he sort of, in aa weird animaistic way, connected with her. He did not respect her husband. All he wanted was money to build his own buisness. And for the moment he seemed to be working its way up. But she had money saved and she needed a way out. So one day, after a pointless excercise in groping that her husband required for them while he was somewhere else, scratching his itches on some asian underage prostitute, she made him a proposal. The ritual repeats on her other nipple. Her body is now a scarred janglke of exposed nerves, felsh and blood. Unfixable and broken. She feels it all. Tears stain her face. The sensation is horrifying yet she knows ity will end soon. Its time. She wants to get out, she tells him. Only not that way. She wants to scar that body. He wants to go out without that enhanced mostruosity that her husband imprisoned her within. Anything she can do to herslef wouldnt be enough: Cant Drive by herslef, doesnt own weapons. He willl have to do ti. And make it unforgettabler for both. He will roture her and disfigure her and, then she will have to choose what to do. Stay or go. In a pool of her own urine, She thinks. Can she enjoy this: Can she go back to her old life? Can she run away? No to all three. But she feels free. Hope ois gone and her body is ruined. X. had enough money to escape from the husband's cluitches too. Money CAN buy anything. It bought her a numb heaven. And now she can finally have the last word with the man who raised her up to be his own dog with a wig. "Do it X. I want it" She mubles through bleeding gums and broken teeth. X takes a deep gulp of booze. Evcen in his broken, numb mind he needs the booze to do this. Somehow he understands the need of a hole to dig to feel no more ache and fear. That is why he slowly abuses himself with chemicals. Its not about the numbness or the buyzz. Its about the ending.

"I love you" She sort of smiles. It aches and its beautiful. 

"I love you too. And thank you" she mumbles. He grabs her head, lovingly. And slits her throat. Blood gushes. The numbness falls. And she is finally resting.

Sounds And Voices

I read accounts of surviving war prisonersthat told one thing, which stayed with me:

They have forgot their father's voices, even the sounds of their children's voices. But they will never forget the sound of their torturer's voice..

Whe i think of torture and sounds, i am supposed to imagine the sounds of electric cables. Of Tools. Of dripping water. Or the amicable talk of a person who is just trying to get you to tell them what they want. Or the threats. The mocking bile.

But at the same time, with shame and guilt, i think of sounds that partain to my past. Cause as much as i think words are improtant and essential and shall not be soiled with lies, i make connections in my head that are personal and private. And work only, possibly, for me.

To me torture is also the sound of a small vacuum cleaner. It wasnbt connected with pain. Not in a direct way. But that thing was sued from my father to disrupt our nerves, when we lived together. It was a small portable one with a hissing toneless screech, that could mute anything in its surroundings.

A classic move by father was, whenever he was feeling like demand9ing attention or simplòy disrupting everything that was happening in the house, or most ofthe times just out of some manic desire to clean, was to push the button on the cleaner in a rhythmic manner. That would cause the tool to emit a series of loud noises that could go on for as long as an hour or more. This would happen at any moment of the day or night.

My father was an insomniac for years,, un til he found comfort in pills. So he would come as close asa he could to my room or bed and start pushing the cleaner. So i would wake up. And any protest woudl be met with insults and a probable fight. No physic al attacks, just more noises and less sleep. So i would just be quiet, hoiping that he wouldtire himself out and i could get at least an hour of sleep before going to school. That never happened. I became also an insomniac and started medicating myself at an early age. I am still addicted to those meds.

Now. I am aware that this doesnt count as torture., I'm just talking abvout sounds that evoke disgust, tension and discomfort.

But to counter this, and not sound like a complete wuss, ill tell you this: at this point in my life, i still have moments of panic, terror, and depression. When i wake in the early morning, my brain's chemical are at their lowest. Its the black area, as i call it. the moment when all i want is to be dead or asleep. And the moment where i need a push to find the strength to fight, the most.

That push used to be meds. Or coffee. Or booze. Or drugs.

none of those are there nowadays. What i have, though, is stronger than all of them combined. Mp3 files, with a voice on them. A voice that soothes me, makes me laugh and makes me feel stronger than a million warriors. And makes me feel full of happiness and able to win anything, so i will hear it again.

That is my new drug. And a victory. Fuck the vaccum cleaner (not really)

One Moment

I had a good life so far. A good one with devastatingly strange moments. I have lived through despair and extreme joy. Fear of the empty and love of it. I wanted to jump into the abyss, embrace the cold dark endless bottoms of it. And at the samre time i always tried to stay on the edge, clinging at what i had there with all of my strength, even if it was only myself.

I have sat into hospital rooms, myself as a patient, trying to recollect what happned. A car crashed, i was driving. I hurt myself. Still i was alive and i wasnt sure how i felt about it. I wasnt happy.

I was at the bed oif my father, after he underwent surgery to remove one of the many tumor cells that plagued his body. I prayed to a silent god that had no apparent interest in what iu asked. He survived. Under the effect of sedatives and delirium he told me mean things. But he was alive. I was relieved but not that happy.

I triumphed, making a novel published, getting through school, being good at jobs, solving problems, finding houses and celebrating at parties. I was happy. But not enough.

I have laughed or cried at music, movies, comedy, concerts, even weddings and funerals. My heart, mind and soul are driven by emotions and someytimes the toal lack of them, clouded by chemicals, booze, drugs or fear.

I got clean and sane. With all of my strength i survived. I climbed the walls.

This year, though the greatest moment was this: i went on a plane. Got through bureacracy and security. Got stuck on a seat, stinky and dirty. for hours and hours. No sleep. Tired.

Crawled through security again. Customs, no phone. Scared to not make it.

Then i get to the exit and a girl is there. She is beautiful. She is happy. She is bouncing and clapping her hands at my sight.

I hold her close. It is the happiest moment i ever had in my life.

If You Dont Understand This Piece Then Youre Part Of The Problem

The simple act of abuse is far more than one word. It's not as well defined as most scientifically tempered doctors or average people might make you think.

Honestly, the action of separating the types of abuse you can unleash on a victim, usually a child or a spouse, has been a positive step in the right direction. Yes, mentalk, verbal and physical abuse are different, and bless heavens for our fucked up, twisted race to finally get it.

Still theres a large grey area, which isnt grey for its own nature but has been made grey by years of indifference and silence. Its a place where all those forms of nbegelect Ad torture melt together and become a commonly accepted behaviour or form of education or interaction.

A child's soul and spirit are not frail. A child can be resilient as any living creatuire. MNade stronger by the natuyral suyrvival instinct that he is blessed with by nature, at biorth and hasnt been yet pried off of him by society's and love's cold pliers.

Still, a child has one fatal flaw. The same flaw you can find in people plagued by love or marriage. Trust.

That flaw, that weak spot of softness is what allows the predator to bend their inner spirit befoire it breaks. And eventually snap it into numbness.

You can make a son or a dfaughter believe that you are not doing anything wrong to them. You arentseuxally abusing them or huting them severely. Other people have it worse. They do have a roof pon their heads and food and somehwere to live. And for thpose things they can be made beleive that they owe you. They owe you their existence.

And a spouse can be made believe that no matter how strong their nature is, no matter how resourceful they are, how full they'relife was before they came in touch with the burning, scalding, torture that has been your union, they cannot go back to living like they would be naturally supposed to. They need you. they're bonded, theyre crippled and dependent from your exuistence. And you own their breathing, sweat and tears. And blood.

And with that, you can use words that slowly peel off their ego. Thaat erase their self esteem. Their will to live. their curiosity and natural instincts and interests in the world.

With carefully placed doses of physical and mental torture, you can easily make them void, empty shells of fear and guilt.

Guilt, a powerful notion that mixed with fear, loneliness, isolation and despair (which can be obtained by severing with force all the contacts they have with potentially influential figures in their existence) makes them as malleable as putty.

And theyt wont know they are beign abused.

They will bear those scars into their life. Maybe unleash the same on someone else soon. A legacvy of cruelyty. Whoich is what builds and sustains so many lives in the world.

The World Of The Draw Something Mutants

Since the world of trends, games or populart apps goes faster than a virgin at his first sexual encounter, all i'm gonna write here is gonna possibly sound outdated very quickly. For all that i know, maybe when your eyes wearily read these lines where i placed my heart and cleverness, IOS applications and games will not even exist anymore and everyone will only play with their own genitals (a turn that i would be completely in favour of).

Still.

I am slow at jumping on trend wagons and at followingthe latest itches to scratch. never liked angry birds, always ignored Words With Friuends, hate all the facebook games (if you invite me at a Ville, i will erase yuou from my life).

Still.

I have a person in my life, whiom i trust more than anything or anyone, a person that is basically the sun around which my little shitty universe revolves. And when she reccomends things, i trust her. So, yeah, i am one of the Draw Something children, my minions. Feel free to point and laugh (and then attempt to use said finger to draw the word "omnivore" on your tiny phone screen). i know what you are, liars.

If uou lived on the planet Fisterello for all this time, you might not know what Draw Something is. Let me explain shortly with you under this mistletoe: it's a game, you moron.

The idea is a turn based game, where you and your friend, soon to be worst enemy, attempt to draw a word for the other to guess. The harder the word is (according to the game's quite random and puzzling parameters), the quicker you are, the more points you receive. If you fail, you dont loose completely, but you loose your streak and generally fail at life and youre probably a sad person that will never have anything good in its life. Well, dont cry. Thjere's still cut the rope, or cutting yourself.

So what really makes the player stand out really is how good or (way more often) how bad they draw the word. I have encountered plenty of styles but the following seem to reflect sometypes that are diffused in this joyous community of job skippers.

Loosely inspired to real people, to whom i profess my love and ask for eternal forgiveness.

- The Campy

The player is really good at drawing, possibly does it for a living and has a powerful competitive streak and a perfectionist nature. So all those factors combine into a perfect drawing, note-making machine of destruction-. Say the word is "Leaf". The Campy will draw a museum worthy painting of a rtree a garden, children playing and fruit, complete with shadings, collour touches and notes on possible corrections of the shapes. Oh yeah and an arrow pointing to a leaf, but thats not the point, is it?

- The Vivi

The player has a strong sense of humour, a vast knowledge of pop culture and references, is quick minded and very clever and likes to challenge the opponent's patience and ability to guess the non-obvious. So It will pick non-immediate words or turn the easy ones into sets of intelligent and sometimes obscure or humourous references to sex acts, movies, songs, books and other ideas. Say the word is "Scar". The drawing will be of a renidtion of a harry potter scene, detailed and complex. An arrow points to Harry's scar. not that hard if only for the small factor that The Vivi's drawing skills are goiod but not perfect and deriven by impatience (which shows fully when it guesses the opponent words after two seconds), so it's final result will be harder to decipher. Still playing with a Vivi is a riot.

- The Daniel

This player plays for real. No frills or silliness. Picks words that are decipherable or drawable, even if less point worthy. Then does a simple, not too complicated drawing that gets the point across quickly and with no hassle. Guessing its words isnt complicated, but not necessarily easy. All you need is a brain and use it well. He is also a good guesser, not to stressful on time. Playing with a Daniel is relaxing and pleasant and takes stress off of your weary head.


- The Rhi

The Rhi is an unpredictable player. Generally she draws very, very well. And has a quick and clkever sense of humour coupled with a sense of art. Her drawings are a good combinations of prettiness, beauty, and hard to decipher puzzles. They can be quite challenge. Yet, once in awhile, they might become too puzzling. Images that only allude to the main word will pop up and the opponent will have to loose neurons to figure those out. Still a Rhi is patient and good natured. So worth the effort.

- The Andrea

Any Draw Somthing Player'sworst nightmare. An Andrea cant draw a straight line. His words are scrawny balls of distorted hyerogliphics, seen under a heavy dose of LSD. When they contain word, they are scrawled out in a jittery, unreadable writing that is unreadable to anyone besides the author. Not even The Andrea can often figure out what he just drew. Also when he has to figure out stuff, hes often slightly off center, so he takes an unlimited amount of time to even catch theobvious. If you think an Andrea is in yourplayer roster, run like hell.

Not seeing yourself here? well move your stupid chubby ass and write your own list! Fags.

In Memory Of Layne

I used to be young once. Not that now i'm old, but i used to be different. Especially for what concertns music. My love for it is still absolute, pyure and burning like a supernova. But i might have gotten more mature and complex towards it.

When i was a kid, i LOVED any band that tickled my heart with no middle gorund. When a band or a specific musician grabbed my attention in the right way, i made a pact with them. An unbreakable bond. They would provide my happiness and the means of my survival in a cold, pointless world, where my parents did not love me and clearly sauid soi and i seemed to be going nowhere very quickly and burn out in slow motion.

I missed the wagon for the grievers of Freddie Mercury's death. As much as i love Queen i discovered them too late. And Nirvana too. When Kurt killed himself leaving a lonely daughter , and insane wife and a world of breoken hearted fans, i qwasnt poaying attention. Maybve too caught up into my own thousand little dramas smelling of booze, meds and neglect. I was too busy following my own obsessions for a better life that was still far from my grasp, to notice that a hero had just opted the way out of this world and left it way more grey and dire.

But Layne Stanley. I knew him.

When i started following Alice In Chains, i was at the bottom of my own pit. They put out the magnificient piece of distorted dysfunction that is "Dirt". I got it a year later than it got out. 93. I was already drinking. not heavily but drinking. and the hangovers had that as a soundtrack.

And then there were the others. The unplugged, providing a silence filling for the sleepless nights with an aching stomach and the desire to just jump out of a window. Or The self titled one. The one with the cripple dog, as we called it. Dark. SOulful. Layne on it sounded like he was either running away from a gaping black hole or about to jump inside of it. And i got a car. I drove aimelssly, listening to their whole discography placed on an ugly nameless tape. And thought of never going back to wherever i left.

And tears., ANd fear. And loves gone and never got back. or celebrations. And sex. And happiness. Nothing was untouched by their music. And by his voice. Like romantic nights, cuddled in a cxar under a blanket with whatshername, the stars above us. The fields of grass that made the nothingness feel less scary. Each other and proimises of a love that would not get fulfilled.

And Layne singing. With Mad Season.

And the years passed anbd i got older. I got worse. I got lost. Laynbe did too. Heroin became his only way of life. He became a hermit and his health deteriorated. ANd one day he was found after three days he had died. It was 2002. I dont remember what i was doing. i remember my heart breaking at the news. For a moment. then i went back to the nothing i was being sucked into.

Today it will be ten years siunce his passing.

It still hurts. Rest Layne. And thank you for it all.

Professional Humoredians: Dna Gould

When you think of comedy, you probably think of punchlines, setups, slketches, pop culture references.

You might think of the horrifying slapstick covered trickery of Dane Cook. Or the bite sized satire of a Lewis Black. But one guy that might not come to your mind instantly is Dana Gould.

And you'0d be wrong. Because not only Gould is a name in comedy and an influential one now, he has been HUGE. He changed the game for everyone. Transformed the rules. Inserted his own demonic wit and derailed sense of pitch black humour into the scene'0s decaying dna. And added, for the first time, possibly, a healthy and devastating dose of personal emotion in it.

He created characters. He dissected himself and hios rough life onstage. He talked about demons, self destruction, emotional issues for a laughing audience. He melted down for them.

Where average comedians opted for impressions of hyper known characters, politiucans that were on everyone's mind, Dana dropped fewer and more insanely detailed ones of figures that were almost forgotten: Don Knotts, Vincent Price, JFK and so on.

And he made them fuynny. Scratch that, he made them hilarious. Edgy and different. And he moved on to act with some of them. To write for influenbtial pop culture staples like The Simpsons. Become one of the big guys.

Then personal issues and life made him shatter and retire, on a quest for ideas. And he found them . Found a new life with adopted girls and had a comedic rebirth.

Now he has a podcast of his own and new stand up. But you might find him on every podcast in the universe, making guest spot.- Cause he dfoesnyt quit, ever. He's Dana Fucking Gould.

http://danagould.com/

Hello, Homophobes

I finally need to realize this: civilization does not exist. And it isnt for the fault of the people, as many seem to beleive. The human species is flawed and defective but its also eminently malleable. Yes, with some individuals, theres more work required than others. But more on that later.

A simple event with its butterfly-effect like implications can be strongly telling.

A popular italian musician, strongly rooted in the pop-music immaginary of my country dies of a heart attack, at age 60. Lots of people loved his music, or had it somehow being part of their memories. He was one of those musicians that had an ear for good pop, the type that got a lot of airplay and became a part of the soundtrrack of people's lives, whether they loved him or not.

Also, he was one of the few public fiugures to openly come out as a homosexual, in his later years, doing a brave move and exposing himself to rejection.

And surprisingly people did not reject him. At all.

But now that he has died, the press, in that glorious display of mass hyponosis masked as politcally correctness are shaping the mentality of a country that already struggles constantly with the influennce of a homophobic religion and roots of consrevative hatred, in a direction of polite blindness towards the natural diversity of humanity.

Which in laymen terms means referring to the man's long time partner, lover, companion as "a friend".

The average reaction would be "Its words". But if youre slightly more clear minded than a rock, you will know that it isnt "just words".

The Press shapes people's brains. Public figures do. And by refusing to openly discuss the EXISTENCE of homosexual partnership, by hiding with with moralistic denial, or with the oh-so-repulsive shield of "you dont talk about that", you are crating the ground for hatred and homphobia.

In a background where "some things arent discussed" and famous people have to hide their sexuality or if they embrace it, be like cartoons and be ready for the hate thrown them, kids do not come out and keep things inside to fester and bleed.

In such a background, suicides are high and ignored. They ont make the news cause the society wants to ignore that aspect.

An opnely gay character on a reality show, which, like it or not, are often a tool to test the murky waters of mass mentality, gets death threats sent to his family or at best comments in the spirit of "if i had a son like that i would kill him". Only the person who says that is nto labeled as hateful character butr considers him/her self an "average person saying what everyone thinks".

In this society the two options are hiding, escaping or being ready to suffer.