psion

imagine that the psychic powers described by joan d. vinge in the brilliant novel psion were real. yes, imagine that some people, like the characters cat, siebling, jule and rubiy, were psions, were were able to do amazing things with their minds alone. imagine that the gifts of telepathy (ability to read minds), telekinesis (ability to move objects with one's mind), teleport (to move physically to a place that you know), empathy (to be able to feel the emotions of anyone) and precognition (the ability to see glimpses of the future) did really exist. how would be the life of someone who had one or more of these gifts? how would someone able to read everyone's mind or feel everyone's emotions and pain fit into a world that survives by lying and deceiving and hiding true feelings? a telepath or an empath would be doomed to loneliness, to an unbreakable loneliness. they could not trust anyone, because the others' mouths and minds would be dissonant. for a psion, there would be no words of comfort, no shoulder to cry on. no one could tell a psion "everything is going to be all right" because the psion could see how empty were those words. psions would not truly love, or be loved, because their minds and their hearts would always be clouded by their lovers' doubts and fears. a psion would have no friends, for no one would want to be close to someone who could know every little secret in a second - for every single one of us has secrets that we do not tell even to our closest friends. so no one would trust a psion. no one would befriend a psion. no one could love a psion. they would be doomed to be alone, to be pariahs, to be outcasts.

flyer

i look at that piece of paper stuck on the cold metal and remember. i remember the night when i let go of my bond tag, leaving my scarred wrist for everyone to see. i remember leaving - and destroying life-long dreams as i closed the door behind me and my heart and my mind shattered. and i remember the sour tears i never cried - i can never cry - under the bleak night as i walked away. and i remember - oh, i do remember - that particular night, when the silent betrayal was done and my heart became a bloody knot of scar tissue. i wasn't there, and yet i remember. i can still read the words of confirmation, forcing into my mind what my eyes had not seen, but that i had known all along. and then, the silence. the silence that follows after the storm, the silence that comes when there is no more blood to bleed, no more tears to cry, no more pain to hurt us because we're all pain. the silence that comes with the realization of our loss.

and after so long, and after my wounds have healed (but can such wounds truly heal?), the old pain comes back everytime i see that little, insignificant piece of paper. like a memento of the day when i was stabbed and left in a cold, damp alley to die.

phylosopher's stone

four hours. well, you can imagine that i haven't been counting the time, but it was something like that - it took me four hours to read the first book of the harry potter series. and i can finally begin to understand the hype. all right, so far the story is not half as dense as anything written by tolkien. but it's quite interesting on its own. the idea of mixing the "real world" with the "magic world" is quite appealing, and it works pretty well.

and yet the book's best asset is the way it is written. without being too "heavy", they are easily read and can catch the attention and the curiosity of the reader - any reader - without any trouble. for a first book, the main characters are enough developed, and i'm curious to see what will the rest of the books bring. without being astonishing, it has been a good experience for a start.

song to the siren (III)

mithologically speaking, the sirens were creatures whose songs drawn the sailors to the coast, where their ships would crash and sink. similar to the mermaids, but with a difference: sirens are not sea creatures. nowadays we imagine them pretty much like mermaids, but if you ask me, they were much more like harpies.

lured by the song of the siren. they lured the sailors to their doom. but what if the sailor wants to embrace his doom? what if he wants to turn his ship into a wreckage for a siren's song? and what if he sings his own song to the siren? driven by need, by sheer desire of a lone and erratic life, he might well be willing to try a last-ditch effort: to sing a song to the siren, to lure her into his drowning arms, to stay with her. he knows - oh, he knows - that he will die trying, whether she answers or not. and yet he sings. he sings to the siren, he brings her out of her rock, he sails to his death. all for a song.

gods, how i wished i could listen such a song.

song to the siren (II)

by john william waterhouse, 1900

song to the siren

on the floating, shapeless oceans
idid all my best to smile
'til your singing eyes and fingers
drew me loving into your eyes.

and you sang "sail to me, sail to me;
let me enfold you."

here i am, here i am waiting to hold you.
did i dream you dreamed about me?
were you here when i was full sail?

now my foolish boat is leaning, broken love lost on your rocks.
for you sang, "touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow."
oh my heart, oh my heart shies from the sorrow.
i'm as puzzled as a newborn child.
i'm as riddled as the tide.
should i stand amid the breakers?
or shall i lie with death my bride?

hear me sing: "swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you."
"here i am. here i am, waiting to hold you."

song to the siren, cover of tim buckley by this mortal coil in the album it'll end in tears, 1984 #2

fireworks and the giant leap

here in portugal we celebrate the april 25th. it's a national holiday to remember the day when the army and the people put an end to the fascist government that was running the country for forty years. it's a more or less irrelevant date for me - some people would be shocked by this statement, but it's true. i don't know how does it feel like to live under such a government. i was born in a free country, in a free society. i appreciate the effort of those who fought, and i appreciate even more those who kept this country away from the dirty hands of the communists (i'll be hanged 'till the end of the day by this one). but it's an historical mark for me, just as the foundation of the country, the discovery of india, the end of the civil war and so on. and yet 35 years after, a lot of people still give a lot of importance to the april 25th. sometimes a bit too much importance, if you ask me.

i do have, however, some very sweet memories of the 25th's night. i really do. fireworks and a giant leap into the supermassive black hole people call love. oh yes, i remember all too well.

and still about the "sacred cows"

as i said before, it's irrelevant to me whether god exists or not. he does not interfere in my life, he doesn't put food on my table, he doesn't make me feel better when i'm sad, he doesn't send me some hot red-headed and green-eyed girl for me to get laid with. if he doesn exist, then he's taken some long-term holidays. which makes perfect sense, considering that we have free will.

and free will is the key here. we are free to believe or not. to pray or not. to go to the church or not. to follow god's laws or not. we are free to chose what to eat, what to wear (well, sort of), who to fuck (whishful thinking). we can chose whether we want to have children or not. given all this, why would an intelligent god (he has to be intelligent if he is the creator, right) demand from us a blind faith?

regarding christian values, well, nothing to say. good ones. tolerance, respect, yada yada. i'm all for that. and yet i'm not tolerant and respectful because i fear to burn in hell or because i want the heaven's gates wide open for me when i die. that's bullshit. i follow christian values not because of their origins, but because of what they mean. they are correct. as guidelines, they are nice for our daily lives with the ones around us (the portuguese writer eça de queiroz explains it very well in the novel os maias).

that said, someone with at least a half of the brain working cannot accept the existance of "sacred cows", i.e., subjects that cannot be the target of criticism and jokes. especially nowadays, when fanaticism about religion is getting common - and dangerous. if christian believers forget that, and if they start overreacting everytime someone jokes about their religion, that would make them nothing but fundamentalists. that would be like walking backwards. how can someone call for tolerance when one is not tolerant?

tolerance is a pretty concept. and "sacred cows" too.

i recently genererated a small quarrel over religion, in a friend's forum board. i found it hilarious, and yet sad at the same time. a little disclaimer: i'm not by any means a believer. whatever god exists or not, it's beyond me. it's a possibility i do not refuse (we never know), but i simply cannot live my life around something so evanescent as a belief. besides, if god does exist, he has proved ofter enough that he couldn't care less about my life, so... why should i care?

anyway. i made a joke about jesus christ, and apparently someone got offended. i wonder if those offended by the joke i published have felt offended when they watched the life of brian movie, by monty python. and i'm left to think they don't understand the values they cherish so much. i mean, i'm not catholic, but my education was catholic (or christian at least) to a degree, so i understand some things. and i understand that according to the writings, christ was all for love and tolerance and understanding. that, if anything else, should give christians the ability to understand the difference between a joke and an attack, and should make them tolerant enough not to start firing every single and damned time someone says the name of the lord in vain.

it should, but it doesn't. fanaticism is not an exclusive of a bunch of muslims who like to burn buildings and make riots over a cartoon.

according to the tale, christ has died for us. i can't recall he saying that he wanted us to kill for him. and yet, there is so many people out there that would love to do just that. the supreme irony is, if their beliefs are real, they'll probably burn in hell too. if not for their sins, then for their lack of humour. humour, for god's sake. how can someone have a decent life if one is not able to make a laugh out of oneself?

absence and noise

some might think that absence and silence are, by nature, a statement of indifference. and yet they could not be more mistaken. silence, while defined by "the absence of sound", can actualy scream higher than anything else, you know? in a world of static, of noice, of interference, silence speaks louder precisely by not speaking. when a statement is required, being silent is a statement itself - and a powerful one.

just like being intentionally absent from something one was supposed to attend. sometimes we have responsabilities (duties, if you prefer) that should speak louder than our prejudices, differences and personal hatreds. and yet they seldom do. therefore, being absent is not a statement of indifference, but of mediocrity, of being unable to put aside petty differences and arguments. in the end, being absent by stubborness is nothing but a statement of failure.

considering the situation and the people involved, nothing new.

everything that has a beginning has an end

... i suppose. time to change my ways again.

acknowledging the crap

i find it really funny when something tries so hard to make a point that ends up acknowledging one's failure.

judgement

one can never be too optimistic about someone. we must always remember what the human nature is all about. that said, i was surprised by the neutrality during the days of the war; but now that the struggle is over, the neutral facade shatters and the judgement quickly followed. i wasn't seeing that coming, but to be honest i'm not surprised.

freckles and memory

i like to have meals alone. most people find this weird - how can someone enjoy going out for lunch or for dinner alone? everyone fears loneliness nowadays. it's nice to have a pleasant company while waiting for a warm meal in a restaurant, yes, but staring at the outside, watching the colours of the street and the people who pass me by is not less pleasant.

anyway. today i've found someone i hadn't seen for a couple of years. an old mate from school, from highschool, who came to lisbon when i came, or maybe the year before. can't remember exactly, as i couldn't remember her name. happens quite often, to meet someone i know but whose name my memory cannot pull from its dephts. it hasn't stopped me from talking to her, mind you. she's not exactly how i remembered her, though: the skinny, often shy girl with somewhat sad eyes was replaced by an elegant and sophisticated young woman, who dresses smartly and seems determined in getting a decent job, now that her studies are finished. her green eyes remain sad, but still match the few freckes that dot her face. and her smile, of course, probably her best asset.

and i keep thinking about her name, which i cannot remember. god, i hate my (lack of) memory.

fact or fiction

the truth is, within my life the borders between reality and fiction have long since vanished.

double disappointment

when we ask someone a question expecting a specific answer, we are laying a trap that might well catch both ourselves, the hunters, and our prey. it's a double disappointment: ours, since the answer was not what we wanted to hear; and the other's, since he or she will feel the answer as a failure.

phylosophy out of a friend's messenger nickname (XXIII)

love me when i deserve the less, for it will be when i shall need the most.

quoth the raven (XXX):

when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

michael daniel liberty // by jeff grubb, starcraft: liberty's crusade, published by pocket books science fiction, 2001

no death nor glory

go out for a walk in the neighbourhood where i work. during the afternoon, right after lunch, under the rain or the sun. take a puff of a cigarrette and look around you. old buildings, flats piled one on top of another, their structures reminding of an abandoned bee hive, its glass-covered balconies resembling stacked cages. and behind the glass, wraiths. ghosts not yet dead, a shadow of their former glory. abandoned, doomed to a quiet loneliness. no one notices them. no one remembers them. from above, from behind the windows, they stare at the street. they long for the time when they could walk those sidewalks of cobblestone or ride the tram in a sunny day. they long for their years of strenght, of well-being, of health - they long for their lives, for the glory of them, stuck in despair in their prisons of glass. haunted, haunting the ones oblivious to their fates.

no hope, no harm, just another false alarm

last night i dreamt
that somebody loved me
no hope, no harm
just another false alarm

last night i felt
real arms around me
no hope, no harm
just another false alarm

so, tell me how long
before the last one?
and tell me how long
before the right one?

the story is old - i know
but it goes on
the story is old - i know
but it goes on

oh, goes on
and on
oh, goes on
and on

the smiths, last night i dreamt that somebody loved me, in the album strangeways, here i come, 1987 #6 // in the video, morrissey, live @ zagreb, 6th of july 2006

hit-and-run

i don't know whether it is nostalgia or not. but there are moments when only a memory can bring back a smile to our lips. and the memory of that night, of that morning, and of the sweet hit-and-run game we played when it was about to end did just that.

on jealousy

jealousy is rooted in envy (hello, deadly sin). and yet, i don't think that when we feel jealous - let's say, if our lover has someone really close to him or her, or even a lover -, the problem is not the other. we don't care if the other is more good-looking or smarter. we don't give a damn if the other has more money than we do. hell, we don't even care if the other kisses or even fucks our lover. that's not the point. the other is absolutely irrelevant (even though in the heat of the moment it may not seem that way). what makes us jealous, what we cannot stand is the fact that, within our lover's heart, we're losing importance, we're stepping down towards insignificance. what backstabs us is the notion that we are no longer the sun, but just another cloud in an already clouded sky. the problem is not if our lover loves another - but rather that our lover does no longer loves us.

for in the end, we all want to be unconditionally loved, that's all. unfortunately, not every of us has that chance.

mismatch

if i were to wait in order to get even the most basic things i wanted to get, i'd grow old and die waiting. and yet, i'm not sure if it won't happen. eventually, i'll get tired of doing the same stuff endlessly in order to get something so simple.

shadow

you.

an eternity of waiting. of drifting through the clouds, of wandering through the wastes. of sinking into the spheres of hell. and you. you were always there, like a beacon of light. and a curse. yes, a curse, too. one i am unable to fight back, like a recurring nightmare that make us affraid of falling asleep, for we know it will return to haunt our dreams. and yet my feverish mind is not restless, and my feeble body is not tireless, and both end up giving in and embracing the nightfall of the soul.

every man needs dreams after all.

and within the halls of reverie, i've lost myself. i fought my pride. i betrayed. i murdered. i commited suicide once and twice and you kept bringing me back to life. with a promise - another veiled curse that my never-seeing eyes could not fathom. shadows. shadow, for it's singular. i'm singular. i'm half singular in fact, as my meaningless shadow becomes irrelevant. no one notices a shadow under the sun, after all. why should they? a shadow has no life of its own. no feelings. no shame. a shadow is nothing. one turns off the light and the shadow is gone, gone as the darkness takes over. a shadow. a meaningless, irrelevant shadow.

and you.

quoth the raven (XXIX):

take a quiet hour - either really late or really early - and sit on your favourite place, in the every day living room. and with your eyes wide open, facing the silence, remember the last people you've lost. summon to the room their gestures, their faces, their smells, their voices.
sooner or later, you'll be the ones attending to that mental gathering, and it's host, someone who will miss you. then get up and pour some tea of coffee. and go to work.

by filipe nunes vicente in mar salgado, odi et amo LXXXI.

the bottom of the food chain (II)

climbing the food chain is not a matter of art. unless, of course, we consider that survival is an art. and it's not - it's rather sheer instinct, adaptability to shifting environments, and to have what it takes to change our deepest nature. it's a violent ascendance, one that we must take climbing a pile of corpses, a pile of murders of ourown making. yes, of our own making - the asdendance is not made without death, and in the way to the top, one must become a predator, a ruthless killer.

perhaps that's what i need, after all. to become a predator. to kill. to murder. to not regret. to not forgive. perhaps only changing my nature i can survive this ordeal.

zero sum

if two armies engage in battle decide to fight with the same strategy and with the same weapons, they will spiral down into a zero-sum game that can only end with a bitter draw - where both armies will suffer heavy losses and will end retreating in shame. every advantage one might eventually have can be easily countered by numbers or force, until nothing of any consequence remains.

calvinball (II)

calvinball

you know, all this bullshit seems to me a calvinball game. for those who are not familiar with the comic strips of young calvin and his best friend hobbes (who happens to be a stuffed tiger who gains life in the boy's little world), calvinball is a game they both play with a ball, a mask on their faces, and everything they can get to the game; the basic rule is there is no defined rules, being each of the players in the field able to make up rules - any rule - as the game unfolds. and, of course, penalties, several penalties with water, ball headshots, blindfolded runs and stuff like that (usually hobbes outsmarts calvin). no rules - all players do as they see fit, and any rule can be created at any given moment with the single purpose of screwing up the other player. and, of course, to get out of any attempt of screwing up.

and no, applied to real life a "calvinball" game is not only anarchic - it's purely entropic, and in the end, it will cause too much damage to all players.

honey, are you sure the dinner is not burning?

if there is smoke, there should be fire somewhere. right?

[edit @ 23:36: it's not a fire. it's a wildfire.]

quoth the raven (XXVIII):

there is a period in any war between the first blow and the second. it's a quiet moment, almost a tranquil time, when the realization of what has happened is just sinking in and everyone feels they know what happens next. some prepare to flee. some prepare to hit back. but no one moves. not yet.
it's a perfect moment, the time when the ball is at the highest point of the throw. the action has been taken, and for one frozen moment everything is moving, but everything is at rest.
then there are those jackasses who can't leave such things alone. and the ball starts downward again, the second blow is thrown, and we plunge into the maelstrom.

the liberty manifesto, by michael daniel liberty // by jeff grubb, starcraft: liberty's crusade, published by pocket books science fiction, 2001

gap

there is a gap between theory and reality - in other words, some concepts are flawless in theory, but end up having too many flaws when applied to our real lives.

phylosophy out of a friend's messenger nickname (XXII)

love is a losing game. and quoted for truth, this one.

wounds

indeed, some wounds are hard to heal - if they can ever heal at all. they might be forgotten and cause no pain for most of the time, but underneath the new skin they are still sore, and sting us from time to time.

important is what we see on the telly

and nowadays, we see the uneven struggle of "good-hearted" tibetans against the "evil" chinese. note that the adjectives are not my own.

what moves people's emotion is not the struggle, the violence, the slaughter - but the struggle, the violence and the slaughter which get to the prime time on television newsbreaks. hence the reason why today everyone talks about the conflict between china and tibet, and no one gives a fuck about darfur. just as before everyone spoke about how evil were the united states in iraq, or how evil was israel in the gaza conflict, and no one cared about darfur. but people will care. oh, yes they will. we've all seen the movie before, after all: once the genocide is done, and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) have being murdered, people will see what happened. and they will judge, and they will condemn, and the united nations will broadcast a cute speech about it. it happened before in ruanda. it will happen again. too bad it will be too late for the ones who died while the world was happily talking about the olimpic games and half a dozen monks.

words and doors

as a joke, it is usually said that there are two words that can open many, many doors, being those words pull and push (ha ha ha). but thank you and i'm sorry can open far more doors, even if those doors are of a different kind.

the bottom of the food chain

it remains yet to be seen what is my exact position in the food chain. the first trial, however, doesn't look quite good. and the second one... it's as if i can see already the outcome.

truth and lie

if a lie is told enough times, it might become true. just as a joke can become serious stuff if repeated enough.

on time

there is never time for what really matters until it matters no more. and then there is all the time in the world to grief over the loss.

on trust

we all walk blindfolded by our own choice.

a waste of time

have you ever had the feeling of having wasted a lot of time? i mean, with someone? have you ever felt that all of your words and wisdom have felt into nothing, for whoever was supposed to be listening to you cared not about listening, let alone understanding? have you ever tried to open someone's mind, not to push away its own ideas and place there your own, but only to try and make that mind to consider alternatives, to think differently for a change, to see the world in a different colour - and met a concrete wall?

i did.


and no, i'm not an evangelist - far from it. i'm just someone who apparently enjoys wasting time.

quiet violence

i was never a poet, and i don't think i'll ever be one. and yet, as i watch the green-gray sea under a storm, revolving in quiet violence as its waves crash on the shore, i feel i need no poetry because all the poetry in the world lies between the restless sea and the fiery skies.

glass wall

there is no need to build a brick wall between ourselves and someone else in order to push one away. a seamless glass wall works just as well, while no one really notices it. until it gets dirty, of course.

the ability of dodging

the ability of dodging comes with experience. and with pain, loads of pain. we must be hit first. we must make mistakes. we must stumble and fall. only then we learn the way of what hits us, and only then we can understand how to avoid the collision.

a good opportunity?

the irony about a "good opportunity" is that sometimes the adjective does not apply only to the obvious choice of that opportunity.

maelstrom

in times of war, the weak care about saving their asses first. whether the others around them survive the maelstrom or not is none of their business.

naughty, naughty black holes

according to two scientists, cern is up to a cosmic blowjob - i.e., to do an experience with its brand new large hadron collider, where the high-speed protons can create a black hole that could swallow the earth whole. of course, cern's scientists do not want to do such a thing (or so they say); they just want to simulate the big bang and get some clues about the origins of the universe.

and yet we all know the stereotype around the relationship between scientists and sex - or the lack of relationship. so i don't think they would miss the chance to recreate another kind of bing bang, if you know what i mean.

and by the way, i really like how "cosmic blowjob" sounds.

[note: some months ago i had the privilege of attending to a conference with one of cern's scientists. the guy did one hell of a presentation, explaining many interesting aspects of particle physics and the work they do around it with particle accelerators and other toys alike. the funny thing: the large hadron collider is build underground, in a wide structure of conducts and pipes. the site has some of the most advanced technologies that exist in the entire world - and yet they use bikes (yes, bikes) to move through the tunnels. as the guy said, "sometimes the most simple ideas are the best. definetely.]

endlessly

there's a part in me you'll never know
the only thing i'll never show

hopelessly i'll love you endlessly
hopelessly i'll give you everything
but i won't give you up
i won't let you down
and i won't leave you falling
if the moment ever comes

it's plain to see it's trying to speak
cherished dreams forever asleep

hopelessly i'll love you endlessly
hopelessly i'll give you everything
but i won't give you up
i won't let you down
and i won't leave you falling
if the moment ever comes

hopelessly i'll love you endlessly
hopelessly i'll give you everything
but i won't give you up
i won't let you down
and i won't leave you falling
but the moment never comes

muse, endlessly, in the album absolution, #12, 2001

on blindness

the most ignorant people are often the ones who claim to know a lot more than everyone else - and, ironically enough, most of time they were supposed to to know a lot more than everyone else. yet assumption is, after all, one of the first steps towards blindness.

a bliss and a curse

ignorance might be a bliss as well as a curse. it is a bliss when it keeps us from harm. it's a curse when it blinds us to the simple truth that lies in front of our eyes.