Umhlaba

Monbiot

2009-11-24T10:10:00.000-08:00

I recently came across a Guardian journalist, George Monbiot, which has sort of reminded me what journalism is, or rather should be, all about, provoking and making the audience think, and this is exactly whay he did to me, made me consider (as well as add up to the knowledge I already had) about world population. And now I think, how come I was so damn and had not realized all that on my own! Mobiot challenges current assessments on the blame of population and its relation with climate change. Gives a very eloquent account of how the very rich pollute a lot more than hundreds of the very poor... So increased emissions has actually nothing to do with population, but with each person's carbon footprint. There are millions of people all over the world who virtually produce no emissions, and as Monbiot says, actually offsets them because of the recycling-related activities they undertake such as turning garbage into energy.
There are some studies that claim after a certain income, personal emissions don't raise any further (was it 40,000 dollars?). However, there seems to be a lot of scope for emissions to go up... it'd be like six billion people falling into that catergory, roughly. That's a lot more emissions... it's all about energy... Engergy to light up our houses, and energy to light up our lives and change :-)

Dancing in the Dark

2009-11-14T04:26:00.001-08:00

It's the song I am listening right now. It used to have more light, it used to make me feel more lighthearted. Maybe it's because I'm ill that I cannot grasp it to its full extent. So that is what I mean about darkness, a good or a bad thing depending of the situation, so African.

Africa is far, and far in my mind too. Come back to Europe and forget about the sun. Eternally condemned to be free, like Sartre wrote. Freedom like darkness, you just don't really know when it's a good or a bad thing. Or perhaps freedom must be anyway, just that sometimes is harder than others. Don't even remember the last I read a good book. Well, yes, I do. I read the "Little Prince" a couple of days ago. How many times I have read that book? Every time is different. I suppose every time I read it for a reason, so I find in it a different thing. Definetely one of those 10 books everyone should read in their lifetime. Yet not my favourite book, but Love in the Time of Cholera is just a beautiful book with not that much behind it, except the will to live... Will to live, that's what I need right now... Perhaps the road to make this just a tiny bit better. Maybe that's it. I know what I like about here, so I have to improve what's hear, not necessarly change everything.

Places are far, and are near. It depends how well connected you are to them. All afternoons are beautiful. I dreamed I went to London and it was dangerous, and big, and daunting. So I decided I still wanted to go. And this is a good sign. Spoke with people in the street, some Polish, some Spanish, but they all spoke my language. The world is big and it's small, sometimes near, sometimes far, and sometimes so connected that you'd just not believe it. Words are words, but are much more than that. Please! I am a linguist! Words are not just words, words just hide much more... Like Punset writes, words appeared to make communication eassier, but ultimately they were used to guess the thoughts of the other...It is the words that you use, and how you use them that make this a beautiful planet, and make all the necessary connections needed to walk alongside someone else.

What was London like one hundred years ago? Was is better, or was it worse? Or was it just different? Probably just different. So where we are now is all there is to our existence. I dreamed life was short and so there is no space for fear, or delay, or unsaid words. This is what I am and where I am. This is where words took me. And only words will take me somewhere else. Jungleland. Could listen to it a million times and it'd still speak to me, maybe even more than the first time... I am lonely when no words touch me. It's like transmitting sound in space, both objects have to be equal to get a clear sound. The more different they are, the softer is the sound that goes from one another.

Žlutý

2009-11-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

Yellow. I'm sort of yellow. Home all day, officially flu, unoficially swine flu. But I know García Márquez would diagnose cholera, undoubtessly. I'm quite surprised what I wrote while I was living in the Czech Republic, and that I did not continue. Last entry on August 2nd, exactly 20 days to go back home. I remember when people went to say goodbye to me to the bus. It felt so lighhearted. To Brno. Airport, then Girona. It was Ryanair and I actually enjoyed the flight, which does not happen very often. Oh, although I remember one of the stewards talking big crap. From Murcia. And then the crew selling Britney Spears perfume, so that was not so cool. So Ryanair is to the aviation industry what Britney Spears perfume is to the perfume industry. Arrived in Girona and bus to Barcelona Sants, and called Carmen, and woho! Id't be in Murcia in 8 hours. I was travelling first class, which is no different from tourist class, except that the trains get empty first and you feel weird. My friends were not waiting for me at the train station, and the party did not go as wild as I had expected it, but they were two very cool weeks, and they made me want to live there like no other week has before or after. Then it was Brussels and that was a completely different story. It was like the Czech Republic but the silence that help me up in Central Europe brought me down in the Belgian capital, because people were not speaking to me with the actions. They were not speaking to me at all.

Brussels was the fourth country I went to live to in 2008, and it was simply too much. Yet another city. Yet another language (languages in this case). Yet more random people. I loved the job though. Worked seven days on my first week and over 45 hours. But I just loved walking around with the camera filming people. And learnt a lot. It was useful learning. Brussels could be nice, especially if you have a nice house, which oh gosh, we didn't. And I loved the waffles. You know you are in a deprived country when your national symbols are chocalate, waffles, beer and a pissing baby (well, that was the symbol of Brussels not Belgium, so Brussels is the deprived capital of a deprived country, and oh well, possibly of a deprived continent). There was some charm to it. But this time I just had no time to those kind of thouhgts.

Amongst all the deprivation there was some space for freedom too. I had people over in my house, went out late (and had fun). Travelled by train visiting friends. Filmed :-) And eventually quit (that was probably the best part of it all) and took the Eurostar to London which was just so thrilling. Brussels was rainy, cold and grey, and London was, hello!, warm, dry and sunny.

Then it was česká podzim. The Czech Republic again. It was all autumn, autumn colours, autumn air, old friends, new laughs, new silence, the good one. After Brussels it really did good to me. Then I went back. And back again. Prague might not be a very beautiful place, but it is a place that somehow treasures me. In autumn, Czechia is yellow. Yellow is the colour of salvation. How many words do you think you need to know when you learn a new language? You need to know the word yellow. Coz in the Czech Republic some trains are yellow and you need to know that. Coz in the Czech Republic trains just wait by the platforms behind building that are behind you and this is very confusing when you just got dropped off a passing train, and they announce departures in Czech, and this is a lot more difficult to learn. But if you know the word yellow, you can actually get to places, on time, when you want, before your feet burst and your patience collapses. I don't know what I would have done without knowing the work yellow. I might not even be here now. But I know it, and that's good. And yellow are all the leaves that fall when you need to see them falling.

2008-08-02T02:44:00.000-07:00

I am lonely at home today, with not too many plans in my way. I am just thinking a little on my train trip to Slovakia scheduled for next week.

So as I spend most of my time reading the newspapers, I ended up by chance in the humorist section of the New York Times, and found a couple of jokes I really enjoyed. Here they go.

"Barack Obama says that next month he’s planning on spending a week on vacation in Hawaii. When he heard this, President Bush said, “Pace yourself, because once you become president, the vacations start coming fast and furious."

"And according to the TV show “Extra,” former Vice President Dan Quayle is in the running to join the cast of “Dancing with the Stars.” Quayle was vice president under the first George Bush. See, that was back in the day when the president was smart and the vice president was an idiot."

"Dunkin Donuts has announced new healthier menu options. Healthier food at Dunkin Donuts? Isn’t that like better child care at the Neverland Ranch?"

I managed the last one not to be about Bush. There were a couple of good others but I thought not many people would know about too local affairs. Not that I think that too many people read this blog, so I might as well just post them for my personal amusement.

And this one is the story of Al Gore our saviour. Wait for the closing line. Hilarious.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/al_gore_places_infant_son_in"

Por ejemplo, los astros azules a lo lejos...

2008-07-29T01:20:00.000-07:00

Podría escribir tantas cosas esta noche.
Podría escribir que soñé con África y me perdí en África, tantas veces.
Podría escribir que vi una luz que no había visto nunca.
Podría escribir que tenía que estar allí, que me caí, que me hice daño y me levanté, y no me levanté.
Podría escribir que había agua, y gente, y que el calor del sol tocaba la tierra y la hacía brillar.
Y el silencio de tantas noches estrelladas, boca arriba, boca abajo...
La Cruz del Sur a lo lejos, te miro para saber donde paran mis pies, que no paran en ningún lugar.
Se mueven con el barro, aquí, y a lo lejos.
Soñé que escuchaba música y que alguien me hablaba, y que nunca dejé de oír aquella voz,
que las voces que escuchaba nunca terminaron,
Y se perdieron allá a lo lejos donde viven las estrellas,
allá donde viven todas las voces que alguna vez escuché.

Podría escribir que soñé y nunca desperté,
que todo fue un sueño.
Podría escribir que soñé con un árbol que florece,
soñé que había agua, y no estaba solo,
estaba desnudo bajo la luz del agua que cae y me limpia, y me dice que estoy aquí.
Soñé que habia gente que no me veía, y que la oscuridad lo envolvía todo,
todo menos lo que siento, lo que soy, lo que quiero, lo que deseo.

Soñé que volvía, y cuando volví todo había cambiado.
Mis amigos ya no estaban, porque habían crecido.
Sólo vi las risas de sus hijos, de sus hermanos pequeños, pero todos sabían quién era yo.
Nada había cambiado. Los mismos columpios, el mismo tobogán.
Soñé que quién yo más quería volvía y me cogía de la mano, y nunca se acababa.
Tan cerca,
tan cerca.
Sin nada, solos en la oscuridad
Y le admiro,
no me canso,
todo se mezcla.
Tal vez nunca me fui,
pero nunca lo supe.

Soñé que lo sabía.

Malá Británie nad Díje, 28.07.08

2008-07-29T00:57:00.000-07:00

Soñé que encontraba su dirección. Soñé que las cosas no iban bien y que a pesar de mi esfuerzo y el consuelo que me han otorgado otros las consas seguían sin ir bien. Al final del sueño sólo se me ocurre terminar. Irme. Dejarlo. Es una puerta. La puerta que se cierra. La puerta que se ha de cerrar. Porse sé que otras se abrirán, y que aunque no sé que hay detatrás de esas puertas, todo será mejor. Nunca me atreví a cerrar esa puerta. Soñé que mi trabajo aquí no me gustaba, y me quería ir. Soñé que me desesperaba. Soñé que no podía. Soñé que me iba. Y cuando me fui me di cuenta de que esa era la solución.

Hoy estoy aquí, sendato delante del ordenador. Recuerdo muchas cosas. Recuerdo cuando me compraron un tren eléctrico, y recuerdo armar las vías, y poner el tren en marcha. En casa de mis abuelos hace mucho tiempo. Lo recuerdo como algo bueno. Hoy no me voy; hoy me quedo. Silencio. Caballos. Maquinaria descansando. Gatos. Té. Luz. Fuego. Mermelada. Tostadas. Camino. Oscuridad. Silencio. Principio. Sueño.

Sueño que me roban la mochila, aquellos que creí eran mis amihos, mientras tomamos café. Me cambian mi mochila por otra que no era mía, y siento como la traición me hace sudar y temblar, y me hace un nudo en el estómago. No puedo hablar. No digo nada. La traición es peor que cualquier cosa que hubiera en esa mochila. Sueño que busco mi mochila, en otro sueño. Sueño que puedo volar, pero no encuentro el camino hacia el lugar donde creo he perdido la mochila. Mi búsqueda es en vano, y cuánto más busco, más me da la sensación de que me alejo de mi objetivo. Al final del sueño alguien ha encontrado mi mochila, y me la devuelve. La mochila siempre estuvo ahí, porque quien la encuentra no me conoce, no puede llegar a mí.

Hace mucho tiempo no pude cerrar una puerta que me atormentaba, tanto que no me di cuenta, tal vez no lo entendí. Hoy estoy aquí sentado delante del ordenador. Tal vez espero cerrar esa puerta. Tal vez esa puerta ya se cerró. Me siento tranquilo, sin prisa, sin temor. Esa puerta es muchas cosas, cosas que antes no supe entender. ¿Qué podía hacer? Podía correr, gritar, llorar. No me hice nada, me quedé quieto callado. Como si nada hubiera pasado. Intentando creer que todo iba a ser igual, igual de bueno. Pero no iba a ser, y no lo fue. Y yo lo sabía. Cuando todo cambió yo también debí cambiar. Las cosas buenas ta no iban a ser lo mismo, no las iba a encontrar en el mismo lugar. Hoy empiezo a olvidar.

Romeo and Juliet

2008-07-22T01:50:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about my long longing for Madiba. I am not very happy about it. I cannot be. It is not good enough. I don't like the idea of surrender to old heroes. All in all, show must go on. And today after all, it's not a bad day to feel like it. Karadzic has been arrested, hopefully paving the way for a more European Serbia, or at least for a more just Serbia. The US has engaged in talks with Iran and has vowed for a sooner than latter withdrawal from Iraq. Israel and Palestine are the verge of new genuine negotiations. Bush has recently acknowledged the need to tackle climate change globally, and today Ford has announced cuts in the truck, SUVs, and vans industry to focus on production of smaller cars. In Spain, ETA's main standing terrorist base has been dismantled. From Africa, Mugabe and Tsvangirai seem prepared to engage in talks over the future of Zimbabwe.

Not a bad Tuesday I would say. I am at home supposedly being sick. I plain laid. I am not sick physically but in a different way, so I decided not to go to work and my boss was quite happy about it, as he usually is with me, even if he could clearly see I am not sick when he came yesterday to bring me medicines and I was out of bed bare foot and happily smiling. If he had asked me, I would have still said I was ill and he would have to either believe me or question me. He would never question me. Probably because that would involve arguing and he would dare to that. I thought I would rather spend the day reading the news and untiringly listening to Dire Straits instead of sitting in the office correcting lines on a map. I am considering not to go tomorrow, and by default, the rest of the week.

I therefore remain ignorant of Czech worldly affairs, except for the knowledge that the country is one of five which have not ratified the new European Treaty of Lisbon. The others are Ireland whose citizens voted no last month in the only referendum held for this treaty, Poland, who for a no change find any excuse to remain sceptical and hide behind Ireland's no vote, and Finland, where a referendum on the constitution will be held in the Åland Islands (But not in the rest of Finland), mainly due to these island loosing their European Parliamentary as the new treaty shuffles numbers in the chamber. The last one is Germany, where a Bavarian Catholic MP has withheld ratification on the grounds that the treaty goes against the German constitution. The Czech government is similarly holding back as the Constitutional Court may have found a clash between the treaty and the Czech constitution (which obviously some political will could do nothing to solve it).

Despite world wonder, I am still trying to figure out what to do what to do... My time in the office is de facto over. Last week I found every possible excuse to avoid correcting map lines, and ended up begging redemption, a pledge that was responded by giving me translation work. That was better, and sometimes I read the article about Cultural Linguistics I found in Google Search. I find linguistics fascinating, and translation too to some extent. So I prefer translation to map correcting, which is something. I think at the end of July I am supposed to finish maps and do English editing to translations from Czech, highly needed sometimes. I have been granted freedom to remain at home tomorrow too, but I guess I don't want to make my sickness lie last.

Longing for Madiba

2008-07-21T04:03:00.000-07:00

Walk on water

2008-07-21T03:45:00.000-07:00

I watched yesterday afternoon an Israeli movie called "Walk on Water", by Eytan Fox (2004), that a friend of mine brought me during her school trip to Prague. The movie seemed in the beginning too pro-Israeli to be true. It seemed like an unlikely story. A Israeli intelligence agent on the very macho end ends up being the tour guide of a German gay guy from Berlin, Axel, who is the grandson of a hidden top Nazi survivor. The other unlikely part of the story is Axel's sister, who fell in love to an Israeli and went to live and work in a Kibbutz, shortly before he left her for having a Nazi inheritance. What fascinated me is that two completely different guys from two completely different worlds end up becoming friends and changing thought the process, virtually agreeing on the same things at the end. It shows that despite all misunderstandings and strong cultural feelings, which are the edge of causing harm to others at the very least, peace is always possible at the end. It reminds me that people are just people, and that regardless of where everyone is from, everyone is also a free individual who may or may not choose to continue a family's a country's or a religion's dictates. Everyone has the right to greatness.

Amores que matan

2008-07-19T04:07:00.000-07:00

I had no breakfast this morning. It was out of distress. It happened because I was not sure of what I was doing. I switched the computer on and went on-line, because it keeps other thoughts away. For lunch I cooked some plain pasta and added olive oil just to feel it is food, and added some sunflower and sesame seeds to feel that I did enough. I haven't got that much more food in the fridge either, but I could have more if I really wanted to. I prefer to save money for my next steps, but the reality is that I don't want to spent money at a time that offers me no fun. I could have gone out this morning and do something different, but I am tires of doing things just because I have nothing else to do. I want to do things because I truly believe they have the potential to be good. I don't want to spend time with someone I don't want to spent time with.

I have no choice, if I stay. I could do a little bit more that what I am doing. And more than that, I could live. The only reason why I stay is because it is so short. I am not interested in this place, really. I am here because I did not get myself to be somewhere else. If I don't say this, I am lying to myself. I have lost control because I depend on some people to act daily. I never thought of this, but I should be afraid of it. It is even worse when the person on to whom you rely all the time is extremely generous but expects the same generosity back. It is even worse when I have not asked for that generosity and on top of giving it back I have to be grateful for it. You read in the person's eyes "I have given you, give me back", and sometimes you even see some tears sliding down their chicks. It is not the time that it happens, but it is the most intense time, because I am so dependant. Otherwise I would just reject, run away, and forget, or become fearful of the person. Instead I have to stay, and bear the brunt. It is not that bad really, but it is really annoying. I am beginning stop feeling pity. I believe people should always take responsibility for their actions. If you give, it is really up to you. If you don't get anything in return, stop giving if not getting anything in return makes you upset. I guess I have done this in the past with people, and now I am certainly not proud of it. There is nothing more brilliant than free love, from time to time, a word that is said after a long silence, a word that is said when I wake up one morning and I feel like saying it. Simple, sincere, true, free. I like cautious people, perhaps because I am quite cautious myself.

So this morning I woke up and felt like I should just speak words of silenced love and say only what I really want to say. And cooked simple, just to feel I remain true to myself.

Zelená rybník

2008-07-09T05:34:00.000-07:00

Day at the office. Endless day, and purposeless, and the more I have to, the less I work, and the less I like it, and the more I want to do other things, like sitting here writing. I have a strange boss. He is not officially my boss but my tutor, and the only reason why I won’t mock him is because I should always take price in my characters. He teaches me how to use Czech computer software, which I probably will never see anymore -if I can help it-. I spent the day clicking on the right button of the mouse. Well, I would if I really had to, but I do get a lot freedom, and I end up reading newspapers every day, which is more interesting to an extent. There is of course only so much I can know. Again though, there is also some beauty in being purposeless passionate about something. I don’t like linear stories. I start magazines from the end and I have just discovered that I only like books I start reading from the middle. I guess as I am missing the information at the beginning I start posing questions and that makes me interested to read the beginning too. Maybe I am not interested in linear thinking anyway, and I prefer to pick up things anywhere anytime, and let my mind understand them and tidy them whenever it pleases. It makes more sense.

In fact this blog was meant to be linear. I was not meant to write but to walk, but it all fell apart even before I wrote the paragraph. School work. I already have a university degree thank you very much. So I don’t write linear for a while. It works. It is also because nightmares have no beginning, only parts, and it seems that acknowledging any of its parts will take me to the core problem, eventually. This is still linear thinking. Cartesian machine. Newtonian physics. Twentieth century failure. Climate change. I guess God made humans so imperfect so that we would never be able to reproduce life processes so well as to completely fuck it up. This is the first contradiction. If we had been made to the mirroring image of God as it was promised in the Bible, we would be perfect creators, but thanks God, we are not.

I am wondering these days if I learn more from Mark Knopfler and Bruce Springsteen of from newspapers. The former two rise my spirit a lot more. I am not sure if I learn something from a newspaper. When I was living in England I used to passionately read the environmental section, but it only made me more scared. Maybe more aware too. More aware and thus more scared. So knowledge is painful. This is why I resumed flying and stop reading the environmental section. I did not want to waste in fear like a candle in an oven. The good thing is that I have kept most of my environmental credentials, after becoming completely sceptical about it for a while. I am now more interested in movement. Unlike fear. Possibly the opposite of fear. I am also interested in movement because of something. The something might be the words that I was talking about yesterday. The something is the thing that tells me I am walking in the right direction. I think walking in the right direction during the Prehistory, the Middle Ages, modern rule and contemporary dictatorships was hard enough, let alone what it is in 21st Century liberal democracy. Not that I complain, but some sign posts along the way I would not mind. Of course they are there, but there are so many I don’t know which ones to look at, or which ones I should believe in. And this is possibly why I resumed flying. Not that I don’t believe anymore that the aviation sector is one of the worst carbon emitters, but I am just not sure to what extent I impact on it by not flying, when passenger numbers are just soaring. This is when I become interested in movement. The plane will take off whether I board it or not, so the plane needs to be stopped in some other way. I am hypocritical if I board the plane and I don’t want the plane to fly. Or not necessarily. This is when linear thinking ends. I would board the plane anyway, but by rising costs other people would not, and this would reduce fright. First criticism to nealiberalism. But neoliberalism bad overall? Regression. Facts. Nightmare. K.O. I’m off to bed.

Central Europeer

2008-07-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

What brought me to this country? Did anything bring me here at all? Why am I here, if I am here at all? It was a vacuum that brought me here. I am here because I had no reason to be somewhere else. Nothing kept me at home. Nothing took me somewhere. Well, I am now somewhere. Somewhere that is not good enough. I am not sure where I was meant to go. I have another idea about good places, but I was trapped in a circle when I made this decision. Staying was my only option, and that was no option at all. Then I thought of the cool summer nights, the mysterious place in Central Europe, the new culture, the new language, the journey. The journey was flowed though. I have no passion to travel when I am alone. Staring at buildings does not make good stories, especially not when this story is someone’s life. I thought I would want to paint, but I don’t. I thought it would be green and quiet and I would write. And I am. So maybe it was not a vacuum after all. I cannot picture another point soon in my life where I will be able to ride to work and back through and idyllic countryside with fear of a storm that I can see in the horizon, not so far away, stopping by the cherry trees to pick up cherries. I quite like the idea. And somehow I have moved my pieces after how nice it would look like, in my mind, even if it was not so practical. So if I can write, this trip means everything, and it would be the best trip I will have ever made. There is silence. Silence throws the clouds that make the rain that wet the road, and I cannot ride. Silence makes me write. Write, write, write… There is no better thing to do. I am off. I am on. Off stillness, off the things that I don’t like. On a journey to inside, meaning something, even if I cannot describe it with words. And perhaps this is why we never stop talking. There is never enough to say, even if in the simplest conversation we are already saying too much. I occupy my mind with what interests me, I follow my mind, perhaps my instinct or my intuition, and things just flow. Otherwise things remain still, and rot, and hurt, become heavy, and weight, and fall. Spanish village. It’s fucked up. This are conversations with myself, because no one here understands what I say well enough. They have to guess. They look at me, see what I do, how I dress. I don’t know if they judge more when I walk or when I talk. Maybe here no one judges me when I sit still. Maybe this is why I came.

The chair and the Prag

2008-07-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

Do I write instead of eating? Why do I write? And when I write, what do I write about? Who cares anyway? Do I write because I think others will read it? Do I not write when I think no one will read it? I like writing to my very good friends. Perhaps because I think that they will like it just because it’s me writing to them. Or maybe not. I wrote to them possibly because communication is what happens between friends. Or because it is a way for them to get to know me better, or who I am, or a particular part of myself that I want them to know. I write to very few friends, the way I like it. I write to many friends, but usually I don’t dwell on it, because I feel it is not the type of thing they will really enjoy reading. But what do I know, anyway?

I am thinking too much. There some beauty to writing, and some point to. I don’t know much about the later though. At some point I thought journalism would be a way to save the world, but more and more I feel that words are just words. Words are all there is to the world, but only to communicate the world. Words don’t create the world, or sustain it, but rather describe it. Maybe words help to move forwards, but I wonder, and I really mean it, what would happen to the world if suddenly no one could talk anymore. Would we all go crazy? Or would we all be saved? After all, the world that moves, does it in silence, and I really mean it. Maybe screaming, sometimes. And sometimes it uses very simple and plain words, nothing rhetorical. Words sometimes move people. And it is actually words that really move people. People move less when there is silence, and the movement is more stable. So actually words do move people. But words are nothing without movement. And movement is nothing without words. That is what I wanted to say! Ha! I never thought I would end up writing this. Maybe now I will be encouraged to write more, and keep writing, but only to move in some way, after or because *or is it the same), I don’t know yet. But I really mean now, maybe words are not that useless anymore.

If I write this in a blog is because I expect other people to read it, and not just my friends. Am I being arrogant? And what if I am? I don’t want to write if it sounds arrogant, although I supposed most of the time people right because they really want to write, out of passion to just write. This is not exactly why I want to write though. I think I want to write because I want to communicate something, and make someone move. But I also do it because if I was not writing I would be eating. Writing is much more healthy, I think. So I also write out of passion, even if there is not a lot of it. It is also better than sitting in an office and using a computer programme, which is just going to make me go crazy. I guess I need to feel that writing will take me somewhere. I need to build something, I am very committed to this principle. But I guess writing will take me a lot further that using a computer programme, at least in my soul. And this says something about my life, and about who I am. I am more committed to my soul than to… well, I don’t really know what my job will be useful for. It is certainly not giving me any money I can save (actually after working for five weeks and a half I have not been paid yet) and I am not sure I will ever want to use it anymore after my contract ends in less than two months (and by time I hope I will have been paid). And I could have been writing eight hours a day for the past five weeks and a half instead of. But I mean, frankly, I am shy to say, but I think I came here to write. The job was just an excuse for everyone who would ask way too many questions if I told them I was going to the Czech Republic for three months juts to write. And of course I needed some money to live here. Screw the job, really. There is nothing so uninspiring. But I like it in here. And words are everything there is to this, or in my case, there isn’t. Because they are silent words. Simply words I don’t understand, and this is the whole story.

And sometimes I think that I don’t understand how is it that I have not gone mad yet because communication is a serious problem here. Then I think of the other side of the coin. That no words can be saving, too. Words without meaning, or silent words. Or stupid words indeed. When there are no words, there is something else, and most of the time, something good. I rely a lot on people’s goodwill to take care of me. If I had not communication problems, I could never enjoy this. I can feel someone’s soul much more this way. It is quite enlightening. And this is the way I will remember it: a wordless world between hell and heaven.

I ended up writing just about nothing, simply because theses words just carried me away. I guess it can only be a good thing. Acting purposeless out of blind will, is there anything better than it for the soul?

I juts came back from wordless Prague, which is quite different than just Prague (or not ‘just’, but some other version of the same place), although I only know the former version, so I am not sure I can talk about a different one. But I think Prague with words would have been very different, and possibly better. Because of course I did not go to Prague in search of ancient Gothic cathedrals, museums, classical concerts or pictures of Charles Bridge at dawn. I went to Prague in search of words. And after having been there, I can say two things. That Prague is a city that inspires me hate and love at the same time, and that the reason for this divide is words. Prague is possibly the most beautiful city I have even been. That is to say, beautiful to the eyes. Because a city of loneliness and silence does not make a good story. Not a good story about beauty and charm, at least. Prague did not charm me, and in fact I cannot say I liked it, part from acknowledging the fact that the building were aesthetically very beautiful. I think I will remember Prague like this: a city of beautiful buildings empty to the bones. Not only I had no one to talk to, I had nothing to talk about with no one, and moreover, the city’s mass tourism is so horrid that it certainly spoils any church you might picture in the way. And after this I would correct myself and say that Prague is actually a horrible place.

I was least interested in going to Prague for its charming architecture. I went there because I was meeting a friend.