Light

Go into the light. The message is strong, as it is the first thing a new born does when leaving the womb for the first time and experience light for the first time. If one as a natural birth, it might seem like crossing a tunnel and reaching a new destination - your life. Oddly enough, the imagination of many authors is that life should pretty much the same way, where you might experience a new tunnel towards a light that might lead you to a new possibility of being - an afterlife to be sure. In some sense, the light bears the calm as opposition to the scares of darkness. On the other hand, historically, darkness has also been a form of protection to hide from possible predators or enemies that might try to put you in the spotlight. In the navy, the lighthouse has been a sentinel which warns the seamen of the dangers along the shores by using a pulse of light that rotates in a certain pattern carrying a message. Light has been linked to hope, not just because of the connection with birth and afterlife, but rather the need to bring light over darkness in all issues. Light brings clarity wherever darkness has lease. Mind you that light imposes on darkness, but cannot overcome the physical hence leaving the echoes of darkness behind in the form of shadows. Shadows themselves which operate in the twilight, unable to be in either of the world. In the darkness they cannot be seen, and in the light they are exposed for the figment of imagination they might have been if not for the light.

Addiction to Technology

If I spend too many hours using technology am I addicted?

I think so. One day, I looked at my Instagram stats and it said I had an daily use of about 4 to 5 hours, and that is just one app.

After all, I start my day looking at my cellphone. Usually, I will search on Whatsapp and Instagram if I got any new messages. E-mail hasn't been a communication tool for me in a while. I use it for official purposes and those answers usually take a while to come back. I know that I am emotionally connected via technology to other people, so I look at my phone or my computer to see if I get any response from people that I am invested in some way, romantically, affectionately, professionally... 

To distract myself from my worries, I use apps like duolinguo to pretend I am learning a new language, or Instagram to pretend that I am getting information about the world, when all I get are tidbits of digested info designed to lure me into an endless loop of vertical swipes. 

I also come home and turn on streaming apps like Prime TV, Max or Disney to find some consumable series or movies that might burn some time and possible blur my focus further from my own life issues. It is like taking a glass of wine just to dull the feelings. I guess I do this more when I feel l am alone and it is been feeling unbearably lonely as of late. (Not that being a lone is a problem, feeling as if it is loneliness that makes it into a problem and quite frankly the way I have been dealing with it makes it a problem). 

The worst side effect that it has on me is creating a shorter span of attention. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to focus on information. Reading books has been substituted by eBooks but I don't even spend that much time reading, because it requires a focus that it has been missing. 

Earlier today, I fiddled with the idea of loneliness and it has become clearer to me that my interaction with the technology is responsible for my growing loneliness... So if I spend time looking at an app to see if I get a reply to a message, it can only mean that I am addicted to the trigger of response. 

Side-note: Many years ago, when I was a teenager, the entertainment at the house was VHS movies or series and Spectrum video-games, that would take about 5 minutes or so to load. Back then I noticed that I was being too addicted to that, so I tried a week of without playing, I do not remember if I steered clear of the TV entertainment at the same time. I know that for a few days it produce some effect on me. It was good. I am considering backing off from technology for awhile, just to see if I can rebound my feelings to a better state. 

But, I know that it is going to be hard to disconnect, because I feel that to do so, is to cut myself from the hive where my family and friends are most of the time. 

You see, we have agreed to be seemingly semi-permanently  connected to a Net of information and entertainment that keep us distracted from being alive and this happens to a point where we cannot stand to be in the place where silence has lease. 

Maybe I should start with a small diet, granting myself one hour of internet access per day and use it accordingly. Books will hopefully be a patch to outgrow this addiction. 

I hope I make it better and realize that being alone does not preclude a loneliness sentence.

Loneliness of a lonely August

I am the owner of a lonely life all because I tend poorly of my many friends. 

August, this wrecked warm month of fires and beaches, has had this depressive effect on me. A sense of  loneliness that seems to pour heavily on me during its tenure. Ever since I was a young boy, I would see my friends happily roaming south with their families as if they were storks enjoying the good weather and harvesting the best of memories. Alas, my parents were not of the traveling kind. Mostly my vacations would be spent at home or sometimes going to the near by beaches on the south shore of Lisbon's Metropolitan Area with my mother or some friends that would happen to be stranded between journeys of their own. Occasionally, I might go with my mom up north to visit my grandparents. For reasons not important for this post, my dad only started going with us after I was eleven. My first memory of him going there, was actually to "rescue" us from a large fire that was menacing  the area in the summer of 1988. But granted that this would become a staple in my memory for a most unique summer, since that same year I think I traveled with my parents to Spain for the very first time.

But, this year again, I feel the empty caress of the lonesome heart during the summer of 2024. Luckily, my professional occupation has kept me traveling all over Portugal during two weeks, bringing some larger meaning to my days. It is interesting though that my life's meaning comes from my work. I would say that this does not bode well for my retirement years, twenty years from now. 

Maybe if I have a more nuclear family of my own, I can manage to enjoy the summer better. 

Still, it is not good to wish upon companionship to give one's life meaning, after all I should sustain myself for who I am or for whomever I might become. 

My many friends know how to entertain themselves during the summer. Some are married with children, others living abroad pursuing their purposes, others just better at enjoying their lonely time, others better at tending relationships, hence being able to find a group of friends to make the best of their time. 

Now, my "summer vacations" are all most up and they leave me not with a bag full of enjoyable memories, but rather the holes of empty space spent resting because there was nothing more appealing to do. Well, a couple of duolinguo's German courses, a couple hundred pages read of Stephen Chbosky's Imaginary Friend, some extra shots and interviews for a documentary about my mother's home village (from which I cannot seem to make heads or tails of its structure), eating, walking, exercising for half an hour, binging Season 2 of Star Trek's Prodigy, and of course wishing upon stars over skies that too cloudy for me to make wishes.

I guess my wish for this summer would be  for me to stop feeling so lonely but rather more appreciative f the simple things that present myself during each day and may be then I could revert to a self sustain individual that is well, independently if the company is present or not.

"After all festivities all guests must depart... this sadness, I do not know. When I go home, the moon goes with me and my shadow follows me" excerpt from Li-Po's The Little Fete.

 

Perseides

Perseides are "those born of Perseus and Andromeda"

In astronomic terms, it is the season where we should gaze at the night skies and behold the shooting stars... those meteorites that burst into flames as they hurdle at phenomenal speeds pulled by our own Earth's gravity.

This is starry season apparently, unfortunately for me during these days the weather is rather cloudy on my neck of the woods. So if I was suppose to make a wish upon the site of a shooting star, I am unable to, seen that I am unable to see when they are actually, well... shooting.

So the myth will have to hold on for one year more. I know, from experience, that this is no myth. I have seen in previous years shooting stars around this time of the year. The astronomers explanation that this is due to the Earth's orbit passes by a debris field of a previous planet or moon or space body, that increase the chance of actual meteorites being pulled in hence creating the shooting stars spectacle that cause awe and wonder... plus allowing for the fantasy of fulfilling or at least wish upon some new objective.

I guess what is left to be stated is my wish. I will tell you, as if you, who know me, did not know already. 

Reciprocal and prosperous love. If not for all the inhabitants of the world, well at least for me. After all I am the one making it, and I do not feel that altruistic about it.

Nonetheless, I guess it will have to wait one more year, until the perseides are granted clear skies for clear wishes to be unequivocally conceded to those who make them happen.

Perseus and Andromeda, I guess I will see your kids next year. Take care of you, deities.

 

 

888

 Allegedly, today is an special day, as we are in the eight day of the eighty moment, on the year whose numbers add up to eight (2+0+2+4). 

I have a wishful thinking where it comes to my mystical side. Always thinking on the best possible outcome of course. If there are aliens, I trust that they will be good, at least I do prefer those kinds rather than those who bring there own cookbook "To serve man".

The energy of angels is among us, it will be to inspire us and not to destroy us. This is a process of growth even if the earth seems doomed to undergo some hard changes will it harbor our species. I wonder for how long. In absolute terms it does not matter at all, for the universe proceeds its course, even if this "enlightened species" will not prevail.

I have no wisdom to offer for the 888. The Chinese like that combination. Apparently the energetic blessing will offer some kind of inspirational energy to those who are willing to welcome it into their being. I am not sure of any of that. Maybe it will even counter the effects of the so called retrograde Mercury - an optical effect caused by the two planet's orbits which gives for a short period the impression that Mercury is going backwards hence serving as a omen of bad luck for many things.

My advice, for this day and all others, remains the same...

In times of doubt, despair, joy, love, neutral... for any times actually, take time to breathe consciously and hear your heartbeat. That is the ultimate proof that there is a clock ticking inside of you that offers you with ever stroke the possibility of being. Your choice is what is it that you want to be... regardless of the circumstances around you. You are an expression of the divine just for being alive. Stay conscious of your presence here and now, and you can let the flow of the apparent run its course, because it will keep on running long after your last stroke has sounded inside of you.

So today and everyday celebrate this... you are the unique expression of love for being. 

Inner Child

A good friend once told me that in each of us, bounded by the living experience of the soul witihin, lives a child and a grown-up. Getting them to talk, that's the talent for the wise.

Melt

The days pass rapidly between posts and life seems severely compromised in order to prevent me to share with the internet universe whatever thoughts creep in. For those of you, who actually take time to read this blog, I can tell you that I am doing so much better. Love expectations have melted away and the mere experience of life as it is, with all the unknowns that fate has to offer, is being a most enjoyable one. Someone once uttered the wisdom that the soul is the player with the avatar, and that most of life pains, if not all, are the experience of the player feeling the frustrations of the situation the avatar is experiencing. So ready player 1 it is, but life is more than a successful score of love, money, family, social status.

If this is true, when we all die, regardless of the experiences in life, the soul will carry on and this life experience will be over. So the lesson is this, enjoy the character that you are playing, do not confuse the pains of your persona with the core of your being, because you are so much more than the heart aches, the pains, the struggles, the joys, the items, the purchases, the losses - all these are just cumulative aspects of an existence. I guess the purpose of it all is to be able to surf life and develop empathy with others while growing a deeper connection with the self. 

I guess the problem for most is that we are all too close to the characters in our lives. We want to emulate what seems to be the right thing to be, according to the ruling pattern that the times are currently showing. To be bold or to be compliant are two sides of the same fate. Accept the circumstances or fight against them, in the end there will be no evaluation, just a sense of a life that melted away with all that was earned. There is a kind of a zero sum game at play. We born with nothing and proceed to the next stage with nothing. We can think that whatever we produce as property, currency, friends, affections, objects, tell the story of us... when in fact the true story is taking place within, regardless of the accolades, the praises, the prizes, the recognition from others. 

 So what experience will you have today. Learn to see your avatar from the outside, if for some reason some sensation seems to be overwhelming. Breathing is also a good reminder of the inner clock. 

In the end life, death will come as an icicle melt...