jakob renpening .com

There are many things around me I’m able to appreciate. There are poem lines that make me wonder and song lyrics mixed with music that make me feel like hearing the soundtrack to my life; there are movies that will always portrait a feeling more than an image to me and books which I will always recommend when asked about literature. I can see beauty in paint strokes and purpose in the simple shape of an object. I can laugh at good jokes and crave good food. I’m glad I can do this and the feeling of it is great. But nothing compares to the beauty I witness when making a woman laugh.

I’ve heard guys talking about how a girl cried when left alone, or how much of a crush a girl has over someone else. We’ve heard stories about women bravery, intelligence, love or artistic skills. But one thing that will always be unexplained to us, curious and blind men, is the beauty of their happiness.

And obviously, like in all things that have nothing to do with numbers and analysis, women happiness is even greater when achieved with love. If a woman smiling, with joyful eyes and tender laughter is beautiful, I can’t even start explaining how unbelievably like heaven it is like to bring happiness, joy and laugh to the woman one loves. There is nothing like it, not even if it’s with a stupid joke, over the phone, thousands of miles away.

I firmly believe that all the world problems would be solved if only we could focus all our efforts on the right activity, making girls, women, mothers, aunts, sisters, grandmothers and girlfriends happy. And if not, at least we would all be able to witness something overwhelming, something truly beautiful.

It’s not about being alone. It’s not about being with people either. It’s about being alone after being with people or the other way around. I feel it’s something worth thinking about. I’ll use my own experience to explain this.

I’ve been living alone for a year and a half now. I’ve gone on vacations to see my family and now they came to visit me. It’s really funny, because every time the moment comes near, the moment to be with them, to hug and talk, I get really excited. I start picturing all the moments we’ll be having together, how happy we will all be and so on. The funny thing comes after a few hours of being together, after we spoke and hugged, after all the laughs and all that, then you start to remember why you needed the things you fought for in the beginning. Why you needed to get away from people in the first place.

That’s what I wonder, why are we so bold to do things knowing that, even though they are a sacrifice, are in the best interest to keep on growing and walking the path one think it’s best to walk; and then, without even winking, we act as if we didn’t give all that thought to things and even dare to think that being with that group of people will be the best thing to do in a certain period of time. How do we get to think that way? For me it is and will always be a real psychological mystery: why do we tend to forget things that in the past moved us to make really important choices that in way or another shaped a great deal of our present lives?

I don’t really have an answer. I could tell you that it’s a part of our constant social craving, going back to our environmental roots to feel safe and secure; or another good reply could be to say that we can’t stay too long away from the people that we will never forget (in a positive way). Many, many answers can be found in rational thinking, but what we will never find is a way to stop doing this kind of analysis, or lack of it. So, in a few words: good luck when you start to forget what you will always remember.

You have studied all your life. You’ve made mistakes and disappointed people close to you. You have been said how talented you are. Teachers, friends, employers, family and coworkers have spoken motivational words to you; always emphasizing the potential in everything you do. You’ve had all the opportunities in the world, taken most of them and really messing some up. You finished college and afterwards got a job. Something good, with a promising future if willing to do the same for the rest of your life. Then you got a new job offered, on the other side of the world. You took it with the excuse of needing to see other places. You left family, friends and love behind promising to return. You got to this whole new city and worked for a few months before resigning and going to some other country to keep on studying, this time a master degree. You finished the course and just when you were ready to go back home you started to make up some new dreams: some career-oriented and some personal-oriented expectations. And that’s how you started to stay away from home. That’s how home started to be somewhere else.

And now, no matter how many people trusted you, or was there when you fell down and then stood up again; no matter how many voices made you blush talking about your ‘talents’, your ‘vision’ and your ‘bright future. No matter all this, you are all alone, whatever you do, all the decisions you make from now on, all the wrong- and right-doings will be all your fault. Everything people (and you) thought about your future doesn’t matter, because at the end, you are the one who will make things happen, with or without talent, vision, skills or luck. So, at the end, as uncertain as it is, if you give it the best you have, you’ll make it. Hopefully.

It's a Sunday morning, everybody in the city is looking forward to the big happenings today. Some people have been waiting this to happen for months now. The malls (actually, the two malls in the city) were full of excited people for the last two weeks, all of them buying new clothes, books or even just lamps, all of them trying to be ready to celebrate this day in the old capitalist way: giving away some money, getting something new in return and, in the end, feeling satisfied because of this. Nobody knows what it is to be celebrated later, but they are all sure that there will be something to be proud of, so nobody asks any questions about the matter. When I say everybody I don't mean the whole population of the city, I mean the city's population minus one. That one person is what this is all about.

Laura hasn't waken up yet. She's still dreaming, about the days to come and the days that were. She feels, in her dream, that time is something strange, not really sure about how or why, but sure about the fact that time itself is always trying to tell her a secret. Something to set her free. She dreams about all the people she has met in the past, and all the people she will most probably meet in the future, wondering what will be her future job, if kids will be a decision to be made, or the way the last days of her life will be spent. But all this is too personal for her, I won't dig any deeper in this. Let's just say that she isn't sure about what will her life be like in the future, and she is sometimes afraid about the uncertainty of the future.

Back in the city, outside Laura's head, everybody's expectant, impatient and many other adjectives given to people who really can't wait for whatever it is they are waiting for. Some people think it's going to be a religious festivity, other's think it might have something to do with the city's tradition, and the remaining few just hope to have a good time. And a good time is what people on the other side of the world are having, everyone as expectant as the inhabitants of our city. In that part of the world everyone is falling asleep, entering their dream life, and exactly there, in that world of unreality, is that they are enjoying a good time. A strange coordination of sleep circumstances lets them enjoy what they are feeling. Nobody asks anything, since they weren't waiting for anything in particular, but it's like a party, right inside everyone's head, particular for everyone, replaying their funniest, deepest and most moving moments of their lives. It's a party of dreaming.

What nobody in our city knows is nothing will happen, at least not in the usual level of perception that these people are used to experience. But a revelation will be introduced, I'm not sure for how many people, but at least, surely for one person.

Laura is waking up now, vaguely remembering what she dreamt about. She washes herself, dresses up and fixes herself two slices of bread with marmalade and cheese for breakfast. As she munches the meal in front of her she's looking out of the kitchen's window, searching the deepest corners of her mind for whatever it is she dreamt about and meant so much to her. But she does not succeed; instead, she gives up and starts washing the plates to go for a walk in the city, to enjoy the beautiful weather outside. The people outside Laura's house see her as she walks outside. There's something about that girl, something strange, they think. There's nothing new on her, she isn't expectant nor excited. She just seems to be living, plain and simple. She just seems to wander around inside herself. She walks to the city's main street and looks how everybody is getting ready for something, something kind of big. She hasn't heard about a city festivity of any kind, she knows today is not a religious one different from all the other Sundays of the year. So, she asks herself, what are all these people getting ready for? And, of course, she won't get any answer, or at least none that will explain what she can't understand for now.

On the other side of the world everybody continues dreaming, about themselves in life, about life outside dreams. And everybody is enjoying it, because, as we all know, life seems to be a little sweeter when seen from our dreams. I don't know if it's melancholy or home sickness of some kind but that's the way it is; when we are dreaming we can't wait to come back to life.

Our girl is watching and wondering, walking and thinking and, simply put, trying to make sense to all this. Not being able to bare the curiosity she goes to the first person she sees and asks the obvious question, but the answer is something a little more than disturbing. I don't know, I just feel like it's time to celebrate, the young man says. She walks away, more puzzled than before, walks a few hundreds meters away and gives it another try. This time with someone a little younger and innocent, a little girl is dancing and singing around, completely filled with happiness and festivity. My mom says that we are celebrating something we wait for, but I don't know what that means, the girl answers. Laura tries to find a sense in all this, but even though she will soon find out that reason, she hasn't put the finger into it yet.

We all know what a dream is, and it's not the literal meaning of it that we care about, it's rather the notion of dreaming that matters. Some people say that there are no limits in dreaming, that everything is possible, and the more romantic minds say that dreaming is a small death we experience every time we close our eyes. But what's the difference between dreaming and living? In dreams people feel the same way they feel in real life, people suffer, love, hate and cry, just as if while awaken. The only difference is the environment, the contact with other people, and, with everything that comes with it: economics, politics, war, peace, community, etc. Nobody has ever heard about dreams as something else than that, what happens while we sleep. Well, then, let Laura show us something different.

Laura walked up and down the city's streets all morning long, seeing all the people getting ready for something they didn't know exactly what it is. She had some food in a nice, tiny restaurant and after that she just kept walking for a few hours in the afternoon, as puzzled as in the beginning of the day. When she arrives back home it's around two o'clock in the afternoon. She has absolutely nothing to do, so she starts watching a movie, one called 'Singin' in the Rain'. In the precise moment that Gene Kelly is dancing and singin' his happiness under a beautiful technicolor rain, Laura starts to feel sleepy, so she shuts her eyes and immediately falls asleep as she hears in the back of her head "I'm happy again! / I'm singin' and dancin' in the rain".

On the other side of the world it's all about dreaming, and that's what they do, when suddenly, out of the blue, they all wake up. And I must say, for the sake of truth, that EVERYONE in the whole world, that was sleeping, wakes up, and they realize, still in a more or less sleepy way, that it's OK, that everything has a reason to be.

In the city the party has already started, everybody is having fun and is celebrating something they don't really understand. They can't explain what it is that makes them so happy, so joyful, but they don't mind, and actually they prefer it that way, as if they already knew that if they were to be told they wouldn't understand it anyway. The same goes to the rest of the world, but in a much smaller scale. Everyone is happy, calm and happy; without any reason at all everybody knows that whatever it is that is happening is for the best. And for the best it is.

So, now, there is only one person, in the whole world, sleeping. And she is also dreaming, letting her mind take her wherever she has to go, whenever she has to go. And so it begins, a precise review of what makes her be herself. First she sees her first years of life, how she was made completely out of love, and love was all she got from her family, the feeling of absolute protection from her family. A few years later she started to grow up, recognizing the world around her as her place in life, at least for that moment. The curiosity started to bring new answers to her questions and she began to ask more, trying to understand more clearly what the world in and outside herself meant. After that came the teenage years, how she felt her body trying to figure out a way to merge with the beauty inside her, making her uncomfortable most of the time, but slowly reaching that goal. And just when that display of her last years finished she started dreaming about something else, she started dreaming about herself today.

Today Laura is a 20 year old girl, studying a bachelor degree in the university. She hasn't been in love in her life, and, if she has, nothing has gone farther than a few months crush. She is secure about herself, and what she really wants to do for the rest of her life is currently unknown to her. She likes music and languages, but most of all she likes being herself, even though she wouldn't agree with this last statement. There is nothing really exceptional or remarkable about her, except for one thing: she dreams, and that makes the whole difference, literally. As she continues dreaming she sees how she really is, how the beauty inside her is slowly coming afloat and is already visible in her eyes. She sees how her life works and what makes her tick; she realizes that nothing else matters, but what happens inside her head. She sees love as it is, nothing external but completely intrinsic, now she knows that all the love she needs is in her heart. And she has learnt something else too.

In the city the party is over, it's already getting dark and people, not knowing what they just celebrated, are satisfied just by the fact that the celebration took place. Something similar happens around the world, as the new day begins in some places, continues or ends in others. The fact is that nobody knows anything, but for everyone it just felt like the right thing to do no to sleep during those hours when nobody (nobody minus one) slept or dreamt.

The truth will never be broadcasted or shown in a history book; nobody will celebrate a commemoration party one year from today and actually no one will ever talk about this, not even in a poem or in a fantasy story. I could say that today the world was saved, or at least humans, but I don't want you to evoke falling meteors and super heroes doing the impossible to prevent any disasters. It wasn't like that, actually it was something a lot more precious, and simple too.

Laura woke up at the same time as the people of the world started to go back to the reality of their lives. She stared at the ceiling for a few minutes and then, strangely awaken she went to the mirror and saw what she had dreamt about; she saw the beauty of her eyes and the beautiful shadow that is cast by the line of her neck. She thought about all the love she had inside herself and how she didn't think of it as something to necessary give or receive; she thought about her family and all they had done for her all those years, about the support she had thought to be implied in the meaning of family; she smiled at the thought of all the paths she had already walked and grinned when she found out it was just a fraction of the total number of paths she will run in her entire life. And the last thing learned was about what everybody, starting today, will learn in their own time. She now knows that dreams make it all happen, that, in the same way as a little girl who wouldn't run out of questions, now she can't run out of dreams, and, after fulfilling those dreams, she has to dream some more. And most of all, she now understands the relationship that exists between life and dreams. I think nobody can't explain this better than Laura; in a few years she will write a book about life and decisions; there's an entire chapter written about this experience:

[...] most of the time we take dreams for granted, the same way suicidal people take life, and death, for granted. Nobody perceives reality the same way, but it doesn't take away the fact that there's only one reality to perceive and what makes it so wonderful is the perception, not the reality itself; the same thing happens with dreams, it's not the dream itself, the reality implied, that matters, but the fact that we are able to dream, the manufacturing of dreams is what is so wonderful and incredible. What makes us humans so important is not our intelligence or our opposite thumbs; it's the possibility inside our souls, the vision and the length of our paths that matter. The sooner we realize and learn that the beauty of life, and reality, comes from our dreams and our capacity to create them, the sooner we will learn to exploit our potential to create beauty only seen in dreams [...]

And today, aware of all this, Laura knows there's no reason to feel insecure about what is going to happen, because, just as the whole world knows, she now knows and repeats: everything is going to be alright.

El profesor se sentó sobre la mesa, barrió la habitación con la mirada y con un aire de burla pidió a la clase que definiera las estrategias de segmentación. Cada uno de los presentes sabía la respuesta, pero ninguno la escribió, ninguno respondió. Después de 2 minutos de silencio el profesor se puso de pie, tomó su chaqueta de piel y mientras caminaba frente a la pizarra, hacia la puerta, susurró - Gilipollas... -

The Wikipedia defines the opportunity cost as follows: "Opportunity cost or Economic Opportunity loss is the value of a product forgone to produce or obtain another product." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost. It’s like this: the possibility you sacrifice when you choose another one. It’s commonly used as an economics term but I would like to take it and use it in a completely different context: life

There’s this Borges’ book named "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan" (The garden of forking paths). In this book, the story that names the book talks about how every person has a path and how every time that person makes a decision there is a complete other path that won’t be taken, with decisions of it’s own that won’t be made as well, and so on. Isn’t that interesting? The paths we won’t walk, the people we won’t meet and the lessons we won’t learn. Physics and alternate realities aside, there’s a huge sentimental value to this fact, and I would like to talk about it.

In four days I will be flying back to Barcelona, to keep on studying and trying to make a dream come true. It’s also true that there are a lot of things (and some people) I’m putting aside or completely rejecting to be able to do this. I’m leaving my family and friends behind, I already rejected a professional career and I completely discarded plans I already had with someone. The question (which I’m sure nobody is able to answer) is if it’s worth the sacrifices. If the opportunity cost is less than the value (present and future) of my choices.

I’ve been asking myself this kind of questions for a while now (a year more or less) and I haven’t found an answer yet. But there are other things I’ve discovered in this lapse of time: the satisfaction of doing things my way, the pain of being away from everything and everyone I’ve known my entire life and the joy of reuniting with them, the surprise of meeting new and special people all around the globe, the overwhelming beauty of life and its special little things and the security of knowing that no matter what happens everything is going to be alright as long as I stay true to myself. Maybe if I explained this to the people I left behind or in the situations I sacrificed something for an uncertainty, it would seem difficult to understand, but at the end of all things I want to be able to feel proud of myself and foremost of the statement my life leaves behind. That life is beautiful and nothing is worth my happiness.

So, if the value of my choices is less than the opportunity cost, so be it, I guess it’s another lesson to learn, maybe the hardest. And if nobody is able to understand why I do things, why I leave places or arrive to others and why I don’t regret doing this, let everybody know that that’s what I like to do the most. To live.

¿Te acuerdas cuando aún llovía? Cuando aún llovía melancolía, quiero decir. Cuando nos quedabamos en casa, arropados en tranquilidad, felices y sin preocupaciones.

¿Te acuerdas cuando aún llovía? Y veíamos por la ventana a aquellos expuestos a la tristeza; esos pobres diablos que no lograban limpiar sus mejillas de lluvia y lágrimas.

Yo no recuerdo mucho, solamente pequeños detalles. Recuerdo como las alcantarillas rebozantes de nostalgia no dejaban salir ni una burbuja de aire, ni una burbuja de esperanza. También recuerdo la brutal caída de las primeras gotas y nuestra rápida huída, buscando refugiarnos para mantener la sonrisa en la cara.

Pero ya no llueve, hace tiempo de esto. Ya no se inundan las calles ni se ve gente correr apresurada al ver el cielo nublado. Lo malo no es que ya no llueva melancolía; lo realmente jodido es que ya no la necesitamos para sentirnos miserables.

That’s a hard lesson to learn. Actually I’m not so sure I’ve learned it yet; I guess I still hope to know and understand whatever I wish to.

All my life I’ve been quite curious, always trying to know stuff I don’t necessarily use in my day by day. When I was very young I got captivated by computers. My father taught me the BASIC language and while he was working in the office I would always use a computer to write stupid stuff like horoscopes or simple algebra calculators, I was 10 years old. When I finished High School, while trying to choose an undergraduate program to study in college, my two options were Electronic Engineering and Business Administration: I ended up studying Marketing and Advertisement. After this I started to get interested in Graphic Design, Creative Writing, Audiovisuals and XHTML, CSS and PHP programming. That’s my problem: I know a little about everything but not a lot about anything.

What does one do in this kind of situations? I’m really worried, not because the dilemma noted above, but because I really don’t know in which one to go deeper in. I’m 26 years old, have studied all my life, worked for a few years and self-taught many things. So, now what? I guess I have to wait, I’ll keep on feeding my curiosity and get to know what to choose or, at least, find a way to combine all those things. That’s what I’ll do, wait and make things happen.

I was 14 years old the first time I read “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Ernest Hemingway. There are times I forget some of the names in the book or certain situations in the story, but the one thing I never forget is the poem written in first page of the book as an epilogue of the story: “For whom the bell tolls” by John Donne. Making the long story short, it depicts the way everybody is so tightly connected to each other, we are so close and so much a part of a whole, that every time a man dies, you die, every time the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

Today I enjoyed a day of complete realization. I won’t say I had a celestial experience of universal proportions, or that I spelled a god-like name. It wasn’t so individual, I’m pretty sure a lot of people experience something like this all the time. But the point is that it was my turn today. And I want to write about it.

I went to the movies and really loved it, not only the movie itself but the whole theater experience also. Have you ever seen, when the screen is too wide, the side borders of the projection? There is a little mixture of colors there. I liked it. It kind of reminded me of it being only a movie. The feature was “New York I Love You”, which leads me to the rest of the post.

In the movie there is a woman who says, I don’t remember the exact words, “That’s what I love about New York, everybody is from somewhere else.” I realized I’m really lucky of living where I’m living. Barcelona isn’t New York, it’s completely different in every way, except by the fact that is full of people from all over the world: I went to the movies with a friend from Venezuela, I’m from Mexico and live with a Catalonian and a British, my business partner is a Spaniard who lives with a Colombian, I usually hang out with Italians, Chileans, Brazilians and Germans. I’ve met more people from more places in the last 2 years than I did in 23 years before leaving my country. I’ve learnt traditions and ways of seeing things. This has given me perspective.

To conclude I just want to add how freaking awesome this city is. The cultural background, the events, the beach, the Euro, the closeness to the rest of Europe and the vibes that are felt in a city that is constantly changing, a city that beats and represents the whole that all of us are tiny pieces of. Barcelona batega.

- Si no salgo de aquí pronto, voy a perder la razón. - Aunque alguna vez dije esto, realmente nunca la perdí, al menos eso creo.

He estado encerrado muchísimos años, ya no se cuántos. Y a pesar de esto, cada mañana me despierto creyendo que ese día, ese nuevo día, será el último. Sin embargo ese, como todos los días anteriores, nunca es el último; pero no me puedo dar por vencido, no puedo flaquear, porque temo que si lo hago, entonces entenderé todo lo que pasa. Y a pesar de todo, creo que entender no es algo que quiero que pase.

Hablaré un poco sobre la prisión en la que me encuentro. Es un lugar enorme, espacioso y, para ser honesto, encantador. Si no fuera por la limitación emocional que supone el estar aquí, sería un buen lugar para vivir. Es esto lo que no soporto de estar aquí: el pesar. Es como si la misma prisión quisiera joderme la vida. Sospecho que manipula mis emociones y percepciones a placer con el único fin de seguir jugando conmigo. Este lugar me enferma.

No estoy solo en este lugar. Somos muchos los que vivimos esta tortura, aunque debo decir que también los hay que son masoquistas, que disfrutan viviendo esto. ¡Estúpidos! Creen que todo es más llevadero, pensando en colores y poniendo la otra mejilla cada vez que reciben una bofetada. Aún así hay veces que me veo tentado a pensar como ellos. Pero me resisto; no me puedo dar por vencido. Esta gente me enferma.

Y esta situación me enferma. Cómo llegué aquí o cuál es el cargo que pago con ésta condena, son preguntas que no tienen respuesta en mi cabeza. No se porqué estoy aquí como tampoco sé si algún día dejaré de estarlo. Lo único que se, es que esto que los masoquistas llaman vida, para mí, es peor que lo que la prisión promete como muerte.

En el pasado conocí a un hombre que, alguna vez en su vida, había conquistado el murmullo del viento. La primera vez que relacioné a este sujeto con el oficio de conquistador fue cuando escuché la historia de boca de mi hermano.

Mi curiosidad no nació con el relato, sino con mi reacción a éste. Al principio reí desvergonzadamente: no exageraría si dijera que la creí la historia más ridícula que había escuchado en mi vida; pero no diré eso, simplemente afirmaré que para mí fue, al inicio, un relato increíble. Después de la burla pasé a la reflexión. Intenté verlo desde diferentes puntos de vista, tratando de entender qué era lo que llamaba tanto mi atención. Pasó la noche y llegó el amanecer, sin haber dejado de darle vueltas al tema. De la misma forma pasó el día siguiente. El problema, repito, no consistía en el hombre y sus circunstancias, sino en lo que sucedía dentro de mi cabeza cada vez que escuchaba o recordaba la historia.

Unos días más tarde, tras una exahustiva investigación por mi parte, logré localizar al "conquistador". Era un hombre común y corriente en todos los sentidos, y el que fuera un "conquistador" no cambiaba nada, era más una faceta independiente de su vida que un elemento invasor de su persona como unidad. Lo seguí varias veces, camine tras él rumbo a la farmacia, a hacer la compra y al parque. Lo vi ir al banco y estuve presente cuando fue a la iglesia a sentarse frente al altar durante un par de horas. Fui testigo de su día a día y, después, me armé de valor. Mientras tomaba un café con leche, sentado en un bar, leyendo el diario, me acerqué y le pregunté. Hice todo tipo de preguntas, cuestionando su extraño oficio y la veracidad del relato que me comunicó mi hermano; fueron varias horas las que conversamos, trabamos una especie de introducción a la amistad y poco a poco fuimos perdiendo las reservas al platicar. El argumentaba y yo refutaba, contra argumentaba o coincidia. Cabe decir que al final, mientras nos despedíamos, sentí cómo me cubría una tranquilidad que no sentía en días.

Seguí frecuentando al hombre, nos veíamos para almorzar o de vez en vez lo acompañé a hacer la compra o al banco. Todo era bueno, él me platicaba anécdotas de su pasado y yo me entusiasmaba como un niño cada vez que empezaba su relato. Fueron varias las historias que escuché y fueron muchas las sonrisas que me arrancó.

Cuando el hombre murió, no lloré, le rendí luto en silencio. Nunca supe si sus relatos eran verdad, como tampoco sabré nunca si mis sonrisas eran debido a las historias o a la posibilidad de que solamente fueran ficción. Supongo que es cuestión de simplemente recordarlo. Recordarlo y escuchar el viento. A fin de cuentas conozco al propietario.

Caminaba tranquilamente, como quien no va a ningún lugar, y tampoco viene de alguno. Iba por la calle, al mediodía, sin hacer caso a lo que sucedía fuera de su cabeza. Era una mujer, de ojos vívidos, de paso corto; vaya, era como todas las mujeres que han sido, o serán algún día, amadas con locura. Había andado ya unos cuantos metros cuando tropezó con un joven. Cayó al suelo al tiempo que exhalaba un tímido grito. El joven se incorporó disculpándose, la ayudó a ponerse de pie y enmudeció en cuanto cruzaron miradas. Ella sonrió. No te preocupes, le dijo ella, y él no pudo hacer otra cosa más que disculparse de nuevo. Intercambiaron nombres y fueron juntos a tomar un café.

Pasaron los días y también las semanas. Pasaron más encuentros y pasó también la emoción. Pasó el interés, la curiosidad y al final también pasó la atracción. Pasó y se fue todo esto.

Hoy camina tranquilamente, con vividez en la mirada y rapidez en el paso. Va igual que antes, todos los días al mediodía. Igual en todo menos en una cosa: ahora sí pone atención al camino, ha aprendido que un tropiezo tiene más consecuencias que un simple susto.

It’s a sunny winter Weekend. I’ve been walking around the city for a couple of hours. Since I like reading I head to the nearest bookstore, I walk in and read through the titles. Some authors are familiar to me, people around the world whose words I’ve read before. I pick a couple of volumes and make my way to pay for them. It’s almost horrible how expensive books in Barcelona are, it’s cheaper to log in Amazon.co.uk (there is no Amazon in Spain, yet) and have books sent to you. But that’s not my point. The thing is that while I’m on this, buying this beautifully interesting and horribly expensive books, I start building up a theory on human behavior.

Just like in nature there’s no coldness, just the absence of heat; in physical looks there is no beauty but absence of ugliness, and no lies in moral behavior but lesser degrees of truthfulness. The human mind is capable of abstract thought, creativity is an ability in which we are able to create and imagine ideas, concepts and objects out of thin air. But everybody’s creativity is modeled around experiences, learned knowledge and reason, hence there is always some reality in fiction, some truth in lies.

In the physical looks something similar happens, but easier, I think, to explain. Nobody is absolutely beautiful, there is always something that doesn’t fit. It can be something really noticeable like the overall size, skin or hair color; or something mundane (but isn’t everything to do with physical looks mundane?) like the amount of hair in the forearm, the way one of the eyes is a tiny little bit smaller than the other or the color of the left hand’s pinky nail. There is always something that makes what’s supposed to be perfect, almost perfect.

And what does this have to do with a theory, you may ask. Well, it’s simple. Beauty and creativity are the most over-rated characteristics in the art community. Is this statement, along with the last paragraph’s arguments, that I find curious. If the way ugliness and truthfulness work in human nature just like said before, then isn’t art actually going farther away from what it is supposed to portrait and communicate at least in its most fundamental basics, human nature? Or is art actually done this way as a mean of getting closer to perfection, or, likewise, away from our nature?

I don’t think I need an introduction for this one. When we are down (in any possible way: being, health, work, etc.) someone, if not yourself, says everything is going to be alright. Most of the times it happens, eventually everything comes down in the right place and life goes on with a new experience and a fresh, new smile. But I beg to differ.

I don’t think things get better just because. In my mind there is no place for the theory of ‘things’ (as in the situation-s) realizing everything is kind of fucked up and it’s time to get everything better. After this realization ‘things’ get to work and make it all better.

The way I see it is slightly different: ‘Things’ don’t get better, the situations we find ourselves falling into stay and keep on going.My guess is rather the opposite; it is that what eventually comes down to fit is us. We get used to live in a harder, harsher, bitterer and more stressed world every time we feel we can’t take it anymore. I think the feeling down, the being miserable is a break from all the mess to adapt ourselves to this new environment we can hardly stand. After this bottom fall we re-emerge feeling everything got into the right place, when it is ourselves that are now ready to face those situations that sunk us before.

I like the other theory, the magical, all-things-fall-automatically-in-place one. But it is my theory that gives me faith in us. So complex but so simple at the time.

'llamame' - decía el mensaje en la luminosa pantalla del móvil. Era su hermano. Normalmente, al regresar a casa por la noche, no sacaba el móvil del bolso al recibir una llamada; pero con los mensajes era diferente, siempre tenía que verlos: era una cuestión de curiosidad. 'llamame' - ¿por qué querría su hermano que lo llamara? y, es que además el mensaje tenía una falta ortográfica, de las que hace todo mundo al escribir un mensaje en el móvil y no querer tardarse buscando las vocales tildadas.

Hacía 2 meses que había dejado a su hermano y a sus padres para buscarse la vida por su propia cuenta. No le iba muy bien, al menos no como esperaba, pero era feliz, o, mejor dicho, estaba satisfecha de hacer las cosas a su manera. Pero hoy se sentía insegura, era el mensaje, hacía 2 meses que no hablaba con su familia. Decidió esperar a llegar a casa para hacer la llamada, razonó que la llamada le saldría gratis si llamaba desde casa.

Caminó el trayecto largo a casa. Pasó por la avenida principal y llegó a un bar a comprar cigarrillos. Aprovechó y pidió una cerveza para sedar un poco su ansiedad. Se sentó en la barra actuando como si esperara a alguien para que nadie la molestara. Dio cortos y pausados tragos al vaso. La música del lugar le recordó a su primer novio, bueno, no fue su novio, pero le recordó al tipo con el que salió varias veces y con el que compartió su primer beso. Desde entonces detestaba ese tipo de música. Vació el vaso de un solo trago y pagó. Salió de nuevo a la noche.

Al llegar a casa buscó sus llaves y maldició el bolso por llevar tantas cosas en él. Se sonrió cuando se dio cuenta que era su bolso favorito. Por fin encontró las llaves, abrió el portal de la finca y subió las escaleras hasta el segundo piso. Al entrar a su casa cerró la puerta con el pie izquierdo y aventó bolso y abrigo sobre el sofá. Se quitó los zapatos y caminó hasta la cocina, donde abrió la nevera y agarró un yoghurt. Se sentó, mirando desganada el teléfono.

Después de una hora de deliberación entre llamar o no, tomó el auricular. Tecleó el número que conocía de memoria y escuchó el tono de llamada. Sonó una, dos y tres veces. Tras la cuarta vez entró una grabación de la compañía telefónica, invitándola a dejar un mensaje. 'llamenme' - dijo.