1209 days ago
I guess the book I'm reading: The Book of Restlessness (O livro do desassossego), a great existentialist erratic work of the Portuguese Fernando Pessoa doesn't help much. It preaches the only way to keep yourself intact is to withdraw as much as possible from the world and keep on dreaming. I guess I always had escapist tendencies (inherited from my father, maybe?) - ignoring real life and its responsibilities and finding comfort in books, films, thoughts, theatre - paralel illusory lifes. Pessoa's character theory is that everything is a dream anyway, and it's so silly to take anything for real and run after happiness.
Seeing many films at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema - the third movie internation festival in 2 month here! The symbol is a she-wolf - la louve, a black wild silhouette contrasting with a white dog in a leish. Makes me thing about Herman Hesse and his Steppenwolf - living at the border, not agreeing with social rules, and not being able to live outside of it. Had a chance, as a festival volunteer, to peek at the backstage of it.
A bit disorganised, or rather looks like organised in a hurry, with pretty basic means. With two other festivals before, sponsors had too much to choose from. People working at the welcome desk and press room looking very "artistic" - like not quite neat, opposing the images we get from other international film fests. Bon, I'm coming from a country where people spend far too much money on clothes and care about appearance, so I grew habits too
Anyway, saw one great movie: Something like happiness, from Czech Republic, I guess one of the best about the disorientation we're still going through in the East. The others, from Iran, Bulgaria, Lebanon impressed me, but didn't touch the bottom of my heart. But they've been speaking to me about all these different cultures and countries with so many problems, that still manage to maintain a good artistic level, which I find admirable. Haven't seen a Romanian film in quite a while, wondering if some good directors made it. I guess so, as one I cccasionally met a few years ago got the Gold Bear in Berlin for a short last year and Un certain regard in Cannes for his latest film.
I started looking for another job, as this way towards the industrial suburbs and back every day is torturing me. Plus the boring job per se, I'm getting claustrophobic and frustrated. I've been used to open spaces in the Caribbean Anyway, it looks like I am more marketable, now that I have the famous Canadian experience, but only in certain fields. And competition is fierce, I applied for a job with TV5 - the French international community TV channel, and found out they got 500 resumes...forget it.
Losing patience, wasting too much time with chat and e-mails, feeling my energy level goes down...that's no good. I have no solution but keep on trying. Here the best way to find a job is the people you know. And the ones I know are not that well connected...
At least I like the appartment and I can relax home. To be continued...
Showing posts with label Pessoa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pessoa. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2009
September 22, 05 - Feeling existential today
1238 days ago
"Myself I don't know if this I that I am exposing to you, really exists or is barely an aesthetical fake concept that I have about myself. Yes, this is how it is. I live aesthetically through someone else. I sculpted my life like a statue made of a material stranger to my own self. Sometimes I don't recognize myself, that external I became, and up to this point I used my self conscience in an artistical manner..." - Fernando Pessoa
The Book of Restlessness - my actual lecture, makes me think how many times I felt like in a movie, looking at myself acting and talking. Knowing what do I really need to do and not finding the force - inertia. Bloody oblomovism, in Eastern Europe we receive things so passively sometimes, we've been touched by the Orient contemplative spirit. Building inner worlds and getting lost in their contemplation, up to the point when we forget to live life. My perception of myself and how the others see me will never give a correct image of my true self - all distorted mirrors. Shit! I had so many thoughts in my mind a few hours earlier and they vanished before I got home. Should get a recorder.
Put some cooking cream in my feta cheese omlet and it came out delicious and absolutely presentable.
"Myself I don't know if this I that I am exposing to you, really exists or is barely an aesthetical fake concept that I have about myself. Yes, this is how it is. I live aesthetically through someone else. I sculpted my life like a statue made of a material stranger to my own self. Sometimes I don't recognize myself, that external I became, and up to this point I used my self conscience in an artistical manner..." - Fernando Pessoa
The Book of Restlessness - my actual lecture, makes me think how many times I felt like in a movie, looking at myself acting and talking. Knowing what do I really need to do and not finding the force - inertia. Bloody oblomovism, in Eastern Europe we receive things so passively sometimes, we've been touched by the Orient contemplative spirit. Building inner worlds and getting lost in their contemplation, up to the point when we forget to live life. My perception of myself and how the others see me will never give a correct image of my true self - all distorted mirrors. Shit! I had so many thoughts in my mind a few hours earlier and they vanished before I got home. Should get a recorder.
Put some cooking cream in my feta cheese omlet and it came out delicious and absolutely presentable.
August 25, 05 - About hedonism, thanking friends, looking for a life purpose, identity issues
1266 days ago
Ok, Im starting with the last one...basically what I want from life is to be able to be myself - 24 hours, have a medallion that reads ESSE QUAM VIDERI - To be, rather than to seem (just got translation from Internet, I thought it was I am what you see, that's even better!). Therefor, find a job that would allow me to show and develop my real self, my best skills.
An university proffesor of mine (Roger Tessier, from Montréal!) told me once I am like a gardener that has all kinds of fruits and vegetables in his garden and doesn't know what to pick, letting some of them rotten. I guess there lies my problem: I'm unable to focus, in world that's more and more specialized.
So I'm looking for what I really, really want to do, maybe I don't even know this exists, maybe it is something still unknown to me. But I need to find it fast, as I feel I'm wasting myself.
We live in a world where hedonism - pleasure as life's ultimate purpose became most frequent way of life. Lifestyle matters so much, comfort - keep away from pain, keep away from becoming a loser, this is the worst thing that may happen. Success as a measure of all things, judged by social position, exposure, posessions. Convenient appearances, covering inner emptiness, fear of existing for real, of experiencing extreme emotions, extreme sensations replaced those.
Feeling like saying a word for my Portuguese friends who sent me two great CD's: MARIZA - TRANSPARENTE and my beloved MISIA - DIVA BOX. Mariza will be here in one month time for a concert. Funny, right? I'm going, obviously. Got also a book by Fernando Pessoa, one of the greatest modern writers. It bears the most appropriate title for the present moment: The book of anxiousness.
Well, so much for now...tomorrow I gotta go make some more money And Saturday I'll be moving alone, for the first time in my life!
Ok, Im starting with the last one...basically what I want from life is to be able to be myself - 24 hours, have a medallion that reads ESSE QUAM VIDERI - To be, rather than to seem (just got translation from Internet, I thought it was I am what you see, that's even better!). Therefor, find a job that would allow me to show and develop my real self, my best skills.
An university proffesor of mine (Roger Tessier, from Montréal!) told me once I am like a gardener that has all kinds of fruits and vegetables in his garden and doesn't know what to pick, letting some of them rotten. I guess there lies my problem: I'm unable to focus, in world that's more and more specialized.
So I'm looking for what I really, really want to do, maybe I don't even know this exists, maybe it is something still unknown to me. But I need to find it fast, as I feel I'm wasting myself.
We live in a world where hedonism - pleasure as life's ultimate purpose became most frequent way of life. Lifestyle matters so much, comfort - keep away from pain, keep away from becoming a loser, this is the worst thing that may happen. Success as a measure of all things, judged by social position, exposure, posessions. Convenient appearances, covering inner emptiness, fear of existing for real, of experiencing extreme emotions, extreme sensations replaced those.
Feeling like saying a word for my Portuguese friends who sent me two great CD's: MARIZA - TRANSPARENTE and my beloved MISIA - DIVA BOX. Mariza will be here in one month time for a concert. Funny, right? I'm going, obviously. Got also a book by Fernando Pessoa, one of the greatest modern writers. It bears the most appropriate title for the present moment: The book of anxiousness.
Well, so much for now...tomorrow I gotta go make some more money And Saturday I'll be moving alone, for the first time in my life!
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