Perfect Friday

Hello there :D

Yesterday I spent my whole afternoon at Lisbon, basically shopping. I bought a new book I already started reading (by Miguel Esteves Cardoso) and those large awesome headphones I've always wanted. I'm really happy with those.

I've already sent my tale to that FNAC contest and... that's it. I have no idea of how good all the other tales are and I'm totally aware that it's very unlikely for me to win. Still, I wrote it, someone will read it and, even if they find it poor, I can always save it and do something with it later. I don't know. Let's just see how it goes.

Today was quite an interesting and inspirational day for me (and for my whole class, I think). We received a movie director at school and had a philosophical discussion about art and attitude. One of the questions (not the most important one, though) I was faced with today was:

What is art? Does it depend on the other people's reaction, or is it's only purpose to be an expression of yourself? Does it even have a purpose at all?

I'm not an expert on what comes to art, but it seems to me that it is something extremely personal. It's a piece of you, but outside your shell and visible to all. I don't think art depends on the others - I don't believe in art made with a purpose. There's no purpose in art - art simply IS. Art is art. Art is what the artist feels, what the artist shares of himself with the world. If it's so elaborated and complicated that it becomes a treaty, I'm sorry to say that, in my opinion, it looses it's beauty. Complexity ruins emotions. And art is, at least to me, emotion.

I watched a really nice film on Saturday (500 Days with Summer - beautiful!) and I clearly remember one scene: the two main characters (a couple) were at a museum, staring at poo. Maybe not real poo (at least I hope so...), but their comment about such a deep piece of art was: "Let's go to the cinema instead".

I think this is the classic ridiculous example of a "message-passing" art. I honestly can't see the point. Every single one of us has a unique perspective of the world and it doesn't make any sense to try to make people see what we want them to see in a sample of poo.

yours,

millou

Looking for the right words...

I'm now immersed in the difficult task of defining the tale I'm sending to the FNAC contest... No more than 200 characters, they say. My powers of synthesis aren't enough to describe 11 pages in 2 lines!
I have two options: one sentence vs two sentences. One sentence is nothing. Two sentences don't fit in two lines. The first sentence is good, but the second one sounds awfully unfinished. I hate them!

I can do this, I know I can do this.    <- self-assurance

This is my scared reaction to an article on young unemployed people I've just read. This is my scream of freedom, the release of the voice I love more than all the others - the one that shouts "I WILL ALWAYS LOVE MY LIFE! I will not stay at my parents' until I'm 25. I will not sit in a corner, mourning my miserable life. That will not happen! I will take risks, I will do my best to be dynamic and creative, I will look everywhere for a job. I will get my life. I will do what I want to do. No matter what. I will."

Of course that getting a job is one of the most obvious problems in a young person's life, but that article also showed another problem - in my opinion, a much more depressive one. It showed that young people nowadays are waiting for perfection to suddenly fall off the sky, right in front of them. They don't move. They don't try. They're not here, awake, doing their best. They are just wasting their lives, wasting their youth - and why??? Why?!

I've always felt this in society, in people around me. This sleepiness, this awful stagnation, both intellectual and emotional. It's... it's scary, actually. If they look like this while they're young and are supposed to have energy, how will they look like in a couple of decades, when they're supposed to be gray and old? Will we all be asleep - even more than we are now - forever? Don't we want to be forever young anymore? Doesn't anyone out there dream of freedom, of fulfilling dreams and chasing passions? IS ANYONE ALIVE OUT THERE??

I hope so, because I'm scared. Truly scared. That's not the life I want to have: miserable and cold. Empty. The emptiness scares me more than any other thing. I don't want to carry that feeling with me every second of my life. I would prefer dying right now, while I still feel something burning inside me. Some light, some movement, some hope. Something. Anything. But it's there, and it's fertile and it's growing to be something extraordinary - not some disgusting, poorly paid "I hate this but that's life" kind of job. No, that's not life. That's your life, not mine.

I think it is time to wake up - that's one of my personal goals right now, to ignite the sparkle inside me. Because this is, like all the bad habits, extremely contagious and if you don't fight it off, you'll end up like that. Eternally bored.

I strongly suggest you spend some moments thinking about it.

yours,

millou