turtles rulz

I know I promised to write here every day in the category Idea of the day and I know I didn’t kept my promise. It’s because I started feeling obligation to write and when I feel that kind of pressure I’m not very productive. I may not be writing very often now but at least I do it when I want to do it and there’s no need to hurry up, so I can shape it the way I like it.

Let the muse be with you.

“The earth is not just another planet! It contains one hundred and eleven kings (including, of course, the African kings), seven thousand geographers, nine hundred thousand businessmen, seven-and-a-half million drunkards, three-hundred-eleven million vain men; in other words, about two billion grownups.”

We live in different worlds…

What do you call insane? Then what do you call sane?
There’s a guy from Haskovo about who I am not sure if is constantly drunk or insane. Even when he’s not drunk I don’t think he behaves quite “normally” (whatever normal behaviour means). Some days ago I passed him by in the street and he was talking on the phone (or rather holding the receiver of a street phone). I didn’t hear much but what I heard concerned some “enchanted house in Topolovgrad.” On the next day I met a friend who told me she met another “strange” guy who seemed to talk some incomprehensible things and when she said “goodbye” he approached her and shook her hand, pressing her somewhere between the thumb and the index finger. She told me that after that she felt her hand less stiff and much more relaxed.

I was wondering if there’s some method in the people we call insane. No? How do we know that for sure? And are we sure that they don’t know what they are doing and are the same way as we describe them? Sometimes when you look at them there’s something indescribable (at least to me) that makes them look wise. I think that we can learn something from this “weird” people. Perhaps there is an enchanted house in Topolovgrad and perhaps this guy with the handshake knew what he was doing, only we don’t know it.

And how is insanity defined? Simply by majority. Insanity is what the majority calls that way. What if one (or more) of those “insane” guys tells us that we are insane? It’s not true just because they don’t have the majority, of course. So the only difference is in the number of people supporting the thesis. And is this the right way to treat them? I wish there was a way to look into those people’s heads and see if it’s really the way we think it is - just random, chaotic thoughts, carrying absolutely no meaning. Until then we can never be sure.

I think we treat different people in a similar manner (see Just do it). Yesterday I watched “Man on the moon”. Was the guy different, insane, genius? He played with the crowd. He could make it love him, hate him, laugh at him, anything, and you never (even at the end of the movie) knew if everything was real or just a joke, if he did it intendedly or it just happend that way. Sometimes he behaved madly, sometimes like the most “ordinary” guy. He overthrew the need of set identity and was who he wanted to be. The truth is he loved people and by all of his actions he was actually trying to wake them up. At one point when he was really desperate, he said “I am a bad person.” and his wife replied “You’re not a bad person. You’re a complicated person.”

And are we, the “sane” people, always good people? Do we automatically assume this? I think that our “sanity” has caused much more troubles than the “insanity” of the drunk guy or the guy from Man of the moon.

“The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.“

                                                                                                                    Jim Morrison

I’m tired of people trying to impose something on me. I would walk the corridors in my school and some random guy would just try to attract attention with what he calls his individuality. If you ignore him, he’d grab you by the collar of your jacket and scream his brand new stupidity in your face to see if he’d make an impression. And if you are still not interested or oppose, he’d try to show how uncool you are or just ignore you. Both options work for me as long as he is not screaming for attention anymore.

You’ve probably noticed that most trends are set by people who are in a way… mediocre, by the mass. And why is that? Perhaps because people feel they can do it because they’re a majority but that’s not the only reason at all. In order to win this majority, they have to gain it somehow. The mass is pushy and aggressive and even though they have the majority, they still seem to feel somehow threatened by people with different kind of individuality, so they try to find a way out. They try to make alternative lifestyles look weird, uncool or even dangerous. In a way they try to convince themselves and the others that this is something unnatural, so if you follow it, there must be something wrong. What they try to show is that they don’t care about alternative lifestyles but actually they feel uncomfortable when they face it, or even in a away insecure. I don’t know why. Perhaps they are afraid of changes, so they unconsciously try to make the others like them and have more people on their side. By showing that people wearing sweatshirts aren’t cool and get ridiculed, they hope to find cold comfort when others who still waver here and there start sharing their opinion, probably out of fear of reprisal, social opinion and how it would affect them, etc. That’s what they need to feel stronger and more secure. Another reason is probably that they are afraid of being lonely. It happens when you haven’t grown up yet - you need to be a part of a group and identify with it. That way you feel less lonely.

In Bulgaria we have a lot of chalga clubs, but only a few ones where they play alternative music. Imagine you are a child that is just getting to know the world of music. You either have no opportunity to hear different music or you see that people from unpopular groups are mocked and segragated and you just choose the easiest way out - to be a conformist and become part of the bigger group. The mass is not only satisfied with its own ordinary lifestyles, they want everybody else to become like them, so that their comfort is not disturbed. So they choose attack as the best defence. Nevertheless they boast they’d rather die than live those people’s lives, deep inside themselves, they envy them, because those people are brave enough to choose something different, because they took more advantage of the freedom they are given. This reminds me of a lyrics by A Perfect Circle:

“Freedom of choice is what you’ve got,

freedom from choice is what you want.”

Sad but true. This is also how peer pressure works. You either agree with the group, or you’re an outsider.

It’s sad that sometimes we realize this pressure but perhaps because we don’t feel strong enough we still try to live up to the expectations, because we’re supposed to do what our environment demands. As a friend you are supposed to do this and play that role, as a son/daughter this and that, etc.. we deprive ourselves of our true aspirations and freedom.

I started this post in a radically different way, then I deleted everything (simply because I caught myself again trying to sound in a way that would please everbody’s taste) and I am starting over. Instead of explaining what we do and why, I’ll just say:

Although we’re all connected, we’re all separate individuals with free will. I can’t arrange my life according to everyone’s expectations. After all they contradict and trying to please somebody, will automatically displease somebody else. Every situation is different, so I don’t want any roles ascribed, any moulds to follow. If I do wrong, it’s I who is going to pay. Everyone should do the thing he or she believes to be right. Other’s have the right to have their expectations, I have the right not to please those expectations - it’s their own business. We can’t spare other people all the frustration just because they had different vision of things. Moreover, it doesn’t help them grow up because it puts them in a bubble where everything seems to happen the way they want it to happen.

With this I am not trying to defend inconsiderate and selfish people but to throw away the tiresome burden of always taking into consideration irrelevant things that deprive you of your own life.

“… and if I offended you, I’m sorry, but maybe you need to be offended.” - Oscar Wilde

This was my skype message for a long time and I kind of followed this. With the time I became too delicate and careful not to offend anybody but I realize that sometimes I am not helping by doing this. I should reconsider this thought.

I think that if you truly love something you will not only consume it but create it. If you like football, you won’t just watch it on TV but go out and play. If you love music, you’ll try to create some. You may not be good at doing it but that’s not the point. The point is that you should try to create it and enjoy it even if you don’t have any talent for it. It’s what brings more satisfaction - the fact that you created something on your own.

Last week I made a resolution not to worry about everyday stress but today I caught myself doing the same. So this is what I am going to say to myself everytime I realize it:

Nothing matters if you think it’s that way, everything matters if you think it’s that way.