Some Music

My childhood cassette compilations from 5000Volt at Krinis Square. At friend's houses from an Mk2 stylus. In a bed at the corner of a room, with my head to the East, from a small Sony Discman. In night shifts in Suda Bay, guarding a gate, looking at the boats leaving for Piraeus, holding an M1 Garand rifle and having an en block clip in the pocket. Downloads from LimeWire and Pirate Bay. Concerts with or without ticket. Vinyls from Vangelis and CDs from Zacharias in Monastiraki. Spendin my first salary, every month on Metropolis and Happening. Morning cleaning at the Orange Bar with requests to the DJ. In the darkest hours when life seemed so hard to take and in the times of happiness and glory when all energy had to be released. This is my music. I know every single word of these songs, in every language, every meaning hidden or not, every breath the artist takes before start singing, every single beating of the drum, every touch of the pick in the guitar chords. This is music tattooed on my brain, that will never leave me and no one will ever take from me.

It's here

Small thought #2

They say that time heals all wounds. Only the physical ones I believe and not always. The wounds in your soul stay there forever. They just don't cause you pain anymore.

Time, though, is useful for another reason. It helps you see the situations you experienced from a different point of view. It's like putting a puzzle together and you find pieces that they were hidden. They were always in front of you, really. You never seen them. And with time you do. And you have a clear picture. A real picture. The truth. And truth sets you free.

Fellaini

Ever let your hair grow long? For some time you look like Marouane Fellaini. There's nothing you can do to make your hair look nice. Then after a while they are the right length and they start look nice. That's my case right now. I feel like I'm in a cocoon, ready to transform, from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Losing so much weight makes my body look weird. My shirts start to look so big on me, my pants are falling down, a double chin is more visible now, but is mostly skin and not fat and I look like I have a hole on each side of my belly.

The same happens inside me. I'm changing every day more and more. I am in good mood, laugh more, connect with people more. I still have moments of depression or nostalgia, I am getting sad with the behaviour of some people, but I keep pushing myself forward thinking two sentences. There's a reasoning behind every action. Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself. I'll be totally free and fly soon, I think. Discipline and consistency.

Some Greek...

I was reading yesterday some statements of Sokratis Papastathopoulos on the "Metro" newspaper. He was talking about Luiz. Amongst others he mentioned that Luiz could speak some Greek. All the Greeks know what it means that a foreigner speaks some Greek: Malaka, Pousti, Kalimera, ti kaneis, souvlaki, mousaka. In the case of Luiz could be: "Kane pasa, re malaka."

Bristol

I went to Bristol today to meet a friend. It was a lovely, warm sunny day. I should have taken my sunglasses with me. And I finally seen Banksy's "Girl with the pierced eardrum". It's beautiful. It really is.

Small thought #1

How beautiful and how much time and effort it takes when two people, meet, get to know and become confident with each other, share their small stories, spent endless moments together, fell in love and act as one person.

How ugly and how quick these two people demolish all this.

Andreas

I'll share a small and weird but true story. While on the Navy for my obligatory  duty, I met this guy, Andreas. He was an ok, smily person. By birth, his body was asymmetrical. Left side limps were smaller than the right ones. He was wearing size 42 boot on one leg and 45 on the other. The Navy released him on the recruitment day, on medical reasons. But his father insisted Andreas to be recruited because it would be a disgrace for a Cretan not to serve his homeland. After a lot of pressure, including politicians interference, he joined the Navy, in an assistant role always. Yet he was proud to wear his uniform. He was also proud for his life before the Navy. He was a sailor in a boat of a big Cretan company, those who carry thousands of tourists from mainland Greece to Crete. He has worked for a while in a boat of the company that was in the route of Patra to Ancona as well. I saw tens of times his black and white photos from his time in Venezia and while on duty on the boat. I could tell hundreds of funny stories from Andreas.

It was a Sunday morning, exactly five years after I finish my duty in the Navy. I called my friends to meet for a coffee to celebrate, in a way, that event. I stopped in a kiosk to buy cigarettes. I don't know why, but I bought a newspaper as well. Coffee time in Greece means you meet around a table and chat for hours about politics and football and you gossiping about those not present. I opened the newspaper at some point. Read the sports pages and then just turned the pages randomly. I read the title of a small article in the inside pages. "Sailor finds tragic death after falling from a great height". It was Andreas who fell from the funnel of the same boat that he was always telling us about.

Clans

Have you ever played "Clash of clans"? I'll give a quick description for those who haven't. It's this game that you start from zero and you build walls and buildings and upgrade them and create an army and fight with others, trying to destroy what they built. Then you become a member of a clan. And you go to clan war.

Isn't life like this? You start from zero and you grow, you built your life, you own more and more material stuff, you become a fan of a football team, you believe in a religion, you follow a political ideology. You make friends and your friends are like you most of the times and you are all look like members of a clan. Occasionally, you might go to a form of war with those that are not like you. You might start it or the others will. You want your team to win, you consider heretic anyone who follows another religion, you defend with passion your political views. Humans love to belong to groups. And all those in charge, politicians, religious leaders, the media, the big companies love this more. It gives them power and money. Think about how many times you had an argument or a fight over politics, religion, football, music or whatever. We constantly fight for something, even for the most trivial thing. iOS or Android? Black or white? Oasis or Blur? Capitalism or Communism? Yes or no to death penalty? We always take a side. And only the few earn from this.

I'll tell you what. I'm tired of that. Right now, I feel like I started from zero again. There's a small problem though. I feel like a homeless man, that a house is given to him. The house is huge and filled with the stuff of the previous owner. Can you use the clothes you find inside? Was the previous owner the same size or even gender with you? What will you do? Will you throw everything away and start filling the house again? Will you inspect every item and decide what to keep and what to throw away? Will you keep everything including the identity of the previous owner?

I chose to do the second. And it takes time. And it's hard and difficult. Waking up, opening your mind, leaving habits and beliefs of years behind you, is hard and difficult. But now I know I'm doing the right thing, at last. Cause I see the changes in my life. And as the days passing the changes are faster and faster and faster. And I don't hope for anything anymore, I do the best I can for what I would only hope in the past. And I laugh at myself every time I read on Facebook memories, repeated posts about being "in a good way", that "everything starts now", that "it's reset time" and all those bullshit I was only writing, but never working seriously for.

I still have long way to walk, but I'm happy and proud walking it for real. And I want to give and get love. And I want to share stuff and experiences with everyone. And I want to create. And I want to learn more and more. And I want my house and then my neighborhood and then my city and then the world to be more beautiful and colourful and cooperative. And I'm thankful to the one who triggered all this.

By the way, I deleted "Clash of clans" from my phone. Any suggestions for a game that you create something only?

An open window to the digital world

I feel the need to express myself. I can't draw, I can't sing, I can't create music and definitely can't dance. I really think that I can write. Well, writing in English will be a bit more difficult than writing in my native Greek, but I'll try anyway.

So many things happened the last few months that turned my small world upside down. Bad and good things at the same time. I'm taking control of my life, though, little by little. A small step forward every single day. I consider the need of expression really important to keep going. Yes, there is Facebook that I have a certain audience obviously, but I'm tired of it. And it looks so empty to me the last few months. So I decided that this will be my vault from now on. I can write anything I want and everyone can see it, not just my Facebook friends. I will sometimes post some photos or videos, even though I love doing this on my Instagram account. I consider this as my open window to the digital world.


If you are reading this, my dear unknown, I hope you will be part of this. Read and comment. Participate. Take part in a digital dialogue. Write your views. Share your stories. Welcome.