Ever heard the story of the man, who had cancer and decided to cure himself by talking to it and asking the cancer cells to leave his body. He explained to them that when they kill him, they too shall die, he brought about emotional points of view, scientific evidence, and even presented all the organizations, fighting against cancer to his cancer cells...the results were amazing. The cancer listened and left the man alone. The cancer cells decidd that common sense was better than dying and this was the first ever succesful cancer cure!
Ever heard that story?
NO!
Because it never happened! Because as much as we wish it were true, it was just a dream, and cure is just a chimera to the common folk. Because no matter how you try, your communication with the senseless is futile!
So, imagine this organism, called Earth! It's entire system is infected with deadly virus, called Man! An endlessly gnawing, grazing, killing, destroying, consuming species, that likes to call itself HUMANE! A grotesque, self-proclaimed image of God , completely engulfed by a hunger...and not a biological hunger, but a mutatation, known as power and greed! It's the reason why this virus oversees all the signs, the whispers and the shoves that his host organism sends him! It's the reason why Humanity turns a blind eye to the snapping sound of braking ropes, just before its stronghold of omnipotence falls into oblivion!
I resent you, people! I resent your filthy little habits, ever-unchanging, ever-so-ignorant! I resent your ways and your rules! Your heartlessness, your carelessness! It's because of you, that my son will NOT be able to MUSE at the miracles of the ocean reefs, like his dad did! It's you, why he won't have clean water to drink and will suffer from diseases! It's you, why most the animals I so adore, will be extinct, turned into soups, gravys and exotic dishes, or just carelessly destroyed, while you build your mansions of greed, before my Sami has a chance to see them in the wild! It's YOU, why my son will have to face hunger and poverty, and sickness! Because THIS IS WHAT YOU BRING TO THIS PLANET! YOU VIRUS, YOU LEECH, YOU DISEASE!
With your actions, you bring death!
With your ignorance, you bring death!
With your ways, you bring death!
With your carelessness, you bring death!
With your INACTIVITY, you bring death!
And I only wish your death would bring liberation! But, unfortunately, your death will mean you've grazed away everything there once lived! It will mean that the poor man, who tried to breathe some common sense into his cancer cells....died!
Humanity is cancer!
It's up to you to decide: Are you a benign, or a malignant cell!
So, for Valentine's you all probably expect me to write how this is a corporate bullshit, an artificial holiday, created, so cards, flowers and teddies can be sold and so on...
but instead I'll say: How many holidays are there? Does ANYONE get excited about President's day, Labor day or Martin L. King day? Please! I don't even know why those are called holidays.
What I DO know, however, is that I celebrate LOVE 365 days a year! And today I may just want to mommemorate it by spoiling my loved one a little extra!
(...and I'm so excited, I'm geting spoiled too!)
I Love you, dear alkA! Keep the flame burning through the storms! I'm ALWAYS there to mess things up, but I know how to keep us sheltered too...it's all in the balance, I should hope.
Love is Life! Life is Love! Love is Everything! Everything is Love!
The glory of the moment, when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, when everything seems to be coming to a full circle, when black becomes white again, death gives birth and...Vegas becomes charming.
It was time for a regression to the old excitements. We got a babysitter for the night and went for a walk on the Las Vegas strip. And for the first time after all these years, we could look at the fake Paris, Egypt, Venice and Ancient Rome with grace and forgivness. I've always known that I've healed from a fall when I'm ready to laugh about it. Thankfully, I think soon I might be able to laugh about the past misery.
The dance of the Bellagio fountains, to the glorious "Time to Say Goodbye" was the first majestic sensation we felt about this city. We were in awe and this hypnotic state lasted for all these years. A spiritual experience in the heart of the city, built SOLELY on the idea of making money, may have just been the right lure to keep us here this long. But now, that the snake is ready to let go of its tail, the sight of the fountains, though still pretty, was a mere attraction.
The year of the Rat...the BAD year is coming to an end! The year of the Tiger begins! Time to sharpen our teeth and get out of the gutter.
So, after a nice walk, we finished the night off with some fine friends: drinking, eating, telling jokes and laughing...the Bulgarian way! Delving back into the basics sometimes brings the most joy to life!
The final season of the Office is upon us; the LOST show ends; Alex has a job as a psychologist; Sami is walking and "talking"; we have a neat house, perfectly convenient and with a separate room, just for him; I finally feel respected at work, I nearly fulfilled my lifelog dream to have every CD I've ever wanted, so...it's time to move on, or we'll get too comfortable and die here...
This is the destiny, my friends, the destiny of the Two Emigrants...and a Native!
There was an unusual sound as I emptied my mailbox, full of junkmail...you know...coupons for things you don't need, ads for stores you don't shop at and letters from people, you've never heard of, addressed to Styanao Staniaeauvou, or Stoyan Staneva, or to Alekxsandia Stanout.
But, as I pulled those poor dead trees, just so I can transfer them back into my recycling bin, I heard a nice clinging sound. "A key?...Noo, we haven't ordered anything recently. We're trying to get rid of things." But soon enough, before I know it, my fingers had turned the key into the parcell mail inbox and there I heard the sound they play in movies, when the good guy finds the gold treasury, or the room of the harem. I know that sound distinctly, because that's the sound our fridge used to make, every time after I got back to my parents' home after a couple of months of college, where the only sound my fridge had been making was an echo...
There was a big box there! And it was addressed to me! A present? Something Alex didn't tell me about? But the big sticker on it said "Polska". And then all I had to do was look at the writing. I felt such a wonderful jolt of enrgy going through my body! Such an exciting breath of air! It was from my highschool friend, now known as Mr.P.Stankov, PhD.
I got home and left the box on the kitchen counter. A little trick, my cousine had taught me back in the old times, when receiving a package in Bulgaria was like a holiday for me. You want to know what's in it, but you wait! You walk the dog, you change, get a beer and sit comfortably on the couch. Then, armed with scissors and a knife, you carefully open the box, without rushing or tearing anything. Slowly, corner by corner, tape by tape. And in the end, it's ready...
The first thing I saw, when I lifted the lid was the letter! And who, other than the afore mentioned people from the junk-mail factory, writes LETTERS there days?
When was the last time you sat down, pulled a sheet of paper and started writing anyone a letter?
Well, there it was: "Dear Tyana!" He saw an Operation Ivy t-shirt and got it for me! I mean, I live in the land of abundance and Dr.P found a gift for me, that I needed so badly: a friends love!
So, my dear friend, a lesson learned! Next time I want to show someone how much they mean to me, I'll write them a REAL letter and I'll let them know they're still in my heart!
Remember when you got your iPod? How happy you must have been? All my music in one place! How often, I wonder, do we succumb to the pressures of social standards? Don't we work, eat, drink, get married and make babies, just because of social standards? And who set those standards for us? Do you think it was someone thoughtful, idealistic, or was it just the herd - the masses that built their own jail, a trench dug out by the hooves of the sheep, marching before us. And as the years passed, the groove was getting deeper, as the walls were getting higher, until we no longer could see what was going on around us...let alone - escape.
Why do I need an iPod? Why do I need an iPhone? Because...everybody has them. Because, as I walked into work two years ago!, with my CDwalkman, my co-workers said Get in the 21st century, man! So, since I didn't want an iPod, and the ridiculous $200-300 price tag just didn't cut it for me, I was ridiculed, because I had chosen tostay old-fashioned and listen to my CDs. Then my cell-phone company GAVE me a phone that could play music. So, I kept my $300.
But what about all the rest of the "necessities"? You NEED a flat-screen TV, then you NEED cable TV, you NEED to pay extra for the HBO, the sports channels, the other movie channels...just so you can keep your hypnotized pretty face on the eye-magnet.
I'm guilty, oh, yes I'm guilty still of selling my soul for this material nonsence. As me and alkA look around the house these days, we realize how much LIFE we've wasted, buying THINGS. Life, we've sold, so we could make money, so we could buy things we don't need. And we're lucky, cause we grew up in Bulgaria. We know what it's like to live with next to no material possessions. One pair of jeans, two pairs of shoes and one new t-shirt per year, even if it had to say "I piss on everyone" on it. I used to wear my PizzaHut uniform t-shirt to my band's shows - yes, as a mock, but also, because I didn't care. As skaters we used to buy used skateboards, and second-hand t-shirts, worn out, torn and faded. And we were happier than ever!
So, how about Americans? I was stunned to see how some people couldn't make ends meet with a salary, which is enough for my parents to live a month! (Oh, and by the way they eat and drink as much as their bodies allow them. No, they're not starving at all.) And I saw it then, just as I see it today. Americans NEED the cable TV, the ridiculous car payment, the insane phone bill with 3G internet and applications, the monthly payments of INTEREST ONLY on the credit card debt, not to mention the mortgage for their castles, full of empty rooms, that they forget they've set up as a gym years ago, while the 24 Hour Fitness still sucks up money out of their account every month. What's even better - they don't even go to the gym. And if only it stopped there. Then they need an X-Box, a PlayStataionIII, a Wii, the newest iPhone, the biggest soda and the newest movie. But they don't wanna just rent it. They BUY it! Sometimes I think Bulgarians eat better than Americans, because they can afford it.
Ever wonder why Americans LOVE TO WORK? From early childhood! They start at 13! At that age I was riding my bike all over town, skateboarding and singing around a campfire with my friends. I'll do the best that I can, so as my son will be doing the same, rather than selling burgers with fries to angry overweight assholes.
I've written it before in "Trading a TV for a Fireplace" and I'll mention it here. Nothing beats a night without a TV! You can look your spouse, friend, lover, your parents or kids, or yourself in the eye and experience so much more, than you would, watching the re-runs of Spider Man (America's favorite movie).
Well, what about our spiritual life? The iron grip of organized religion, the churches, the believes, (the donations)...what room do they leave us to experience the nirvana of self-realization, self-observance and a higher state of consciousness?
The social pressures of the herd, my friends, have changed our subconsciousness into a mantra-chanting mechanism of obedience and guilt. What's strange is that sometimes freedom is just a glimpse away, but it's hard to see through the glass-walls, because you don't believe you deserve what you see.
Addendum:
Ever wonder why your PC got too slow? Ever watch the Mac Vs. PC witty commersials? If you own an iPod, press Ctrl, Alt and Delete on your computer, go to Processes and see with how many iPrograms your computer is constantly jammed! Even though you haven't plugged the iPod in for weeks! Seems like your iPod infected your PC. I think you may NEED a new computer, this one's too slow!
The monsters of the dark were already creeping out of the shades. Chains were clinging, dogs - barking from behind the fences. The full moon enchanted the entire landscape with its smothered, dim luster. Night was enfolding the valley and of the sunlit, warm day just the memory reminisced. Cold, cold air penetrated the clothes and lungs of the unfortunate souls that were too late with finding the right path home.
In the deepest of the night, sometime around 6:15pm, a father and son were bravely walking through their mid-class, mid-range, mid-western, pedestrian-friendly, pet-friendly, sport-friendly, gay-friendly, race-friendly, senior-friendly, happy-smile-friendly, bamboo-fence-NON-friendly neighborhood.
The kid - a boy - appeared to be 14.5 months old and from the way he was hugging his daddy, he was either scared of his first official walk in the dark, or he really loved his "old man". Just in favor of the story we'll assume the second option. The kid had a huge hat on his head, obviously his dad's, which read "Poison the Well" (must be a punk-band name or something), which tells us that he probably couldn't stand tight hats, and preferred something loose, that could fit over the hood, so he wouldn't notice it so much.
And through the dark park they walked, in their economy-friendly community, until at once the lights of the city gave a whole new meaning to the picture! One could just tell the enormous weight that was lifted off the shoulders of the kid as they reached the street with all its traffic lights, and the cars passing by! From the tiny little mouth an endless flow of word-like, sentence-like compositions of excitement poured with no rest!
The grocery store was but 4 more minutes away and the loving little boy wanted to walk by himself now. He started struggling with the dad (who must have known that once let on the ground, there's no picking up, which would have meant hours till they reach the dark again!) and the dad fought back, trying to buy himself some time. Alas, the dad gave up and thus started the ten-minute attempts to walk the last 10 meters [ 30 feet ;) ] to the store. There was shuffling, changing in directions, refusals of hand-holding and tantrums, following every attempt of the dad to guide the kid into the store. Only through the means of brute force did the father manage to do his movie-renting and rapidly left the store, to make sure they reached the dark soon enough, before he would have lost his hearing.
And there they were - a father and a son - walking through the darkness, hugging like there's no tomorrow in the pure silence of the night, quickly approaching home…
My life is awesome and i sucks at the same time!
I have an amazing family and no chance to appreciate it, because I concentrate on the problems instead.
I have all the music and no time to listen to it!
I make tons of money and it's not even enough to cover my bills!
I only work a little bit and I still hate it!
I have a dog that skateboards and I have to clean every day because of her.
I have tons of friends and no one to have a beer with!
I have all the skateboards I've ever dreamt of, but I have to leave them behind...in the past.
I have a TV but nothing to watch!
I have inspiration, but I'm too tired to write.
I have a home but I can't afford it.
I have it all! And I am nowhere.
There's one thing and one thing only that I have and wish to keep forever, even if you want to take all else from me: my family, my love! With this alone...I'm satisfied. All else is vanity!
So, you probably know that Sami's walking now. Heard the news? Well, not only s he walking, but he's all over the place! I mean he gets mad if you pick him up these days.and finds it perfectly normal to go and pull strangers' cell-phones, wave at girls and window-shop by slamming on the window with both hands. But if you stop him - he shows you his disapproval of your action by a three second pause (while he takes a deeeeep, deeeeeep breath) and then: "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgh".
A late bloomer, some would say. It took him a while to start walking. I mean, he was almost 14 months. Well, first of all, I feel like it still was a bit early. I could have used a couple more months of the "serenity" of just carrying him around or using the stroller. Gone are the days.
And second of all, give him a break. He's a boy after all, you and I both know that us, boys are slower than girls. Not only do we grow up later, (like at thirty-or-so) but we live shorter too. Gosh darn it! (I felt like I might be swearing a bit too much, so how about a "Gosh darn it" here and there) Did WE get the short end of the deal!
But anyway...so, Vegas was dark and gloomy, like it moved to the UK or something, in the past week, and it rained like 200 inches of rain, and people drowned in the puddles and got into all kinds of car-accidents ('cause in Vegas if it rains, it means on every cross-light, there's gonna be some new accident, as people just don't know what this water is, coming from the sky and forget how to drive), so it was no good for walking. And us, Bulgarians, we love to walk. Could it be because most of us grew up without cars and it's just an old habit, or because you can actually go to the food-store downstairs instead of drive to it for ten minutes, just to buy an egg, I don't know. But our addiction to walking made us go to the mall, where we can pretend like we're in a normal city and there are people on the street.
Not only does Sami forget all about us and goes to hit on girls, when we let him go, but when it's time for food he still won't sit in the stroller!
So, what follows is a smart advice to all parents, who have pissed their kid off, by trying to make him sit down to eat: People, for god's sake, if you like your clothes, don't give the enraged kid beets!!! Bloody red spit was flying all over the mall, sticking like flies on a shit all over my favorite t-shirt! Arms were waving, spoonfuls of beet puree hitting the innocent passer-bys until all of the bloody healthy food was gone.
Oh, and one more advice - blackberry puree for dessert - same thing! At least he liked it, so I didn't have to eat it off of my clothes.
Now is the time to see if any detergent company might be interested in advertizing with me, because we went home and I used...guess what...floor-cleaning solution to get the stains out! And hell yeah, it worked! So, if anybody wants to make some money, let me know, I'll advertise your product with the "before" and "after" pictures of my shirt and you win! I'll do the washing. No stains remain! But still, I'll be damned if I feed him beets again when all he wants is a cell-phone!
I'll never forget how miserable I felt, when during a philosophy lecture, the professor told us:
"The tragedy of the human life is that from the many possible ways, we are only able to choose one!"
And then I knew it. I was young then, but in the end I'd turn around and wonder what would have been hiding behind the corners I never turned? How could I ever escape getting trapped into mundaneness and losing the chance to encounter even my crossroads. So, leaving for the US seemed like a good opportunity...and all the joy and tears of blood that we cried here were all justified, in part, because we had taken the exciting part of the crossroad - we didn't stay behind.
But why did it have to take us six years, to finally wake up and see that we've taken the dead end street? Or in this labyrinth of life, are they all dead end streets? This would make the human drama even more devastating - Of all the ways one could walk in his life, he always chooses the dead-end street!
As Alex texted me today, while I was carrying somebody else's dirty dishes to the back of the restaurant - "I'm sick of the fact that All of my nights are the same! They never used to be the same before!"
And then it hit me: We've never really had the choice, have we? We were preconditioned since the day we were born! The path, with some rare exceptions is already drawn. Just the players change - the game is the same. As kids, we follow whatever path our parents tell us to. As teenagers we live the very few years of relative freedom, and then it's over. We go to work and provide. Provide the basics. The shit we can't live without. The food, the roof, the air...
So, the new drama of the human life really should be defined as: You have many choices where you will sell your life, but once you do, all you MAY get in return are a few years of weakness, aches and thoughts of death.
So, this is the really good deal we've got ourselves as a society. Makes perfect sense, huh!
The realizations about one's self may as well be the toughest judgment a person ever has to endure. For it's always our friends that want to protect us from detrimental thoughts, forming a comfy cushion of self-value around us. But when you come face to face with the mirror and take off the mask, the face you see is relentlessly real and honest. It's your SELF - the side you may try to hide from others, the side you hide from yourself, the side you know is there.
So, as I face the mirror, trying to see who I've become, what I've become, I see a skeleton. A chewed up bone of what I used to be. The more I delve into the past, the more flesh and bone I find, long ago discarded and abolished, so I can be my light new self. I've stripped "living" into a mere "being" and my new aerodynamic form has defeated all resistance. Be it thinking, talking or making decisions, I have given up. And it's awfully hard to move those rudimentary limbs again.
My brain has become rudimentary. Do you know how beautiful and eloquent my speech about the restaurant's menu is? I have polished and shaped it up to perfection, so I'll fucking sell you the most expensive stuff that I've never even tasted! (remember, I am vegetarian, selling meat to carnivores) I'll tell you how it's my favorite and I'll make you spend the extra $5, so I can hope for an extra $1 of tip in my pocket.
All this is well, you might say. It's a craft, it's almost an art. And I agree. The art of legal stealing is a beautiful one. I've mastered it completely and now like a leech I suck out the rest of your budget, designated to satisfy your gluttony.
But the cost is this...I can't even remember the words I used to know when I studied in college, when I studied for SAT, the beautiful, meaningful, rare and sophisticated words that mean more than names to the physical world. Here I am, struggling to dig out my long lost vocabulary, buried in piles and piles of shit and every-day talk, so that what you read doesn't sound like the menu of a fine-dining machine for stealing cash and eating flesh. And, believe you me, it's hard to move those brain cells again, for while I’ve been selling flesh to strangers, I seem to have sold my own for a couple of extra dollars. Just because I thought money was more important than youth, development and wit. Let's see if I'll be able to buy them back now...with the last of my savings.
During the moments of awakening and enlightenment I feel so full of live! So ready to bite from the juicy apple of knowledge and let it soak through my body. I know at times like this that I am truly living and that there’s no going back to yesterday.
But sometimes I don’t bite right away and like to play with the fresh fruit. I toss it around or just set it aside, so I can admire its shiny surface…until I take too long. And I never seem to remember, that the moment I don’t take that bite, that very instant, the four worms set in. They start from the core and keep the fruit looking attractive on the outside, even though it’s already rotten inside. The worms have their names: Time; Doubt; Fear and Lazy. They clear my head of all ideas, inject the sweetness of the rotten syrup and put me to sleep until the next time something shakes me. I would like to say that the juice of all the nourishment has enriched my soil, to give birth to the next great apple tree, but the truth is that next time there may not be seeds left to flourish. And I may not know it for a while. And when I realize it, it may be too late.
So, I realized today that this pleasure delaying strategy won’t work for long, before I’m utterly shut within my own worm-trap.
There’s no more time to wait. The time has come…for a freezing cold shower!
