Ragtag

I always try to find a general topic to center my blog around, because personally, a blog in unison looks more appealing than a ragtag collection of subjects. But apparantly, my brain isn't wired in that way. The most random of subjects pops into my head that makes me want to write something.

Usually, I've always got my iPhone in the immediate area so I can write these impulsive thoughts down, but after mistyping one too many times, I habitually throw my hands up (after I've put the little black delight down) and call the whole thing off.

Still, to give you an idea, here are some of the excerpts from that makeshift-blog:

In the city of dreams,
you get caught up in the schemes
and fall apart in the scenes
- Kevin Rudolf

I'm not who I was at seventeen,
because everytime I walked away,
I left a part of me behind
- Kevin Rudolf

A life told from the posters on her wall. A whole array of carefully and meticulously selected scraps of paper to represent nineteen years worth of living full throttle. Parties that have been visited, movies that have been seen and pictures of friends that once populated an important area of her life. Maybe they're still there, or maybe they've made room for new posters on the wall. What does she see when she looks at them?
Does she see a life well-lived or does she see nothing but missed opportunities and shattered expectations?


It's almost July, which means Summer isn't too far off. A time of -hopefully- undisturbed and unconditional peace followed by hours of around the clock doing nothing. Careless, carefree, care-ridden. It's also the perfect time to get reaquanted with forgotten treasures in your game collection. My hidden gem is 2K's BioShock, a wonderfully disturbing tale of a man who tried to create Utopia, but saw his dreams submerged by greed and corruption.

For the ignorant among us, BioShock takes place in 1960, one year after a civil war decimated Rapture, a secret underwater city founded by Andrew Ryan. The city was founded as a means to escape from the treacherous and parasitic powers that ruled across the mainland. Rapture became a beacon for freedom and independence, a world without morals, without constraints. A world where man was his own boss, a world where man didn't have to answer to anyone. Ryan's dream started out quite admirably, but he saw his ideals of a free world crushed when he discovered the greed that ran amongst the elite that populated his city. After the discovery of ADAM, a substance capable of rewriting the human genome and granting superhuman abilities, the city fell into chaos. A year later, Jack stumbles across the decaying city. That's where the game begins.

For those familiar with the game, there are those memorable moments in the game that you will always remember. Such as the first time you inject yourself with an ADAM syringe or the first time you choose to attack a Big Daddy and subsequently harvest/rescue a Little Girl.

The holidays offer a vast gallery of opportunities; from making money to fusing your ass to the couch with a remote control in one hand and a can of Red Bull in the other. As for me, July means work, work, work. I've been hired to watch children in a company day care center for one whole month. The job interview went something like this:

She: "Have you ever worked for us before?"
I: "No."
She: "Do you have a degree in first aid?"
I: "No."
She: "Do you have any experience with working with children?"
I: "Euhm, no."
She: "Okay, we'll let you know by the end of April."

Three hours later...

She: "We didn't want to keep you waiting any longer: you've got the job!"
I: "Huh? I mean, thanks!"

And that's how I got the job. Don't ask me how I'm going to get through those four weeks of juggling kids around, but I'll definitely keep you posted! First day's coming up this Thursday, so stay tuned as I corrupt Belgium's newest generation of kids!

Forever and almost always

High School Graduation. Many see it as the end of an era and the start of the rest of their life. For some, this will be the best years they will ever have, and for others it will be the starting point for theirs. But a choice has been made. One that either carries you further away from your friends or one that keeps you together. Either way, the time has come to leave high school and jumpstart the future.

When the goodbyes are said, that's when suspension of disbelief takes over. The KIT's are thrown around as if they were candy and the promises of "We'll be friends forever" are made with the best intentions, I'm sure, but that won't stop them from breaking their promise later on.

During those six wonderful/so-so/dreadful years of high school, we make friends and we forge relationships with others we think are going to last a lifetime. We believe too greedily in the concept of happily ever after or friends forever. It's curious to think that nobody ever says "We're going to be friends for years", no, they almost always say "We'll be friends forever". Such notions of timelessness and infinity are used too carelessly even though we know the value of those words is priceless. To think of an everlasting friendship or an everlasting love is intoxicating, which explains why so few people choose to say what they really mean, e.g. a love that only lasts as long as two people allow.

At some point, we all think it, but we never say it: "Friendships aren't built to last". Something inevitable, fate perhaps, always creeps in and robs us from our expectations. When two people have been together for many years, there will always be cracks in the relationship. Moments of deceit, jealousy, sex, hatred, envy, love, promiscuity, happiness, pain, sorrow, ... and these moments never seize to have an impact on both parties. Some relationships will have the power or the resilience to bounce back from such tragedies or heartheaches. Others will find their doom in such moments.

After the initial blowout that has shattered the bond between two people into a million pieces, you have two options:

1. You can either try to mend the pieces in an attempt to revive the relationship, knowing it will never be the same
2. Or you can try to walk away from the debris, erasing all traces of the existence of said bond and move on.

Neither one of these options is bulletproof however, as one can never anticipate the reactions of another. If you're lucky, you're able to resuscitate the relationship and you will come fairly close to the one you had before, but not quite. If you're unlucky, that person is forever lost to you. The only thing that can save you now, is time. Just wait it out and hope that you two will one day meet again and your lives become entangled once more.

But there's no need to despair. There are billions of people in this world, billions of possible relationships. As one door closes, another one opens. Who knows, maybe one of them has the potential of infinity and maybe he/she will make you want to be the best that you can be. And over time, all thoughts of past troubles will be forgotten and you can start anew.

In a way, friendships are like cities. As a city persists on changing, so do friendships. With each passing day, the cityscape alters, making every day impossible to predict and unable to push back the tides of change. Some buildings are torn down to make way for new ones and others who have been there for ages, are being renovated to better fit into the urban mosaic. And for as long as cities shall stand, so too will friendships.

Short story

What follows is a little story I've begun to write, don't expect too much of it, knowing me, I'll just get stuck after two or three pages, but I thought I owed it to myself to publish at least something of what I've written, besides these blogs. So I hope you enjoy it and fingers crossed, it might just have a proper ending!


"Now you have all the time in the world"
 These days advertisements were everywhere. We thought we had it bad in the early days when it was just Internet that was flooded with spam and e-advertisement. Now, the whole world was wrapped into one commercial. Phones, cinemas, traffic lights, building exteriors, rooftops, airplanes, the works. But all ads of food, drinks and movies paled in the sight of the Tempus Enterprise wall-to-wall ads.
It was around ten years ago that scientists cracked the code to the space-time continuum. It began as a military application, like so many other technologies, but after it became clear that the enemy had developed similar technologies, they decided time-travel based warfare was futile, since the other side had the same power over time. Every move could be anticipated and negated by each other’s action. So the idea was quickly abandoned and siphoned through to the corporate world.
After the patent was thrown up for sale, Tempus Enterprise was formed out of three competing companies who decided it was more profitable to cooperate than to allow a single company to gain a monopoly. One year later TE launched Personal Time, an over-the-counter time travel device. Of course, this early prototype didn’t have the capacities that the new model has, but it was enough for now to please a desperate crowd. After all, who wouldn’t want a chance to do things over, to correct past mistakes?
The first model allowed the wearer to go back ten seconds and the same amount to go forward. However small this timeframe was, it was enough to keep the crowds pleased for at least three years, during which Tempus Enterprise continued to expand its grasp on the fabric of time. Because of the high price of Personal Time - it had a six-digit number - not that many people profited from this.
Tempus Enterprise knew this and in order to avoid cheaper knock-offs they launched Me-Time, with its catchphrase “Now you have all the time in the world”. But because of the large number of people who would be causing discrepancies in time, the PERL code was established. PERL stood for Paradoxal Elimination and Rectification Licentiate. In short, in guaranteed that all paradoxes were nullified and that any time distortions were to be corrected by Me-Time’s artificial intelligence. The world however, didn’t really care about that. All it wanted to do was control the last bastion that the scientific world had to offer: time itself.
Everywhere in the world people began going backwards and forwards in time. The timeframe was expanded to allow at least ten minutes into the past or future. Time travel on a massive scale definitely had its consequences. Scientists who had designed the PERL code thought they had everything covered, but they didn’t consider the effects of millions of people simultaneously breaking through the fabric of time. Pretty soon, time storms began to form across the world, rips in the fabric of reality where the laws of time and space no longer applied. As time travel continued, the rips widened and multiplied. Soon, across every continent, entire areas were quarantined because of their temporal instability.
The first city to be ravaged by a time storm was Paris. The storm suddenly formed over the Seine and aggressively expanded its borders to encompass the entire French capitol. Three days later, the storm dissipated, but the city was gone. It had been removed from the timeline, as scientists later proclaimed. The storm had shattered the city into billions of pieces and flung it forwards or backwards in time, but either way, it was no longer a part of this present.
Soon governments across the world began to fear similar catastrophes and finances were diverted into the fabrication of barriers capable of withstanding these time storms. But it was too late.

Second Chances

A few days ago I saw "Birth" and it got me thinking about the afterlife. I think at some point, every person has thought about this. What happens to us after we die? But you don't have to be rocket scientist to know that question will never be answered. Still, you have to give credit to the religions of the world, they can practise wishful thinking like nobody else! It's better to have some hope than to have nothing at all, I guess?

Christians believe in extremities: people either go to Hell if they've been bad or they are rewarded for their sainthood and go to Heaven. Muslims also believe in a life post-mortum, but their chances of moving on are delayed until the End of Time. Only after Judgement Day will they be allowed to go to Jannah (Paradise) or Jahannam (Hell). And then there are the religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism who believe in the possibility of reincarnation, a second chance at life, if you will, one that is directionally proportional to the way you've lived your life. Basically: if you've amassed enough good karma you get to be a butterfly or an eagle, if you're bad karma gauge is fuller, then chances are you could come back as a dung beetle.

But then I started thinking about how I imagined life after death. Do I believe in such things? I guess I can relate most to reincarnation because of the beauty and possibility it holds: to be given a second chance at life and to do things differently. I don't think I could live with the absolute idea of Heaven or Hell. Eternal bliss or eternal damnation seem too threatening because of its lack of definitiveness. After all, who or what categorizes what is a benevolent and what is a malicious act? The idea of someone or something lording that kind of power of me is just unbearable.

So that's why reincarnation doesn't sound so bad. It's more probable than trying to undo all of your past mistakes, not to mention cheaper than buying a time machine! Of course, the condition would be to come back as a human or something closely resembling it, otherwise making amends would be quite difficult without the apparatus of speech or a glimpse of humanity. And it would also be necessary to be reincarnated in the same lifespan as the person you want to have a second chance with, no point in apologizing to someone who has died two centuries prior!

Come to think of it, reincarnation seems to be a lot of work with a highly risky and fairly minimal chance of success. Maybe it would be easier to just make the most out of this life and assume it's the only one we're going to get? That way, there's enough time for redemption and we wouldn't have to go through the hassle of dying first to set things right! It'll save the powers that be - if ever they were - a whole lot of trouble!

I guess I have allowed you so much insight into my life that I can safely speak my mind: I don't believe in the presence of a God. I don't believe that there is something or someone that has created the entire universe and everything in it. Because the thing major religions seem to miss is that if their God is so benevolent and loving, why didn't he/she/it create more people in his image? Wouldn't it have made more sense to have five Edens instead of just one? Besides, science has evolved to the point that it has surpassed religion in terms of credibility and validity. We can explain everything ranging from blue skies to the very point of creation, so I think that if there was a God, we would've found some proof of him/her/it by now.

When I was little, I used to look up at the clouds and imagine an entire kingdom high above where everyone who had ever lived went to. A Utopia of golden spoons and rice pudding. Isn't that the cheesy line they're feeding kids these days? But as I grew older I became more interested in explanations rather than fables. My scepticism annihilated my ability to believe in a God. But frankly, I don't regret that. I don't wake up wishing I had someone to believe in. I don't regret not going to church or taking the Lord's name in vain whenever I curse. And when I have kids of my own I won't force religion upon them, if ever they feel the need to pick up a Bible or a Thora, I certainly won't hold that against them. On the contrary, it'd be very brave of them to surrender themselves to a higher power, but just in case, I'll be there, keeping a sceptical eye on them.

After scrolling a bit, I realise I've really delved into the whole "I don't believe in God" subject, so there's no need to indulge myself any further. As an alternative for my ranting, I chose a couple of quotes from famous people with their take on religion:

Abraham Lincoln said the following:
When I do good, I feel good;
when I do bad, I feel bad,
and that is my religion.

Ian McKellen aka Magneto said:
I've often thought the Bible
should have a disclaimer in the front saying
"this is fiction".

Oscar Wilde:
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

And the last one by Sir Richard Francis Burton:
The more I study religions
the more I am convinced
that man never worshipped anything but himself.

A bad-ish review

I hate it when people think they know you. All people can really hope for is to see just a glimpse of one's true self. An attempt to puncture the walls we've erected. These days words like friendship, commitment and love are casually thrown all over the place, their true meaning always alluding us by mere inches. Someone told me that she thought she knew me, but how could she really? How could she be so pretentious to think she knows what I've been through? She believes that just because we played a couple of "I never" games that she thinks she knows someone, well that's just too sad for words. I've known myself for nearly twenty years and even I am discovering new things about me every day. It's hard for me to know where I'm going and if I'm going the right way, but there is one thing I do know: if anybody ought to know me, it really should be me and not some snooty, infantile brat. The things she said to me really struck a nerve somehow, and I'm a little caught of guard by it, after all, she doesn't mean anything to me anymore. But I guess that's just general knowledge: one bad review is enough to cancel out ten great ones. Still, I am me and no matter what she says, her words don't mean anything to me. I know enough about me to know who I am and who I'm not. I can only hope she possesses the same kind of rationality and self-knowledge, but somehow, I highly doubt it. So in the end, the joke's on you, girl.     

Nuclear family

Saturday night, a nice time for diner and a movie. A typical family movie night. Or at least it should've been, but now it's all in ruins. What set of this catastrophe? A simple case of the son outgrowing the father and the father being unable to cope with this life-altering event.

Two and a half years ago I decided to turn my life around. I started a diet and went for a run every day. Over the next twelve months I changed, I became a better person. More importantly, I did it all by myself. While my family was chugging down on potato chips and greasy food, I looked the other way and fought a silent battle with myself.

After a year, my Dad suddenly decided he should follow in my footsteps and he began to run too. It almost instantly guaranteed a disaster. From the start he accused me of running too fast, of not considering him. But what was I supposed to do? I spent a year forging and sculpting this new physical identity and now he wanted me to throw it all away because he couldn't keep up?

This scenario repeated itself periodically and the fights soon evolved into something so much deeper than father-son competitiveness. After a while he started criticising my friends and telling me what a rotten character I had. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My own father who thinks me cruel and deceiving. Whatever happened to loving your own blood unconditionally?

The year is now 2010, one and a half year later and we've gotten nowhere. Today was just another repetition of an already well-rehearsed battle. I went for a run again, but lately I've been doing those alone. Call me crazy, but I'm not that much of a masochist to put me through so much pain and torture on a regular basis. Suddenly, my Dad decides he wants to come with. I warn him beforehand, saying I'm going to run at my own pace and that I'm going to do my regular route. The mindgames begin by him telling me not to worry and that he'll be able to keep up. Note the ironic tone underneath.

We didn't even make it fifty metres before the first bomb exploded. Seventy metres, a second explosion. And by the time we were around the fourth bend, the equivalent of a nuclear bomb blew up between us. The radiation of that blast would quickly find his way into our house, corrupting everything in its path and ensuring a lasting effect.

Another scar across the family crest.

Another bump on the road to family bliss.

Another psychological devastation of a son at the hands of his father.

I can't say I didn't saw it coming. Ever since I could remember there was this little voice inside of me that said: "Enjoy this happy moment, because there are two tragedies waiting for you thereafter." I've come to realize that whenever something good happens to me, something bad always awaits in the aftermath, cancelling out all of the residual joy.

But what I can't and won't understand is why my Dad would act this way. Why does he try so hard to destroy all that I have built up and try to make me feel bad for something truly wonderful that I've accomplished by myself? Why would he want me to change? Does he really think of me as a lost cause, as someone with a rotten personality? Someone who will never be able to keep his friends or find love?

It's a beautiful Saturday night in Spring. People should be sitting down together and having a great time. Telling stories of how they spent their busy days, laughing at other people's jokes and simply enjoying the company of others. This truly sounds like a wonderful pass-time. Sadly, this won't be the case for me. And maybe not for a long time too. After all, aren't parts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still radioactive to this day and that happened like, what, fifty years ago?

(S)train of thoughts

Tell me what you see

Somehow riding a train feels like fast forwarding through history. The railroad tracks that claw their way from train station to train station, the houses that became our homes pass by in the blink of an eye, gone within nanoseconds. The lives that dwell between those four walls will forever remain a mystery to us. The roads that have carved themselves into the earth act as lifelines, a means by which we can calculate the immense speed at which we pass all of it by. So many beauty goes unseen. So many people go by unknown. Is all of this fast-travel really improving our lives or does it keep us from actually living it? Will getting us faster from A to B ensure that our arrival will be more pleasant, or will it cause us to miss out on so much more? Are all of these improvements for the better or are they what keep us ignorant and scared of interaction? Why are we so disconnected?

Race for yesterday

I often wonder what would happen if one should perpetually cross the date line and therefore never go forward? Always going back to yesterday, never quite to tomorrow. Would it enable that person to erase some of their mistakes? Or will they inevitably make them again? Going back to do it all over again could become quite an addiction I can imagine. After all, our inner neurotic wants nothing if not perfection and absolution. A chance to set things right. But where do we draw the line? Where do we stop editing things and embrace the consequences or even the mistakes that follow? If you could go back to yesterday, would you do it? Or would you come to terms with the past and face tomorrow head on?

Hallmark versus reality

How do you know if you love someone? How do you know they’re the one? And even if, supposedly, you do know for sure, how do we tell them? The words I and Love and You have become so mundane and meaningless it’s hard to figure out when these words are heartfelt or when they are just a poor excuse for a Hallmark card. What is love? There are many types of love: the supreme, cannot live without one another, Shakespearian love which eventually leads to the mutual destruction of the loving parties, an all-consuming love, there’s also the love of friendship, a sensation between friends that transcends them from the plain of amitié and lifts them up higher onto something else, a type of love, but without actually being love. And these two are just the tip of the iceberg, there are thousands of love connections throughout the world. Some we know, some we practice, some we condemn and others we refuse to accept. Some people say love is what makes the world go round, but I always thought gravity and cosmic determination took care of that? So what is people’s obsession with love – or sometimes the lack there of? Is love really what makes it all worthwhile? Millions of people break up and still manage to live happily ever after. People get divorced, become widowers or simply choose to throw their hands up and walk away. Yet they all survive – most of them anyway. So I would hardly say love is what makes the world go round, surely it’s just a pleasant pass-time, is it not? Why do we need love? We’ve got friends, best friends, pets, parents, fuckbuddies, one night stands, prostitutes, chocolate and so many other substitutes for love, so what’s with that four-letter word? Chocolate is a nine-letter word, but I guess less is more, right? Good things come in small packages? So tell me then, why the mansion? Why the Ferrari in the garage? Why the big-ass flat screen TVs? I think it’s time to face facts: love is just a word, concocted by the people who felt the need to define their relationship with another word than just friend. Because nowadays, love can be found anywhere and in a multitude of forms, so the notion of one love per person seems hardly worth it. The greatest love songs are often break-up songs. It is a known fact that broken hearts tend to woo more people than someone who’s gotten his heart’s desire. It’s always easier to start over than to try and fix something that’s broken. Why else do we keep upgrading our cell phones, replacing our old - yet still functioning - computers and buying new clothes because the old ones are torn? Ancient man might have been so cheap as to desperately try to fix each loose hem, but that doesn’t mean we all have to suffer. And what if you can’t sow worth a damn? Are you doomed to live with a flaw, plain out there for all to see? Wouldn’t it be easier to just go out and buy yourself something new? Maybe the same goes for love. Don’t try to fix it if it’s broken, get out there and go find something else! Perhaps it’ll be better than the one you had before, or perhaps not, but that’s why you need to hold on to your receipt, so you can exchange it if you’re not happy thirty days to forty years of marriage after purchase.