November

A typical November, full of anticipation and anxiety. And though all positive, it still keeps me on my toes for hundred million different things, some of which matter a lot, and some - do not at all. I can almost physically feel every other of those thoughts flying around by the autumn wind. Getting philosophical recently.

It is a pre-Christmas syndrome, hard-coded in the consciousness as the time for unforced honesty and harmony with yourself. Time for redemption, letting things go and wholeheartedly asking for something new and light in the upcoming year. It is so conditional, yet so sincere somehow. But in the end, isn't everything sincere to some degree conditional? So back to unanswered questions: long-gone and elementary topics such as our behavioural patterns, post-trauma search for purpose & identity keep coming back and making me uncomfortable. I thought I have done this so many times. 

It is still a vicious circle of unnecessary drama, uncontrollable hormones and extreme dependency on how the surrounding society sees you. Because ultimately, the society, including family and friends, is the one that rates you, accepts or declines your image - without their perception you are ultimately of no importance, if anyone at all. Someone just for oneself that has not passed any validation. Even the individual artists with extreme viewpoints on this are applauded, but aren't they also highly dependent on the view and appreciation of those who gives them the applauses?

It is weird, this validation need, as if knowing on our own whether we are good or bad is not enough. The public resolution is needed to officially exist - this is a fun person, this is an intellectual one. It does not even have to be true, if you are not comfortable with what you are, you just project yourself differently. Afterwards you get used to that new image and stay there, driving the real self to the state of deep irreversible amnesia.

And if you develop this hypothesis a bit further, you land on the concept of the happiness pattern imposed by the society layer on your already validated self. You go after rated achievements, tick the checkpoints, indirectly ask for approval, then do whatever and be happy with it. Because your projected image now has to live the life the society has framed around it. Whether you want that life or not. If you do - then you scored in this one of the worlds. If not - well. It seems less painful to live through it when you convince yourself this is what you really needed and start enjoying it at its full. It is a sort of "happiness on autopilot". And it is like a drug.

I think happy are those, who do not know they are addicted. And also those who recognized it on the face and made it through by understanding what really it is they are after. There should be a lot of people who are genuinely happy with no autopilot functionality, but generally that has costed them something precious.

I did not make it through either. I am one of those, that got knocked out of it against my will. And what strikes me is: it really is like Matrix, but the blue pill is morbidly absent. So once I am out, it really is hard to get back in. And it is scary to get back in: the aesthetical self screams, the ethical one wears the judge's wig. (I am Gemini, I am supposed to be bipolar, ok?)
Smells a bit like a teenager.

A typical November, full of anticipation and anxiety.
There is the instinctive feeling of an upcoming closure, pressing on "self-performance review" buttons, out of my volition. But hey, I am gonna cheat on my demons this time and instead of the annual review with me, myself and I on "Achievements and fuck-ups 2017" with the full peer benchmarking exercise, I am gonna pack my backpack, switch on the "lousy globetrotter" mode again and go hiking around Amazon (the real one, with trees) and up to Inca Trail Track. I planned it as a soul-searching adventure, but Ms Paris shook her head in dismay and protested: you haven't lost it! Maybe you got it slightly damaged.

Ms Paris's opinion matters, so I gave in and repositioned: soul-healing venture for saying hello to Inca's old spirits, ayahuasca (maybe) and the mountains - emerald green, serene, ancient. The pagan highlander in me believes that the part of my identity is forever tied to the mountains and the Gods living on their top - the global citizen of 21st century likes to extend the idea of mountains from Caucasus to just "any mountains", as long as they are high, half rocky, half green. So I can keep visiting the Gods on the top...

Elle

After a long walk through Promenade d’Anglais I turn into a park hoping to get a shortcut, but voila – the narrow path leads to a deadlock. When I turn around, I see her. Well, I hear her first, her heels clicking on the ground with quick steps. Then I see her -  une petite madam around 50, with blond hair, dark lipstick, an elegant small black dress and extremely delicate bijoux. She briefly waves at me and asks in French, if there is a way. 

– Desolee, Madam, - I say, mais there is no way out here. - Let’s try around the fountain, she switches to English with the typical French accent and quickly taking the responsibility for me starts leading the way. I notice the blue mascara on her eyelashes and that somehow does not go well with everything else she is. She looks at me and getting back to French asks where I am from. Je suis Armenienne, et mon Francais n’est pas bien. Oh, she continues in French, there are plenty Armenians here, go to any jewelry shop and you can meet them. Her condescending tone makes me feel somewhat awkward not because of being Armenian, but literally because of being. I try to change the topic – Et vous? I ask, you are from Nice?

- Mais non, I am from Paris, mais j’habite ici. Well, I always said we have to live and die somewhere, so I think for me it is Cote d’Azure. It is not the best place, but it is Cote d’Azure, you know? 

Frankly, I don’t. But, of course, I keep that to myself. 

- What is it you dislike about here, Madam? - Oh la la – she says, of course, the mentality, especially for a single woman. It is very hard to live here as a femme célibataire, because if you go around alone, they think you are looking for something. There are always men coming up to me and I say politely – non, partez vous! Mais not everybody understands, so I have to be rude! That is tres-tres tiring. 

I still cannot unsee her blue eyelashes. Somehow that makes her look a little light-minded and girlish.

- ...I lived and worked in Munich for many years, she goes on, life is so different and orderly there. She says something seemingly in German to prove her life in Bavaria to me, but I totally miss it. – Here (characteristic pronunciation of “r”), everything is ad hoc here.  But it is Cote d’Azure – she repeats and gets silent. For a millisecond, I catch a glimpse of her eyes below the blue eyelashes reminiscing about something, she left there in Munich. Or probably, someone?...

We talk a bit more about everything. - Voila, I am going this way now, she says. Make sure you enjoy your stay in Nice: drink wine, go to the beach and don’t pay attention to these men who come by and start talking to you. Say go away, okay?...

I can’t do anything but smile at this little encounters. The ones where in 5 minutes of conversation you get to know a whole life story with exactly as much blanks as it is required for your imagination to build up the character and fill in the missing gaps of their “sujet”. 

The clicking sound of her heels eventually fades in the evening noise of the white city. Enjoy your evening Madam, a bientot...

Angry Randomness

There is a severe icy gap inside, which, now you are certain will never be fulfilled, no matter where you are, what you do and who you are surrounded with. It’s fate, disguised in your character to be as close to you as possible, to smirk when you live through hardships and to be proud when you are somewhere upper your limits.

Yet, you feel like a 16-year-old again, full of mistrust, resentment and hopeless transparency, not even angry, but furious as you refuse to take the fact that what you strive for never exists in this one of the worlds. It is medieval mummer’s farce, where to keep your individuality you need to be faceless and locked inside yourself, and “to be happy” is an expression from childhood fantasy book. It means to experience joy and feel content for a lengthy period of time. That is - almost always.

The system closes on you, blurring your perception of the time waves, and one day you just open your eyes and feel as if half of your life has passed and what you have done is naught: a couple of degrees, some fixed assets, nice family and friends, a beloved one if you are lucky. Yet in an instance people come and go, and the summer rain washes off all the bad memories, like pale milky spots from the window glass. Is this all what you wanted? The molecular dreams and aspirations, fed on stereotypes and common values, which are not to be questioned… ? And even those, who dare break it, are they better, calmer or maybe madder, than you are?

What if all the standard mindset is a madman’s raving? Artificial, skillful and with steady roots deadly embracing your brain? Its grasp is so firm, that you will never doubt it’s the one and only righteousness, you will never detour.

There is something missing in there, something  that makes you feel as if you live in a dream, which goes on from a fairy tale to a nightmare and the vice versa. You just cannot wake up, while the life passes by. The restlessness grows overwhelmingly, and what you stubbornly fight for  (in your dreams?) turns into worthless trifle the second after its yours.

And then what you want is to crawl out of your routine like a cat, turn your face to the sun and absorb its motherly warmth. You want to burn all the worldly mundane from your skin, color your eyelashes with the unbearable lightness of being and drown yourself in peace.

Cuz nothing else is left to make you feel sincerely alive. Nothing else, except for the day’s crimson anger.

The rest is duty.

Welcome back.