Volviendo a casa

Cuando de verdad se quiere, se puede. Sea lo que sea. Abrazado a la autocrítica, no creo en aquello de que uno ande de la mano de la ingenuidad cuando camina por el reino de la creencia y la confianza:

Suppose, for instance, that you are climbing a mountain, and have worked yourself into a position from which the only escape is by a terrible leap. Have faith that you can successfully make it, and your feet are nerved to its accomplishment. But mistrust yourself, and think of all the sweet things you have heard the scientists say of maybes, and you will hesitate so long that, at last, all unstrung and trembling, and launching yourself in a moment of despair, you roll in the abyss. In such a case (and it belongs to an enormous class), the part of wisdom as well as of courage is to believe what is in the line of your needs, for only by such belief is the need fulfilled. Refuse to belive, and you shall indeed be right, for you sharll irretrievably perish. But believe, and again you shall be right, for you shall save yourself. You make one or the other of two possible universes true by your trust or mistrust - both universes having been only maybes, in this particular, before you contributed your act.

"William James, Is life worth living?"

¿Que universo quiero para mí?

Ya es Mayo. Todo Reykjavík está nevado. Estamos en el verano oficial del calendario meteorológico islandés. Los norteños se quejan y piden no ya primavera sino verano a la plomiza bóveda islandesa. Los sureños nos alegramos con la llegada del veraniego invierno. Yo, por mi parte, deseo que el invierno no cese. Recuerdo con una sonrisa en mis labios aquél lejano Noviembre en el que el Sol me saludaba a las 11 de la mañana y se despedía de mí a las 15 de la tarde. Más allá de cohibirme, me infundía una vitalidad inusitada para el invierno boreal. Me ponía límites y aquellos límites me hacían más libre. En aquellas horas de invierno recordaba la olvidada libertad de los estoicos, casada con la creatividad pero nacida de la limitación. Las tímidas horas de Sol me empujaban a salir al bosque a correr: siempre entre las 12 y las 14. Aprovechando la claridad para establecer un diálogo con la naturaleza a través de la alternancia incansable de mis piernas. Cada día. Cuando el Sol se despedía en el anormal Sur-Oeste llegaba el momento de la concentración: sentado en mi mesa rodeado por la oscuridad de la nocturna tarde e iluminado por un tenue foco que apenas me descubría los entresijos de lo que trataba de hallar. Fueron momentos apacibles de lectura, descubrimiento y escritura, precedidos por carreras entre árboles a menos de una decena de grados bajo cero. Cuando mi mente ya no podía más, gastaba mi noche entre copas de cerveza, barbas germánicas y charlas oscilantes entre el sexo, la metafísica del viaje y los deseos de beberse el mundo entero. Cuando mis piernas no me querían llevar al lado de la chispeante rubia, me dirigía con mi bicicleta a la montaña artificial cubierta por un industrial techo al Este de Reykjavík, donde pasaba el resto de la tarde tratando de adaptar mi cuerpo a las paredes extraplomadas y mis manos a los recovecos que trataban de imitar la roca. Al llegar a casa me colgaba de los lóbulos aquellas canciones que el bueno de Bob me susurraba en aquellas oníricas noches en su apartamento. Los "This will destroy you", "Ef", "Explosions in the Sky" y demás tropa me aislaban de las preguntas insistentes e inútiles, dedicadas a la coexistencia, por parte de mis compañeros de piso. Una vez en la seguridad de mi habitación me entregaba a la lectura de London o al disfrute pasajero de algún documental acerca de grandes exploradores polares. Cuando me alcanzaba el sueño la noche me abrazaba y cuando me despedía de él, la noche seguía allí.

Ahora, la luz del Sol empieza a bañar la bahía humeante hacia las 4h de la mañana y se despide de la capital más allá de las 23h de la noche. Mañana y noche dejan de ser usadas como una realidad para pasar a ser una convención. La luz penetra, inmisericorde, los recovecos de las cortinas, y te despierta puntual antes de las 7h. La cantidad de tiempo bajo la luz es ingente. Una vasta expansión de los límites lumínicos y, por añadidura, de la actividad animal - entre la que me encuentro -. Sin embargo, esa misma expansión de la limitación, esa otorgación de libertad acrecienta mi sentimiento de encarcelamiento. Uno tiene todo el día para salir al bosque a correr, todo el día para leer, todo el día para escribir, todo el día para construir el jardín, todo el día para aprender, todo el día para charlar. Tanto tiempo, tantas cosas por hacer, tanta ampliación del horario para no acabar haciendo nada. Uno necesita, ante tan vasta expansión de lo posible, una elevada capacidad para la organización. Una capacidad de la que, asediada por mi incontrolable curiosidad, mi organismo carece totalmente. Me siento como el caminante ante un vasto horizonte sembrado por suaves colinas. ¿Hacia dónde ir? ¿Que ruta seguir? Sabiendo que la afirmación de un camino niega, por definición, el seguimiento de los demás. Limitado a su par de piernas, el viajero sólo puede caminar un camino a la vez.

Los deseos de no perderme entre un océano de actividad me han forzado a forjar una organización que pretende acercarse a la constancia y rigor lacedemónicos. El cuidado de sí mismo a través del deporte, la lectura, la alimentación, la escritura y la financiación de mi proyecto desde mis propias manos a través de la búsqueda y encuentro de un trabajo.

He creído en mí mismo y he andado el camino que deseaba andar. He encontrado un trabajo que me parecía ya imposible de lograr. He convertido la imposibilidad en posibilidad, gracias a la confianza en mí y mis propias manos. Este Martes tengo una entrevista con Ramón Larramendi, un explorador español. Vamos a hablar sobre la posibilidad de convertirme en guía de Tierras Polares, una compañía de expediciones española. Estaré sentado en frente de un hombre que ha recorrido el círculo polar ártico en solitario, que ha atravesado la Antártida, el Ártico e Islandia en invierno, entre muchas otras cosas. Yo y mi experiencia propia frente a un personaje que ha cumplido en sus carnes más de un sueño que yo tenía de pequeño. Convertirme en guía de tal compañía me permitirá ganar dinero mientras viajo por este país y, si todo marcha bien, podré optar a realizar la travesía del Vatnajökull - el glaciar más grande de Europa - con ellos.

Aún recuerdo la nota que escribí en mi libreta de viaje cuando marchaba hacia el Norte con mi bicicleta: "quiero ser guía de tierras polares". Nueve meses más tarde voy a sentarme enfrente del líder de la misma empresa. Ahora entiendo el valor de creer en uno mismo bajo la advertencia de Séneca: "No hay viento favorable para el que no sabe dónde va"

Por supuesto, tengo otra bala en la recámara. No puedo poner todas mis esperanzas económicas en un sueño que aún está por venir. He conseguido otro trabajo en una granja al Sur de Islandia, al lado de la escuela de escalada más importante del país. Otra opción interesante, puesto que en esa aventura no andaré solo: iré acompañado de los ojos lituanos que desean sincronía con los míos. Sin embargo, el Martes se decidirá hacia dónde me lleva mi confianza: granjero o guía. Con todo, el fin es el mismo, mejorarme a través de la actividad. Sea dónde sea. Sea con quién sea.

Estos días he estado absorto en la reflexión sobre el éxito, la felicidad y la consecución sobre lo que uno realmente quiere ser. Siempre he estado rodeado de gente maravillosa: músicos, arquitectos, ingenieros, médicos y deportistas. La palabra "éxito" aparecía camuflada entre las conversaciones acerca de las aspiraciones laborales de mis amigos. Cuando hablábamos del futuro, ellos siempre tenían una posición laboral "de éxito" a la que aferrarse. Yo no tenía nada. Vacío. Un tiempo que no era nada más que argamasa con la que moldear y construir mi futuro. Yo estaba estudiando Filosofía. ¿Que iba a hacer con ello? Encaré mi futuro bajo la misma concepción de éxito que la de la gran mayoría de mis amigos: una respetada posición laboral. Desde la Filosofía ese fin pasaba por dos medios: dejar la carrera y cursar otros estudios más valorados o enfocar mi carrera hacia aquellas posiciones de respeto que los estudios mismos me proporcionaban: convertirme en profesor. Hoy veo que ninguna de esas dos opciones me respeta a mí mismo como sujeto de mi felicidad. Quien me preocupaba no era yo sino lo que los demás debían decir sobre mí mismo: no era mi sonrisa sino la aprobación de mis coetáneos. Ahora me doy cuenta de que no puedo ser bueno en todo, me debo concentrar en algo si deseo ser exitoso en ello. No quiero lograr el éxito de los demás, guiado por su aprobación, quiero lograr mi propio éxito juzgado -soy consciente de que ando en terreno de contradicciones - desde mí mismo. Lo he pensado docenas de veces cada día desde que ando en terrenos norteños: ¿qué me hace realmente feliz? Inmediatamente pienso en aquél valle en el que me crié en mis momentos veraniegos, aquél valle que se tornó en templo: Bujaruelo, en el corazón de los Pirineos. Es entonces cuando me doy cuenta de que, siguiendo la senda del éxito de mis amigos, traiciono lo que llevo dentro del corazón desde pequeño: el contacto con las montañas y la naturaleza cómo forma inevitable de vida feliz. Leo a London, Shackleton, Humboldt, Bonatti y veo un reluciente éxito en ellos. La relación con la naturaleza, con uno mismo, a través del uso de la palabra. Mediar con lo telúrico y expresarlo a través del hilado de vocablos que se refieran a aquella mediación. Un hilado que precisa de formación literaria, filosófica y científica, y de experiencia a través del peñasco, el valle y el río.

Una apuesta arriesgada el confiar en uno mismo y en lo que realmente desea. Ese "terrible leap" del que James nos habla, ese salto en el que debemos confiar para salvarnos. Volver a casa, a nuestra casa, al hogar de lo que deseamos ser y no de lo que se espera o desea que seamos. Mirarnos al espejo y decirnos: y tú, ¿qué quieres? Hacer de nuestro andar nuestro camino. Siguiendo las mismas sendas trilladas que muchos otros han recorrido pero sabiendo que son particularmente nuestras, que las deseamos desde y para nosotros y no de y para los otros. Mis zapatos se encontraban incómodos en el camino que estaban tomando, dejándose llevar por la falta de criterio y crítica hacia un camino que era considerado el normal. Una normalidad que destrozaba mis pies y mi sonrisa. Ahora, con mi corazón en mi hogar, emprendo un nuevo camino en el cuál el horizonte es un nuevo éxito forjado desde mis propios deseos y mi propia concepción de la felicidad. Con una advertencia empiezo mi ruta: para ver qué me depara no hay que esperar, hace falta caminar.

Me quedo aquí

Estudiando para mi examen final de "Filosofía y cine", encerrado en mi habitación me ha dado por buscar en el disco duro del ordenador algunas fotos que me sacaran de casa sin moverme de la silla. Mis dedos me han llevado directos hacia las fotografías que tomé en aquél viaje con bicicleta por el Oeste de Islandia en el ya lejano Julio del pasado año. Un escalofrío me ha recorrido la espalda. Me han vuelto a la cabeza todas las propuestas y los sueños que tuve en aquél viaje. Muy pocos de ellos los he llevado a cabo. Ni tengo más autonomia en las técnicas de montaña, ni me siento cómodo estando solo en la naturaleza, ni escribo mejor, ni soy tan fuerte ni tan ágil cómo desearía, ni he leído todo lo que tenía que leer, ni le he sacado el jugo a esta isla, ni - sobretodo - le he perdido todo el miedo al hospital. La angustia de la pared nívea y de la niebla repentina siguen ahí. Este pedazo de lava en el Atlántico Norte tiene mucho que ofrecerme aún. Estuve viajando el pasado fin de semana por las mismas carreteras que recorrí con el vaivén de mis piernas. ¿Cómo voy a dejar todo esto aquí? Aún no me he acabado de construir con la argamasa boreal. Me queda camino. Me esperan las charlas con los profesores a los que me he acercado, la formación en técnicas de montaña en el grupo de rescate, el intento de acercarse a la música con el ibicenco, las lecturas que me aguardan en la mesa, los relatos que me quedan por escribir con los pies cansados y trillados por rutas recorridas en soledad. Demasiado por vivir. Aún no puedo volver.

Mi montura (y sus 28kg de equipaje) esperando para atacar una de las subidas con bici más duras de mi vida. Allí arriba me esperaban locura, niebla, viento y monólogo conmigo mismo.

La concurrida repetición de lo idéntico // The crowded repetition of the identical

El primer y el último fulgor. Olympus Om 10.

Nada nuevo bajo la luz dominical. El caballo azul iba en segunda línea. Parecía que iba a sobrepasar a los tres musculosos equinos que tenía en su frente. No lo hizo. Cómo siempre. Había vuelto a perder. Cambió de canal y puso un serial mohoso de sobremesa. Los mismos domingos. Semana tras semana. Detrás de aquél mostrador, esperando la llegada de los que querían llenar el depósito, de los que se quejaban del continuo vaivén de los precios, de los que adquirían productos en el día del Señor que habían olvidado el viernes en el supermercado. Todo igual. El tedio amamantado por el batir de las alas de una mosca que busca salida a aquella pecera. El tañir mecánico del reloj de campana que iba tragando los minutos que le faltaban para llegar a casa y seguir batallando por encontrar el fulgor de la ilusión en una televisión mayor. Nada nuevo bajo el Sol de domingo. Escuchó el timbre de la puerta que anunciaba la llegada de la interminable repetición de lo aparentemente diferente. Se paró ante él, suspiró y movió los labios:

• “En breve tiempo crece la dicha de los mortales, pero, de igual forma, cae por tierra zarandeada por el destino inflexible. Seres de un día, ¿qué es uno? ¿qué no es? El hombre es el sueño de una sombra”

• ¿Qué desea?

• ¿No lo ves? ¿No lo tienes claro?

• Disculpe... le juro que no sé de qué me habla.

• ¿Cuál sería tu mejor momento para morir?

• ¿Qué? Verá yo sólo soy el dependiente de esta gasolinera. Si quiere hacer una encuesta deberá esperar a que venga mi jefe.

• No quería empezar tan pronto.

Con un ágil movimiento posó su mano izquierda sobre la rolliza papada del dependiente. Apretando los dedos, tratando de asegurar su tráquea y sus vértebras entre la palma de su mano. Con más calma elevó su mano derecha apuntando al falso techo y con un grácil movimiento de muñeca sacó un afilado punzón de su camisa que sostuvo entre sus dedos. Los ojos del dependiente se posaron sobre la punta metálica de aquél sutil pedazo de metal que podía dar al traste con su apacible languidez. El fulgor le había llegado sin necesidad de cambiar de canal. Posó el extremo metálico del punzón en la arteria izquierda que conectaba el corazón con su cabeza, cansada ya de recorrer los mismos senderos, canal tras canal. Apretó un poco más hacia adentro para poder sentir el latir del corazón en la palma de su mano, a través de ese trozo de metal que ya se iba calentando-

• ¿Y ahora?

• ¿Qué quiere de mí? La llave de la caja está debajo del mostrador. Hoy está casi llena. Lléveselo todo.

• No he venido para eso. El dinero no me hará falta allí dónde dormiré esta noche.

• Si quiere ir a prisión para dormir entre sábanas sólo tiene que darme una paliza, incendiar la gasolinera o algo así... pero no me mate.

• Contéstame. ¿Cuál sería tu mejor momento para morir?

• ¿Qué quiere decir con eso?

• Contéstame. Te aseguro que no derramaré una sola gota de tu sangre con mis manos.

• No sé... cuánto más tarde mejor supongo...

• Nos preocupamos por buscar esos momentos de gloria en nuestra vida. Creyéndonos capaces de ser hasta los creadores de nuestro propio fracaso. De nuestro propio dolor. Y no somos sino hijos de un destino que se nos aparece cruel por su implacable infalibilidad. Lo intentamos todo. Deseamos ser los reyes de nuestro universo y sólo somos los siervos de la imagen que los demás proyectan sobre y de nosotros. ¿Has sido alguna vez tú mismo? Me refiero, ¿te has sentido alguna vez tan absorto que las cuerdas que te atan con ese titiritero se deshilachan y se abrasan hasta tornarse en ceniza? Verás, ¿eres tú quién mueve los hilos de tu vida o son los demás? ¿Eres gobernante o gobernado? Compréndeme. Crecí de la mano de aquellos libros que nos contaban los viajes de aquellos aventureros con densa barba a los que no les importaban las opiniones escépticas y las miradas de recelo de sus coetáneos y, sin prestarles atención, lanzaban su vida al camino. Y son las vidas que han merecido ser recordadas: las que han olvidado que había alguien esperando algo de ellas, que había alguien opinando sobre ellas. Son las únicas vidas que han logrado ser gobernadas por sus amos. Sus amos estaban al mando del navío y degollaban a todos aquellos que pretendían amotinarse en contra de su rumbo. Yo he anhelado ese control en mi mismo, ese deseo inalcanzable de la sombra que jamás habré de proyectar en la crujiente madera de mi velero. He sido demasiado débil y nervioso. Siempre gobernado por las miradas de los demás, los comentarios, el agrado, la condescendencia. He sido un simple grumete en el navío construido por mis propias manos, diseñado por algún otro maestro en los astilleros. Yo he sido el simple ejecutor de una orden venida desde fuera. Ellos lo han controlado todo. La posición de mi cuerpo ante una conversación para tratar de aparentar lo que debería ser; la forma de caminar y vestir, adaptándome a cada momento: melancólico, altanero, boyante o extático, sincronizándolo con los ojos y las orejas de los que me habían de atender; la inclusión repentina en una conversación, tratando de aportar algo brillante e inteligente, tratando de impresionar a mis oyentes más que dejarme absorber por el diálogo; abrir un libro en un bar humeante pretendiendo parecer interesante mientras espero esa cita, mientras mis ojos atienden más a mi pose, a la posición de mis vestimentas, al recorrido del humo por mi tez, al cruce perfecto de mis piernas, atendiendo a una imagen que debía ser impresa en la mente de mi cita, mientras veía ese viejo borracho delante mío, atendiéndose a sí mismo, sin levantar los ojos de su novela y cerrando las orejas a las opiniones colindantes; dejar mis sueños moldearse en las manos de las opiniones de los demás; no parar de mostrar, como un mercader en un rastro, todas mis virtudes a la audiencia, pretendiendo aparentar – a través de la repetición del diálogo memorizado - una solemnidad, una claridad y una agudeza que no era más que la proyección de un sueño de clarividencia nunca cumplido. Dejar mi vida a los demás y dejar que la coman - sin ser ni siquiera conscientes de ello, sin degustar bocado alguno - que la desgarren con los colmillos y que la machaquen con las muelas. Atendiendo siempre a la imagen de mí mismo en lo ajeno, me olvidé de mí, perdido entre las tinieblas de la sincronía con lo otro, olvidando la sincronía conmigo mismo, con mis anhelos y con el gobierno de mi propia vida. Jamás lo conseguí. Y yo quiero conseguirlo, quiero dominar mi vida. Y el dominio y gobierno de la vida pasa inevitablemente por el gobierno y dominio de la muerte. Decidir, al menos por una sola vez en la vida, cuándo y cómo ser, cuándo y cómo vivir, cuándo y cómo morir. Atenderme a mí mismo y finalizar mi vida con un apoteósico fulgor de pólvora y metal. Estar absorto ante algo, al menos por una vez, sin atender a la posición de mi mueca, de las últimas palabras o de mi vestimenta, tratando de poner todo en sincronía con la audiencia. Como un mal actor, por atender demasiado a lo que el público tiene que decir, mira a la cámara. Quiero ser, por un sólo segundo, como un buen actor que, siendo consciente de las cámaras que registran sus movimientos, sabe cómo olvidarse de ellas. Absorto en el papel. Como el aventurero que sabe que tiene toda la opinión de su país en su contra y, sin embargo, atiende sólo al funcionamiento de las velas, las cuerdas y el timón. Absorto en el navegar. Sé que no hay otra forma de lograrlo. Jamás lo conseguiré si no es así. ¿Continuar? ¿Para volver a hundirme en la teatralidad? Prefiero morir, como lo deseaban los atletas olímpicos, en el éxtasis de la gloria, huyendo de esa vejez que no para de recordar, con lágrimas en los ojos, victorias pretéritas. Y prefiero controlar este último compás de esta patética obra. Ya no me importa el público. No sé si están ahí. Para mí el telón ya ha besado el escenario. Sé que lo has hecho. Es normal. Has tocado ese botón. Dentro de poco vendrá la policía. Dentro de poco habrá acabado todo. Antes querría pedirte un favor. Pon tu mano en el bolsillo de mi chaqueta.

• ¿Ahora?

• Sí

• Hay una cosa fría

• Es una pistola, sácala

• ¿Y que hago con ella?

• Mátame

• ¿Qué?

• Si no me matas tendré que hundirte este punzón en la preciosa arteria que te está regando tu postrado cerebro día tras día.

• No puedo hacerlo

• Yo si puedo atravesarte el origen de todo tu dolor

• ¿Y qué pasa conmigo? Iré a la cárcel...

• Defensa propia

• Las cámaras no pensarán lo mismo

No quiso alargar más aquella conversación. Apretó un poco más el aguijón contra el vaso de su cuello. El dependiente reaccionó y sacó la pistola del bolsillo. Temblando y sudando levantó la pistola lentamente hasta encontrar la faz del que sostenía su cuello entre una poderosa mano. Una presión que le obligaba a mirar con el mentón trémulo y erguido la línea entre la pistola y la frente dónde debía dirigirse la bala.

• Hazlo, ahora.

• No puedo

• Te voy a hundir esto hasta las vértebras si no lo haces

• Pero...

• Te doy cinco segundos: cinco, cuatro, tres, dos...

La policía irrumpió en la gasolinera. Entre los cuatro agentes destacaba un joven policía que temblaba blandiendo su pistola entre sus manos. Las ventanas temblaron ante el estallido y todo el mostrador quedó salpicado de esa viscosidad escarlata y gris que baña las entrañas de toda sien. La pistola cayó encima del cristal del mostrador, quebrándolo en esas formas preciosas que recuerdan a una tela de araña tejida en las entrañas del vidrio. Por fin abrazó el fulgor entre el amarillento y repentino estallido. Y lo abrazó en el fondo más profundo y viscoso de su alma. Hubo de hacer más fuerza con la mano, ahora sostenía todo el peso de un cuerpo antes sostenido por eso a lo que llaman alma. Dejó caer al muchacho encima del mostrador y acercó la mano, con el punzón escondido en su palma, hacia su cara. Se limpió la sangre y los pedazos de sesos con el dorso de la mano.

• ¿Pero qué coño has hecho?

El joven policía miró fijamente a los ojos del dependiente, recorridos por una cascada de sangre fresca que se deslizaba por su papada y se acumulaba en la blanca camisa. Una mancha que ampliaba sus horizontes cada vez más al ritmo de ese corazón que parecía que aún seguía latiendo. No escuchó a los gritos de su superior. Cayó sobre sus rodillas y sintió que, la escena lo pedía, debía llorar. Y no pudo. Todo se contuvo en su garganta, quedándose atrapado en las cuencas de sus ojos que recordaban el estallido del percutor en la palma de sus manos. Uno de los policías, tratando de recuperar la calma se dirigió al hombre inmóvil delante del mostrador:

• ¿Se encuentra usted bien señor?

No pudo decir nada. Sólo pudo hablar consigo mismo, en el silencio de su mente. “Todo se vuelve a repetir. Lo escrito, escrito está. No hay nada nuevo bajo el Sol: nacimiento, construcción, alegría, dolor y muerte. Y, ¿todo para qué? ¿Para elevar la vida a categoría de obra de arte y hacer con ella algo bello? Parece lo más conveniente. Y, sin embargo, para hacerlo hay que negar, hay que olvidarse por completo de aquél quién observará la obra . Hay que deshacerse del espectador para crear una obra digna de ser vista, tener en cuenta a la audiencia sólo sirve para sincronizarte con ella. Dejando de tomar poder sobre tu propio universo, tu propia vida, tu propia obra. Siempre lo mismo. ¿Cómo escapar de mí mismo? ¿Cómo escapar de este destino destinado a complacer a los demás? Muerte. Y nada más. Me volví y vi todas las violencias que se hacen debajo del sol; y he aquí las lágrimas de los oprimidos, sin tener quien los consuele; y la fuerza estaba en la mano de sus opresores, y para ellos no había consolador. Ah, ese maldito Eclesiastés otra vez. Vanidad de vanidades, dijo el Predicador; vanidad de vanidades, todo es vanidad. ¿Qué provecho tiene el hombre de todo su trabajo con que se afana debajo del sol? Generación va, y generación viene; mas la tierra siempre permanece. Sale el sol, y se pone el sol, y se apresura a volver al lugar de donde se levanta. El viento tira hacia el sur, y rodea al norte; va girando de continuo, y a sus giros vuelve el viento de nuevo. Los ríos todos van al mar, y el mar no se llena; al lugar de donde los ríos vinieron, allí vuelven para correr de nuevo. Todas las cosas son fatigosas más de lo que el hombre puede expresar; nunca se sacia el ojo de ver, ni el oído de oír. ¿Qué es lo que fue? Lo mismo que será. ¿Qué es lo que ha sido hecho? Lo mismo que se hará; y nada hay nuevo debajo del sol. ¿Hay algo de que se puede decir: He aquí esto es nuevo? Ya fue en los siglos que nos han precedido. No hay memoria de lo que precedió, ni tampoco de lo que sucederá habrá memoria en los que serán después. Y, sin embargo, pretendo seguir teniendo anhelo de originalidad, anhelo de control sobre mí mismo, de olvidar a los que me gobiernan y permanecer absorto en la construcción de mi vida. La vida que merecería ser colgada en la pared de un museo. Merecimiento. Merecedora para los visitantes de ese tétrico museo, cuando yo ya esté muerto. ¿Para qué? Siempre pensando en la mirada de los demás. ¿En qué momento me diluí entre la mirada ajena? ¿Cuando dejé aquél egoísmo necesario para atenderme a mi mismo? Ese cuidado de mí que nunca tuve. Y ahora ya... qué más da.

• Agentes, ¿cuál sería su mejor momento para morir?

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  ENGLISH VERSION

  
  

  

  The first and the last glare. Olympus Om 10.

  Nothing new under the Sunday light. The blue horse was in second line. Seemed likely to exceed the three muscular horses he had in his forehead. He did not. How ever. He had lost again. He changed the channel and putted a boring serial on his TV. The same Sunday. Week after week. Behind one counter, awaiting the arrival of those who wanted to fill the tank, of those which complained of the continued sway of the prices, of those that came to purchase the food on the day of the Lord that they had forgotten at the supermarket on Friday. All the same. The tedium suckled by the flapping wings of a fly that looks out to that tank. The mechanical clock tolling bell that was swallowing the minutes that were missing to get home and still struggling to find the glare of illusion in a larger television. Nothing new under the sun on that Sunday. He heard the door bell announcing the arrival of the seemingly endless repetition of different. She stood before him, he sighed and moved his lips:
  
  - "In short time increases the happiness of mortals, but, likewise, falls to the ground buffeted by the inflexible fate. Beings of a day, what is one? What is not? Man is the dream of a shadow

  - What do you want?

  - Do not you see? Do not you confused?

  - Sorry ... I swear I do not know what you're talking.

  - What would be your best time to die?

  - What? You see I'm just the clerk of this station. If you want to do a survey should expect to come my boss.

  - I did not want to start so soon.
  
  With a quick motion put his left hand on the plump jowls of the dependent. He clenched fingers, trying to secure his windpipe and vertebrae from the palm of his hand. More calmly raised his right hand pointing to the ceiling and with a graceful flick of the wrist took a sharp punch of his shirt he held between his fingers. The eyes of the dependent rested on the metal tip of one subtle piece of metal that could derail its peaceful languor. The glow had come without changing the channel. Posed the metal end of the punch on the left artery connecting the heart with his head, tired of traveling the same paths, channel after channel. He pressed a little more inward to feel the heartbeat in the palm of his hand through that piece of metal and that was heating up step by step.
  
  

  - And now?

  - What you want from me? The key to the box is underneath the counter. Today it is almost full. Take it all.

  - I have not come to that. The money is not useful where I'll need sleep tonight.

  - If you want to go to prison for sleeping between the sheets just beat me up, burn the gas station or something ... but do not kill me.

  - Answer me. What would be your best time to die?

  - What do you mean?

  - Answer me. I certainly will not shed a single drop of your blood with my hands.

  - I do not know ... as later as possible I guess ...

  - We care about looking for those moments of glory in our lives. Thinking ourselves capable of being up to the creators of our own failure. From our own pain. And we are the sons of a destiny that seems to us cruel for his relentless infallibility. We tried everything. We want to be the kings of our universe and we are only servants of the image projected onto others and ourselves. Have you ever been yourself? I mean, have you ever felt so absorbed that the ropes that bind you to the fray and puppeteer scorch to turn into ashes? See, are you who pulls the strings of your life or are the others? Are you a ruler or ruled? Understand me. I grew up in the hands of those books that had the travel of a bearded adventurers who do not care about the skeptical opinions and suspicious glances from his peers and, without paying attention, they threw his life on the road. And it is the lives that have deserved to be remembered: those who have forgotten that there was someone waiting for something from them, that someone was reviewing them. They are the only lives they have managed to be ruled by their masters. Their masters were in command of the ship and behead all those who wanted to mutiny against their course. I have longed for the control of myself, that unattainable desire of the shadow that I shall never projected on the creaking wood of my sailboat. I was too weak and nervous. Always governed by the eyes of others, comments, pleasure, condescension. I have been a mere boy in the ship built by my own hands, designed by another teacher in the shipyards. I have been a simple executor of an order coming from outside. They have controlled everything. The position of my body to a conversation to try to pretend who I should be. The way that you walk and dress, tailored to every moment: melancholy, proud, buoyant or ecstatic, synchronizing it with the eyes and ears that I had to meet. The sudden inclusion in a conversation, trying to make something bright and intelligent, trying to impress my listeners instead to letting me absorb the dialogue. Opening a book in a smoky bar pretending to look interesting while I wait for that appointment, as my eyes servemore like my pose, the position of my clothes, the smoke down my skin, the perfect crossing of my legs, taking an image that should be printed in the mind of my appointment, and then, I watched that old drunk in front of me, without looking up from his novel and closing their ears to the surrounding views, without taking care in which the others will say. Letting my dreams be molded into the hands of others' opinions, not stop to show, as a merchant in a track, all my virtues to the audience, pretending to pretend - through the repetition of a memorized dialogue - a solemnity, a clarity and sharpness that was only the projection of a clairvoyant dream never fulfilled. Let my life and let others eat it - without being even aware of it, without trying one bite - the tear with the teeth and the grind with the teeth. Consistent with the image of myself as others, I forgot myself, lost in the darkness of sync with the other, forgetting myself in sync with my wishes and the government of my own life. Never got it. And I want to get it, being the master of my life. And the dominion and government of life inevitably involves the government and control of death. I've decide, at least once in life, when and how to be, when and how to live, when and how to die. Addressing myself and end my life with a flash of gunpowder and metal. To be lost before something at least once, without regard to the position of my face, the last words or my clothes, without trying to put everything in sync with the audience. Like a bad actor, for attending too much to what the public has to say, look at the camera. I want to be, by one second, as a good actor who, being aware of the cameras that record their movements, he knows how to forget them. Absorbed in the paper. As the adventurer who knows he has the whole view of his country against him, however, serves only the operation of the sails, ropes and rudder. Absorbed in the sailing. I know no other way to go. Never will get if it is not. Continue? To go back to sink into the theatrics? I'd rather die, as they wanted the Olympic athletes in the ecstasy of glory, running away from the old to not remember, with tears in his eyes, wins bygone. And I'd rather handle this last measure of this pathetic work. I do not mind the public. I do not know if they are there. For me, the curtain has already kissed the stage. I know you've done. It's normal. You have touched the button. Soon will come the police. Soon be over. Before I would ask you a favor. Put your hand into the pocket of my jacket.

  - Now?

  - Yes

  - There is a cold thing

  - It is a gun. Take it off

  - What I do with it?

  - Kill me

  - What?

  - If you not kill me I'll have to sink this beautiful punch in the artery that you are watering your brain lying day after day.

  - I can not do

  - Yes, I can pierce the source of all your pain

  - What about me? I'll go to jail ...

  - Self-defense

  - Cameras do not think so

  
  He declined further lengthen the conversation. He pressed a little more sting against the vein of his neck. The clerk responded and pulled the pistol from his pocket. Shivering and sweating up the gun slowly to find the face of whom that was holding his neck with a mighty hand. Pressure which forced him to look with trembling chin into the straight line between the gun and the front where the bullet should be directed.
  
  - Do it now.

  - I can not

  - I'm going to sink it to the vertebrae if you do not

  - But ...

  - I give you five seconds: five, four, three, two ...
  
  The police stormed the station. Among the four police officers stood a young man brandishing his gun trembling in his hands. The windows shook with the explosion and the whole desk was scattered with the viscosity of scarlet and gray washes the entrails of every soul. The gun fell on the glass counter, breaking it in such beautiful shapes that resemble a spider web woven in the depths of the glass. Finally embraced the yellowish glow from the sudden burst. And hugged him in deeper and viscous substance of his soul. There was more force in the hand, now holding the full weight of a body before it sustained by what they call soul. He dropped the boy on the counter and put his hand with the stylus hidden in his palm to his face. He wiped the blood and pieces of brains with the back of the hand.
  
  - What the fuck have you done?
  
  The young cop stared into the eyes of the servant travels by a cascade of fresh blood that ran down his chin and accumulated in the white shirt. A spot that expanded their horizons once again to the rhythm of the heart that it seemed that he was still beating. He heard the cries of his superior. He fell on his knees and felt the scene and tried to cry, as all the audience was expecting. And he couldn't. Everything was contained in his throat, remaining trapped in the caves of his eyes that recalled the striker burst into the palm of their hands. One of the police, trying to restore calm to the man is still at the counter:
  
  - Are you all right sir?
  
  He could not say anything. He could only talk to himself in the silence of his mind. "Everything is repeating. Writing, written. There is nothing new under the sun: birth, construction, joy, pain and death. And, all for what? To raise the life into an art work and make something beautiful out of it? It seems most convenient. And yet, to do so is to deny, forget completely that one who observed the work. We must rid the viewer to create a work worthy of being seen. To take account of the beholder only serves to sync with them. Failing to take power over your own universe, your own life, your own work. Always the same. How to escape from myself? How to escape this fate destined to please others? Death. And nothing else. I turned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun, and behold the tears of the oppressed, they had no comforter; and strength lay in the hands of their oppressors, and they had no comforter. Ah, that damned Ecclesiastes again. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What does man gain from all his labor which he take under the sun? Generation goes and another generation come: but the earth remains forever. When the sun rises and sun sets, and hurries back to where it stands. The wind go toward the south and around to the north, is rotated continuously, and their money back the wind again. All the rivers run into the sea, the sea is not full, the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. All things are wearisome more than man can express, the eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What it was? Just as it is. What has been done? The same will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything you can say: Behold this is new? And was in the centuries before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor what will happen in memory to be later. And yet, I intend to continue longing for originality, desire for control over myself, I forget the rule and remain absorbed in the construction of my life. The life you deserve to be hung on the wall of a museum. Merit. Worthy to visitors that fateful museum, after I'm dead. Why? Always thinking in the eyes of others. At which point I diluted me between the eyes of others? When I left that selfish needed to be addressed and absorbed into myself? That care about me I never had. And now it does not matter.
  
  - Agents, what is your best time to die?

  
  

La pretendida nitidez de lo vivo // The supposed clarity of the alive

Auto-foto en la cocina a altas horas de la noche o de la madrugada. Olympus Om 10.

Al menos tenía algo claro: todo dependía del ojo con el que se miran las cosas. De esa lente -ya clara, rallada, sucia o quebrada- a través de la cuál veía el mundo. Su vida era un intento de clarificarse a sí mismo, de mostrar a los demás su verdadera esencia y de demostrarse a sí mismo que podía aniquilar la apariencia en su propio templo. En algún punto había atribuido la sinceridad a la personalidad, olvidando esa máscara tras la que se ocultaban los actores en el teatro que era el garante de todo lo aprehendido, de todo lo que construía su personalidad. Esa máscara que, siendo un cúmulo de todo lo vivido, hacía posible toda reproducción. Él no quería reproducir. Él no quería imitar. Él quería producir. Él quería brillar con luz propia, no siendo el reflejo ni el filtro de nadie, quería ser el Sol que iluminase su universo. Un astro puro e inmaculado donde no tuviese lugar la aparición de todo aquello que lo había construido y que lo amenazaba en su pedestal de pretendida originalidad. Quería olvidar a todos sus maestros para ser el portador de toda su sabiduría y quererse productor de la misma. Sincerarse con su anhelo de ser su propio Rey y acallar a sangrientas andanadas todas las voces que surgían de su interior y reclamaban su parte: las lecturas, las caídas, las subidas, los paisajes, las caricias, los puñetazos, las charlas, las destrucciones y las construcciones. Todo. Olvidarlo todo y saberse el Dios que había creado todo aquello. Una soberana empresa de destrucción memorística.

Enfocó a todo lo que tenía delante. Todo estaba muerto. En su momento habría estado repleto de vida pero ahora todo aquello posaba inmóvil delante de aquél ojo que trataba de definirlo. Enfocó lo que se mantenía a la misma distancia desde la atalaya que lo debía retratar. Allí donde el ojo ponía la atención, allí definía ese universo impasible. Debería funcionar. Alejó la cámara hacia la misma distancia con la que había estado dirigiendo la atención de su ojo, clarificando y definiéndolo todo. Programó el auto-disparador y esperó sosteniendo en su mano esa botella característica de las noches donde el duermevela envenenado lo difumina y lo confunde todo. Sonó el disparador y escuchó el diafragma abrirse y cerrarse, guardando en la película detrás de él aquél proyecto de purificación y definición. Nitidez del alma. Aquel objetivo descarnado de subjetividad que debía hacer el papel de su ojo. Esa atención que debía aclarar, reflejándolo, quién era él. Quién quería ser. Dió un trago al mar de dudas que se embravecía dentro del casco verde y mantuvo la idea de depurarse a sí mismo, olvidando todo lo que lo había construido. Ahogando esa apariencia de originalidad en la aniquilación de la memoria. Ese anhelo de querer ser original, de saber que cada paso es un paso nuevo y nunca andado, pasaba por destruir el recuerdo de todas las piernas que habían recorrido sus mismos senderos. Borrando todas sus huellas en el barro. De esa aniquilación debería surgir el sentimiento de ser el originador originario de todo lo acontecido.

Esa nube quimérica desapareció al cabo de unos días, cuando sostuvo la imagen impresa entre sus manos. Su templo tembló al ver que, habiendo puesto la atención en sí mismo, aparecía diluido entre las formas de la cocina. La nitidez la acaparaba esa botella que sostenía entre su mano. Lo inerte aparecía mejor perfilado, mejor conceptuado, que lo vivo. Es entonces cuando dio cuenta de ello. Su pretensión de su peculiar visión de la originalidad quedó enterrada bajo la evidencia de aquella grafía lumínica. Clasificar y conceptualizar lo vivo - cincelado y cosido por innumerables pedazos de lo vivido - es una tarea reservada a los dioses. La identidad esencial se pierde entre los millares de pasillos que construyen nuestro ser y, aún más, quién sabe si la identidad no es sino esos pasillos por los que ya pasamos cogidos de la mano con los que nos los descubrieron y que algún día volveremos a recorrer, quizás en soledad, siempre recomendados por alguien o algo. Tenerlo todo muerto, puro y limado para poder encontrar lo esencial. Si lo esencial de lo inerte es el ser, ¿lo esencial de lo vivo será el hacer? La pregunta atormentó su mente hasta tal punto que hubo de abrir otra maravilla verde para poder calmar la impertinencia del asalto. El rigor del cerco del concepto sólo pasa por la inmovilidad de lo inerte. Lo móvil, vivo y vívido siempre tiende a saltar las cercas que los pastores del alma y la ciencia pretenden apuntalar para estudiar detenidamente, siempre en detención, aquello que tienen delante de la nariz. Se vio a sí mismo como uno de aquellos delimitadores territoriales con bata blanca, corbata, pluma, pipa o cualquier utensilio de precisión académica. No le asustó mucho la idea, al fin y al cabo era cuestión de decisión. Él prefirió la senda del desvanecimiento, de la difuminación, del no entenderse por la mañana y comprenderse profundamente por la noche, del cambio de plano, del horror de la quietud y su nitidez. Él prefirió dar un renovado y recorrido trago a la verdosidad cristalina que ocultaba el ámbar y saltó la verja que lo separaba de la calle, de la noche y de sus abrazos silenciados con la brillante oscuridad boreal.

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ENGLISH VERSION

Self-photo in the kitchen at higher hour of the night, or the morning. Olympus Om 10.

At least he had something clear: everything depended on the eye with which you look at things. In this lens - clear, shredded, dirty or broken - through which he saw the world. His life was an attempt to clarify himself, to show others his true essence and to prove to himself that he could destroy the appearance in his own temple. At some point he had attributed the sincerity to the personality, forgetting that mask behind which the actors hid themselves in the drama that was the guarantee of all apprehended, of all that built their personality. This mask, with an accumulation of all experienced, made it possible the reproduction. But, he didn't want to reproduce. He didn't want to imitate. He wanted to produce. He wanted to shine with his own light, not being a reflection or filter of anyone, he wanted to be the Sun that lights his own universe. A pure and immaculate star where does not take place the appearance of everything that had built up and threatened him on a pedestal of alleged originality. He wanted to forget all his teachers to be the besarer of all their wisdom and being the producer of it. Confide with his desire to be his own King and silence bloodily any voice that emerged from his inside and demanded their part: the readings, falls, rises, landscapes, fondling, punching, chats, destruction and construction. Everything. Forget everything and know himself as the God who created everything. A sovereign plan of rote destruction.

He focused everything in front him. Everything was dead. In its time it would have been full of life. Now all that were posing in front of his eye were quiet, while he tried to define it. He focused at the same distance from the point he should portray. Placed where the eye take care, defining that impassive universe. Should work. He putted the camera away at the same distance he had been directing the attention of his eye, clarifying and defining everything. He programmed the self-timer and waited in his hand holding the characteristic bottle of half-sleep nights where it poisoned, blurs and confuses everything.He listened to the iris shutter opened and closed in behind him the movie that purification project and definition. Sharpness of the soul. The objective, stripped of subjectivity, playing the role of his fleshy eye. That attention should clarify, by the reflection, who he was. Who wanted to be. He gave a drink to the tempestuous sea that was in the green bottle and kept the idea of purging himself, forgetting everything he had built. Stifling the appearance of originality in the annihilation of memory. That desire to want to be original, knowing that every step is a new and never walked step, was possible if he had the bravery to destroy the memory of all the legs that had run his own paths. Erasing all tracks in the mud. From this annihilation should come the feeling of being the original originator of all that occurs.

This chimeric cloud disappeared after a few days, when the printed image held in his hands. His temple trembled seeing that, having put the attention on himself, appeared diluted in the forms of the kitchen. The sharpness was monopolized on bottle he held in his hand. The inert appeared better profiling, better conceptualized, that the alive. It is then that he realized it. His claim to his peculiar vision of the original evidence was buried in the light of that script. Classify and conceptualize the living - carved and sewn by countless pieces of lived experience - is a task reserved for the gods. The essential identity is lost among the thousands of corridors that make up our being and, even more, who knows if the identity is these corridors through which we now - hand in hand - with which we were discovered and that some day we will go, perhaps alone, if recommended by someone or something. Have it all dead, pure and filed in order to find the essential. If the essence of what is to be inert, the essence of the living will be the “doing”? The question haunted his mind to such an extent that it had to open another green marvel to calm the impertinence of the assault. The rigors of the siege of the concept only goes through the stillness of the inert. The moving, alive and vivid always tends to jump the fences of the shepherds of the soul. That shepherds that seek to bolster science to study carefully, always in detention, what's in front of the nose. He saw himself as one of those territorial markers in a white coat, tie, pen, pipe or tools of scholarly precision. He wasn't scared by this idea, after all was a matter of choice. He chose the path of the fading, blurring, of not understanding the morning and understanding everything deeply in the night, the change of plane, the horror of the stillness and clarity. He preferred to drink from the amber hide in the green crystal and jumped the fence that separated him from the street, the night and its silent embrace to the darkness of bright lights.

Iceland Airwaves. Thursday. Report of a healing.

And therefore let us have good company! Our company! Or solitude, if it must be! [...] We may, at least for a while yet, guard ourselves, my friends, against the two worst contagions that may be reserved for us - against the great nausea at man! against great pity for man!

Nietzsche, "Genealogy of morals", Third essay, sec. 15

After a week in utterly solitude, lost between the pages of some books, I went outside of my disorganized room. Alone. Who takes care of me? It is a question asked from a weak heart? Probably. Some people are used to put the reason of their pain in some external things, they put the guilt in somewhere outside of their organs: in God, in their enemies or in their friends. They're wrong. Nobody is responsible of your pain. Nobody. You can control their influence on you creating big walls of indiference. Reducing the voice from outside in a simple loud: a useful drug that converts us in monsters. I need to tell to me: not, the people surrounding you is not the real problem... the real problem is inside you. A reflection that only the strong hearts can pick inside their ventricles. Me, only me. Is quite easy to put the reason of our pain in all that surrounds us but, if we dig a bit, we can find that the real spark of our pain is beneath our skin. And there's a clear temptation when you take away the guilt from the people that are surrounding you, feel pity for them. Trying to avoid the nausea at man, we take away our guilty spark on them and we put the pity. Why? Why I should feel pity for them? The pity is a clear message that goes directly to the impossibility that we, the strongers, feel in the weak people: their impossibility to live from their inside, their impossibility to overcome themselves. It is real, and cruel: the shame is a scathing slipkont that the strongest put in the neck of the weak to avoid their desire to fight. No pity! The pain on them is the way to create new ways of being. It's not cruelty, it's reality! In the spark of beautiness there's always, beneath it, a rotten and painful soil. Dionisos beneath Apollo and, when Apollo is reached, Dionisos another time! Nobody scapes from it, even the stronger!

So trying to keep this in mind I was walking trough Reykjavík to see some concerts in the Airwaves festival. The first was a off-venue concert that I shared with a nice italian man with a big heart inside his chest: Domenico. The concert was from Steindór Andersen, a traditional rímur singer. He only played two songs because I think that he was with a little hangover. The second song catch me but Domenico was right: the sintetizer dramatizes so much the rímur. Bur, anyway, was really beautiful.

After the concert of Steindór and walking alone trough the street I listened some good music inside Hressó, they were Agent Fresco. The concert was quite short but they were so good. A combination of screams, core, smooth melodies and a bit of jazz. They really catch me.

I decided to go to Risið to listen some unknown groups before my meeting with, also unknown for me, Rökkuró. Risið is a pub with a wood bar and soft light with a lot of sofas, tables with candles and solitary chairs. A perfect place to listen some good music. The pub was almost empty and I was the only one drinking beer in the brown wodden bar. The first group, Vigri, were preparing all the instruments and I moved to the bar in the front of the stage. Alone with my beer. That blonde beer that welcomed inside her all the scarlet walls. Me and myself. They started to play. In a few minutes the hair of my body began to bristle. A nice voice from a great guitar, a smooth drummer that knew how to encourage the other instruments, a piano that swing your stomach into the melody and a touch of metal instrument that invites you to enter in a dream world, there in that pub. After the concert of another group I met with them and we were talking a bit. They're pretty new in the icelandic music landscape, they don't have any album for the moment but they're recording in the same studio of Sigur Rós. I really believe in their proposal. Is risky and it step aside from the big shadow of Sigur Rós that influence so much, for my taste, the new groups that try to imitate them. Like, lamentably, Rökkuró. There's the only song that them, Vigri, recorded until now:

Vigri - Sleep from Ragnar Snorrason on Vimeo.

After their great first concert in live (maybe I'm the first fan of Vigri) I went to Tjarnarbíó to listen Rökkuró. In a few words: it was really boring. Sometimes a voice fits perfectly with the melody and the mood but... sometimes not. They're trying to be like a smooth post-rock group but the voice of the main singer fuck it all. She is nice, and have a great voice. But sometimes you need to listen the speech of the guitar, the piano and the bass, and the voice was covering them. It not was like Vigri, that the voice was another instrument more. In Rökkuró all the instruments were playing to serve an to kneel before the female irritating voice. I'm sorry, the don't catch me at all. Only in one moment: when she shut up and played the chello.

After this I decided to return to Risið to find better luck. Sometimes the unknown groups are better than the comercial ones. I read "Bon Iver" in the description of the group that was the next to perform in Risið: Of Monsters and Men. After them was playing a guy with a guitar. Was quite nice. Me, alone with a beer sitting in a table with a candle in front of me. Looking trough the window the long queue waiting for Amiina and Efertklang. I prefered the unknown ways and groups that kept me alone. With my beer and my own fight to avoid the nausea at mankind. When the man with the guitar finished his great performance a girl with a nice hat and haircut went up to the stage. A nice guy with a brilliant eyes was at her side. Different instruments: from the organ to the tambourine and trough the trumpet. They sound like painful country acoustic sound with a spark of hope at the end. Rapidly catch me. All their song managed to draw a smile in my face and a little springs of tears in my face. They, rocking my mind, remind to me all of this trips to the north and to the West that I'm always planning in my mind. They brought me to head the old Jack London and his trips. Far from home. Alone in the middle of Reykjavík. Far from home. And they were singing something about mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. Far from home. They, definitelly, catch me. Their song "From finner" makes me shake my head and chart and open-mouth smile seconded by my wet eyes: "We're far from home, all alone, but we're so happy". Something so complicated to explain sumarized in a sentence seasoned with an impulsive and sexual voice leading all the innovative porposal of intruments to create a new -his own- style of acoustic-electrical-country. But, with this kind of groups, the words are only a stick in the wheel, only tags than we put on them to hug the unknown. The music should be listened, not talked, so let's go!

Their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/ofmonstersandmenmusic

A really good song of them: Little Talks by Of Monsters & Men

The best song of their concert: From Finner by Of Monsters & Men

When I went out of the pub a big queue was waiting to go inside Listasafn, I turned up the collar of my coat and I smiled looking at them. Unknown and uncrowded ways. I went to Iðnó to finish my night with Seabear, my first contact of the night with the overloaded and crowded concert halls. In the street, walking to Iðnó, the smile that "Of Monsters and men" draw in my face was standing in my face.

The concert of Seabear was quite nice. I'm not able to say anything of them because I was really tired to enjoy their performance. But, sometimes, they catch me. You can see how the singer was an ancient friend, like me, of the white walls and the large corridors with the fluorescent and eternal nights. I think that he overcome his white period whit the music. All of us have method to fight against or with our past. He has his method, and he his very succesful with it. I have, also, my own method. The surprise of the night appear in the stage. Three lucky persons managed to go on the stage with all the musicians to say "bye" in the last song. Klemens shouted at me: Radka!!! Yeah, she was there! With Thimo and Ivonne. It only can happen in Iceland.

A double pylsur marked the epilogue of the night. Another time alone to my home after a good healing music session against nausea at men.

Today, "For a minor reflection". This will be my third time that I see them. I hope that they are going to play more songs of the first album. Like this:

And, searching in the guide of Airwaves, I saw a group that is performing tomorrow: "We made God". Also from Iceland and also post-rock:

In fact, she was always here.

In Iceland something is happening with my fatal and futile vision on philosophy. For me, always was important both theory and practice, thinking and act, philosophy and life, but lately philosophy was transforming into a stone in the wheel of life. Thinking so much can stack your foot in the dust. Sometimes I couldn't see a connection between the philosophy, that is (per definition in our days) academic, and all these things that keep me alive. Was a long way trough the literature, the climbing, the adventure, the death, the life, the alcohol, the travel, the urban nights, the landscape and a lot of different ways that, although I don't seems like this to me, were so closed to a kind of philosophy. This kind of philosophy that hates the classrooms, the "Sirs", the academic meetings in luxury halls, the haughtiness that is believed unique for keep a border knowledge and the pretension of being an Olympus between loosers.

Walter Bonnatti and Henry David Thoreau. They remember me something: life and philosophy are a greateful contradiction, but they need to be embraced like a unity. An entire existence is a philosophed life and a lived philosophy. Existence. This word fill your mouth when you host in your body action and thinking, life and philosophy.

How is the best motel to the pleasant coppulation between life and philosophy? Motel Ethics, for sure, in the road that goes to the Politics. But the way is another history, today we stop to fuck in this tearing motel of the convictions. Fuck.

In this motel we need to think to act and act to think. Philosophize to live and live in philosophy. This not make sense in a life distant from the honesty. If I want to philosopize, to think about the consecuences of my actions, and prove this actions, it means that I want to live in honestly with myself. The wild and the mountain were so important in this conception of the true with myself. In the mountain and in the wilderness the lie to yourself means death. Bonnatti, Thoreau and London knew very well this fact. The life in contact with the extremes of the wilderness and the mountain gives to you the experiences and the material to construct yourself being and it never can lie yourself, because in the lie appears the face of thanatos, waiting to charge the price.

My return to the philosophy is a return from the wilderness and the mountains, and is a back to the essential of the thinking: the ethics. The study of oughts and of relationships: ought to realte honestly to ourselves, ought to relate honestly to the others and how we ought to relate honestly to the earth. For this purpose I want to read the basic writings about the subject. I started with Euthyphro of Plato and, in this first reading, I could see how living so much without thinking can sink your foot in the dirty dust of imbecility. The dust is always there, ready to cling to our feet. The holy dust that kills me and give me the life. These mountains, this wilderness. Sometimes we find more than we expected in the emptyness. Hug the contradiction: the emptyness is fullness.

This will destroy you", all the album "Young Mountain", but in speciall this song; "The world is our" --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDijgL6yW3A&list=QL

Crash in the wall

Wake up in the morning. Look up to the ceiling. White ceiling. Clothes hanging in the pale lights. Vestiges of activities in a brown table. An old book that has me in check. Wind going into the branches further from my bed. Big walls. Sensation of protection. It's only a wall. It's more than a simple wind. The ceiling, white and unspeakable, goes down and smash my brain. The breeze. Could take you to the confines of the world and could destroy you. I want both. Open the windows. The wild wind goes into the room and starts to destroy everything. Begins with my convictions. The gale annihilate all the lies in my mouth, in my soul, in my deep beliefs. Then I can feel, that is better than understand, how my steps were following the path of the uncontrollable folly. What I want? Why I'm here? Partially destroyed. The wind becomes in a warm breeze and starts to give me wings. I want both. I have both.

This will destroy you; "Happiness: we're all in it together" --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4pcrMmP88A&NR=1

A J S E

A river going down the mountain. It's nothing. It's all. All the big oceans started to be before a little stream, flowing rock by rock down the steep slope. Only a blind mind could say that the little stream isn't powerfull. Every stream could be startling. Only potencially, you never knows. A little stream could dissapear into the rocks or can be dried, copullating with the, for the moment, white clouds. And, also, could be, few kiometers beyond, a strong river running down to hug the huge ocean. A stream is a stream. Nothing more. A step is a step. Nothing more. A day is a day. Nothing more. What's the meaning of a single step in a travel between Ogygia to Styx? What's the meaning of the flow of a stream between two rocks in the course of a huge river? What's the meaning of a single day in all of our life?

Jerk in the middle of the stablishment. A explosion of steam beyond this dust that strangles us. A look that tries to reach the horizon and can't rid from the white and overwhelmingly ceiling. A slipknot into the chest, embracing our lungs, trying to keep all the anguisly sources from our eyes in the middle of the throat. A song dancing with the moment drawing a honest and deep smile in our skin. A spontaneus and alone grin in the middle of the main street in these days that the clouds cover even the cheeks of the citizens. The disappearance of dizziness when i'm alone in the darkness only accompanied for the distant litany of the city lights, trying to cover the fears of the people in the middle of the night.

Surrounded by posibilities, we're forced to try or, if we don't want to decide, to die in life. Day by day. Every sunshine, another decision. Every spine belong to our vital spinal column that we draw in our imagination, dreams and fears. A day is only a day, but it can build, step by step, stream by stream, all of our life. Every rise in the east is a new oportunity to continue creating our arquitectonic masterpieces of existence.

Emptyness of vanity. Was only a night. Only an oportunity to still building all my way in this handmade railroad. Another chance to overcome my fears and to consolidate my dreams. The dizziness into the darkness disappeared, is only a step. The fire burning in front of my tent tells me that I need more experience, that is more days, more knowledge and more oportunities. Knowledge. You never knows the source of it. A book, a song, a hug, a wound, a landscape, a kiss, a punch, a call of your mother, a true coming from a inquisitive lips, blue eyes looking fixed at your face. You never knows. I was trying to stimulate the fire but the little sticks was so fast burned and I remember it: "Burn the grey moss" this novel from Thor Vilhjálmsson. I looked at my surroundings and started to search the grey moss, after twenty meters of walking and nervous breathing I founded it. And, with calm and carefully, I putted it into the fire. It worked. The grey moss started to burn and fedding with fire tongues the stick above it. My whoop echoed in all the slope and, maybe, in the streets of Reykjavík. Perhaps people heard it. Not was a drunken boy or a fear scream in the middle of a streat. Was the soul coming out of the throat of an alone boy trying to be himself building his way, step by step, stream by stream and day by day, into the wilderness.

Early Day Miners, "Light in August" --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEDzUdU7u3s&list=QL

Beirut, "My wife, lost in the wild" --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1m975PSevQ

E S J A

Entrerprises going up the hills. These hills that surround everything. Destroying our dignity, puting our heads beneath the rocks, beyound our posibilities. And we like it. And I love it. Is not a businness, is an enterprise. Is this deeply feeling to overcome our impossible dreams. Rocks rolling down the hill, destroying all the grass, colliding with other rocks cutting in two, three, four pieces our delusions.

Stones crackling with our ambitions, making loud and dark music rumbling in all the valley. And, the honest humans, still staying there trying to go up the hill. A lot of people turn his face to the plane, forgetting his dreams. A back can't see the espectacle. Rocks crashing with the back of the turned humans. Only the brave that still loking to the summit can see directly at death. Eye to eye. Face to face. A imposible dream against a sure death. And only the brave can turn his face sometimes to the plane, to see what's going on, and only they can turn another time the face to his dreams. And they still there, trying to die honestly, putting all his life in a stupid step to reach a drem, dying more and more, step by step. Trying to die in the only way that a human can die. In contradiction. Turning the face into the plain is the easy way. The rational way. And isn't the real human way. The line where the human walks is plenty of dirty, dizzy, agony, asphyxia, noble rot and beauty, magnificient, hallucinatory, inmensity edible and respirable, hearths larger than the body eating all the rational brains with his bloody veins. Is the way between the rational and the irrational, the rotten and the edible, the philosophy and the life.

Journey between life and death. Staying always between them. Only the brave. Only the wild. Loking only to one way is the same that cut your body in two painful parts, with a big and cold steel knife. Look only to the summit. Look only to the valley. Cut your life and eat only one piece of it. Only the brave can stay in the middle of the hill fighting against the rocks and trying to stand up all the time, avoiding the easy and the rational way, staying in the essential of human being, between the ineffable mandness and the blind lucidity, between the summit and the plain. And avoiding the irrational way, trying to run against a rock going down from the summit and crashing his body into a wrinkled surface. Only the brave. Only the calm. Binding his brain and his legs with rude ropes attached to the steep ground in the middle of the hill. Maintaining in calm his brain and his desire to run away, going down and looking only to the infinite flat. Maintaining in calm his legs and his deep desire to reach the summit, running up the hill, only looking at the rock in the top. Forgetting all the other things. Obsessed with a point, with a dream. Longing. A dream rolling down the hill catching the poor dreamer that die under the big rock.

A blind lion trying to hunt a fly, an intelligent wolf trying to drinking all the wather of a river. Ineffable madness, blind lucidity. The ineffable summit and the plain lucid. Between the madness and the lucidity. The wild. Always in the edge. Only them. They don't try to live like animals, they try to live like humans. No blind lions. No intelligent wolfs. Humans in the phylum of a steep hill with their deep calm. The calmness is the only way to stand up in the edge. All the surrounding animalized humans envy the wild humans. The lions and the wolves try to kill the humans, burying their wild brightness in a noisy and dusty cairn. And, surrounded in a cloud of envy and calumny, the wild humans still shining. Envy and calumny. The bright and wild sucesful is not forgiven never.

Johnny Cash, "Solitary man" --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5rVmXyZP5s

Radiohead, "Motion Picture Soundtrack" --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ju8xO_Zvfo

Early Day Miners, "In these hills" --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y92-d__Rbmw