State: unaltered

Many days without writing. I sometimes stop writing when life gets too intense, because processing emotion is difficult, and thus even though the day could have been interesting, it can be difficult to write about.

But every time I look back into I write, the only thing I regret is not writing, and yesterday I was laying in bed and I thought to myself: “if I consider what I experience important, I should write about it first thing in the morning tomorrow”. And yet here I am, wondering why I made this commitment, because with my fingers on the keyboard, things seem to make little sense.

I think the purpose of making a commitment to write was simply to be able to prove that Will exists and it is possible to actually “do what you want”. This statement may seem strange, but given my life situation it is an important piece of evidence that I am not being dragged by the flow of life itself—That I am swimming in the river of experience rather than being dragged by it.

These days I have chosen to stop smoking tobacco, to restrain from releasing my sexual energy, to diminish my weed smoking, and it is going well, but I notice a transformation of thought, a more aggressive and willful masculine energy that has no time for nonsense. If I come back to my vice I become more mellow, content about my life situation, and I would even dare to say: more creative because my attention and thought is not directing towards the striving for reproduction or status.

I shall describe some of the events of the last few days as to fill the gaps from my experience.

In front of me is my new bike. Some days ago, as I was struggling to pedal over a hill pulling strong on the handlebars, these seemed to give out and I found the handlebars to incline on an impossible plane. I looked at the base and saw a crack which was the source of the instability.

I debated wether to buy a new bike, or to repair the old one. The bike was rusting from the inside, yet it is still serviceable. I decided to take a look at the bikes available at supermarkets, with the intention of buying if I encountered something decent at a $150 USD price point.

I found a perfectly good bike at $120. It is very similar (if not the same) model that I left behind in the Madrid bike shop last year. Despite being a low quality bike, compared to my old one it feels smooth and luxurious.

Oscar stole two cigarettes from me when I was not looking. I had invited him over for dinner. The next day I confronted him about it. He sweared he hadn’t done it, and looked at me in the eye and said “I swear I didn’t do it, I can’t look in the eye if I’m lying”, and he made me question my assessment.

I got up and went into the kitchen. Then, for some reason I don’t understand, he confessed. He probably thought I had risen from my seat out of madness. What was most strange was that I actually had believed him. I thought I was good at looking through lies, but now I see that detecting lies is a skill that develops in an environment, and he surely lied a lot to his mother and became quite good at it.

I made a big issue about it: “Look Óscar, for two cigarettes you are risking our friendship and the daily dinners that I give to you. If you ever steal the smallest thing from me again I will not be mad at you, I will simply start treating you as before: I will say hello and be cordial, but you will never enter my home or obtain anything from me again”.

He was quite sheepish about the whole situation, which surprised me because his way of confronting conflict is by getting combative. He even said “I feel mad, but I know I have no reason for being mad, it is me who is at fault”.

Sometimes Óscar’s self awareness surprises me.