Sunday Shorts // Roshambo

Free People 'Roshambo' from The Mill on Vimeo.

Two Zero One Five

I’ve been around a while. Enough to know not to fall into the New Year Resolutions trap. Each time I set goals in the beginning of a new year, I find myself breaking them within the first month, only to feel terrible afterwards! Although some of the goals might have been quite difficult to achieve (e.g.:Learn German, circa 1996; Start eating cucumbers and/or tomatoes, circa 1999;), I believe that I have now learned the secret to this “New Year Resolutions” deal. 

The secret is to keep it all cool. I don’t mean keep it simple, no. You can dream all you want and wish all you want, because it’s all in the attitude. Play it à la James Dean - nonchalantly, and oozing extreme coolness. 

Instead of “This year I will quit smoking”, it’s more of a “This year I might quit smoking. If I do, super. If I don’t, it’s probably because I didn’t really want it anyway. Either way, I’m happy!”. See, cool. Don’t pressure yourself so much, and maybe try to be more specific about what you actually can do to reach that resolution. So instead of “This year I will workout more”, go for  “I’d like to be more active this year. Hmm.. maybe I’ll start by swimming more often. Always loved that!”

With this introduction, here are my resolutions  some goals I’d love to see achieved (throughout most of the year).

 - Plan Less & Do More.  

 - Less Worrying & More Yoga. 

 - Less Time-Wasting, More Reading.

 - More patience. God, that’s a tough one.

 - Less Whining, More Gratitude. 

 -  Be Punctual. 

 -  Be Honest.

 -  Be Kind.

 - Admit I’m wrong and accept criticism more graciously (I’m laughing on the inside). 

 - Live more SPONTANEOUSLY. This one was inspired the one and only Bill Murray.

As a matter of fact, why don't we forget everything else and just try to become more like Mr.Murray? The world would be a much nicer place, that's for sure. 

Dreams in Disguise

We all dream. We all have dreams. The ones I’m referring to today aren’t the small, realistic, easily attainable ones. I’m talking about are the massive, life-changing, and almost absolutely OutOfThisWorldWildCrazyImpossible dreams to achieve.

With this, let me now proceed to share with you my thoughts on the subject. 

What if - what. if. - our so called dreams aren’t really dreams, but instead things we convince ourselves we really really reeeeeaaaalllyyyy want, so as to create some sort of goal achievement spirit in ourselves and make our lives a tad more interesting. 

They don’t even have to create this ambitious goal oriented direction in our life, as these “dreams"  also lead us to feel unfulfilled when not achieved.

Either way, they create some sort of conflict in the story that are our lives, some sort of spice.

And maybe what we truly seek is that conflict. You know how we humans have a flare for the dramatic.

Still not getting what I’m trying to say here? It’s simple. In fact, this effect is quite often present in our lives.

For instance, have you ever wanted something because you couldn’t have it? Didn’t the fact that that thing was so hard to get make it even more desirable? 

Or have you ever been in the situation in which you could easily have something, but which you didn’t want? Something that to you was irrelevant, uninteresting, dull, “um, like, whatever, i don’t care”. Then when you suddenly couldn’t have it, BAM -  YOU WANTED IT LIKE THE DEVIL WANTS YOUR SOUL.

Get what I’m saying? The fact that some thing were simply out of your reach or denied to you, led you to believe that not only did you really want them, but that you really had to have them too!

So my question is this: Do we really want what we dream of? Or do we fool ourselves into believing we really want to achieve our dreams because they aren’t easy to achieve. 

Ok, I do know that I might be exaggerating a bit on this one. Just think about it for a second, though. Why do we put ourselves through so much in order to fulfil these "dreams"? Is it because they're worth it and it will make achieving them much more pleasurable? Or is it just because we like to fight for something, no matter what it is. 

Because, in the end.... won't we have new dreams after achieving the first ones? Is anything ever enough? 

Think about it.

Hello there, Friday!

Enjoy your weekend! 

Fado Is For Tourists!

   There’s something about riding a taxi in Lisbon that is absolutely unique from any other place in the world. 

   Now, I’m aware that most taxi drivers love to talk with their passengers. I’ve had that experience in every city I’ve lived in or in which I could speak the local language. I once met a very interesting french-canto-mandarin-english speaking, Cambodian cab driver in Macau, with whom I could’ve talked for hours were it not for the short distances in the city. In Paris, the conversations generally start the moment you sit down, the main discussions focusing mainly around the topic  the “embouteillage de merde” (transl.: awful traffic). Then there’s Singapore, the only place in the world where cabdrivers speak highly and proudly of their country and its politicians. And, of course, the conversations in Beijing. I was learning mandarin at the time and thought the idea of practicing the language with a taxi driver was brilliant. I followed the dialogues in my textbook, and before arriving at my destination, I’d had a lovely chat about where we were from, what I was doing there, the best things about the city, and of course, the Beijing weather (read: ghastly suffocating pollution).

   However, the Lisbon cab drivers are by far the most interesting, with their conservative ideals, their eccentric opinions, and their flat out disregard for anyone’s privacy. They love to talk. About everything and anything, whether you want to join the conversation or not. They’ll talk alone, if need be. They’ll propose at least 10 different ways to get to your destination, then change their minds mid-journey. They’ll apologise for yelling at other drivers, only to then get all the road rage off their chest by pointing out the flaws of every other driver on the road. They’ll start by commenting on someone on the street, and when you realize it, they’ve switched the topic to how things were when they lived in Africa during the colonial war. They’ll tell you their entire life story when you’ve simply pointed out ‘great weather we’re having’. They’ll criticise everything and everyone. Especially the weather. 

   A few days ago, I got on a cab that had classical music playing. I didn’t think much of it, I probably wouldn’t even have realised if it hadn’t been brought up. Half way through the journey, the driver turns to me and asks ‘Is the music okay for you, miss?’. That’s where I fell from my daydreaming thoughts back into the moment. The music was absolutely incredible, and combined with a view of marvellous old buildings reflecting the sunlight, I got a feeling of absolute serenity.

   ‘Yes, the music is beautiful’, I answered. He then went on, ‘You see, I turned to this station as soon as I saw you hailing my taxi. I figured a young lady like you would prefer this kind of music.’ 

   I smiled, thinking how odd it was to find someone who enjoyed classical music nowadays and convinced that this was the end of the conversation.

   ‘You see,’ he continued,’ I have a collection of radio channels here for every type of person who enters my cab. See here, this channel’, he changed to an electronic music radio channel,’this one’s for the young people. I don’t like it myself, though. Then you’ve got Fado. Fado’s for tourists, nowadays! They enjoy that. I put it on when they get here, to giv’em the whole being in Portugal experience. For the couples I pick up late at night after dinner, I put on some oldies…. to the suits I offer them the no-music-all-news-and-talk channel”. I laughed as he described all sorts of people through different music styles and I thought ‘Now, wait a minute. Can we really be described as individuals, simply through music genres?’

   We generally employ intangible concepts when describing someone. He or she can be stubborn, easy going, difficult, smart, cheeky, calm, impatient, kind, evil, warm, cold, and so on. Music is also  intangible, though we can easily associate some of the adjectives above to certain rhythms, melodies, musical constructions, genres. Therefore, instead of attributing adjectives to a person, can we merely describe them through music? 

   This short cab ride got me thinking about this whole idea the entire afternoon. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I tried imagining what kind of music I would choose to describe the people I came across with. One of them was a tall, slim lady. She didn’t stand straight, and walked in quite a boyish way, although she was well in her 40’s. She had a weird cartoonish deep voice, speaking slowly and in waves. She was speaking to someone: a doe-eyed woman in her early 30’s, who was a little chubby, awfully feminine and who spoke in a sweet low voice. As I observed them in a musical frame of mind, I found myself facing two completely different genres! If their movements and ways could be translated into a music sheet I know that they’d play out two completely different tunes. While the first woman was a very melancholic opera, the second one was certainly a pop queen. 

   It makes me wonder… if we were all music, what genre would each one of us be? 

   But then again, we all have different ways of seeing the different kinds of music there are! While I saw opera and pop, someone else could’ve seen jazz and reggae. Or blues and folk. Does that mean that each person can be conceived as being several different things, depending on the person describing them? What if we’re all just a medley of different types of music, different genres, different melodies, different rhythms?! 

   I’m getting far too tangled in such a simple thought. I’m going to stop right here, and simply be content with the fact that one day someone saw Classical Music in me. 

Sunday Shorts // This Land is Mine

Hello there, Friday!

Because there are few things better than starting the day in your car screaming out 

"I say, la, lalala. La la la. La la la la la la. La la".

(Especially when it's Friday and so close to the weekend!)