Back to Classics // A Touch of Evil (1958), by Orson Welles

Monday Mood / 12.01.2015

Sunday Shorts // Back to Solitude

'Back to Solitude' (2011) from Joschka Laukeninks on Vimeo.

P o r t u g a l // C h i a d o + S i n t r a

Pictures taken over the holiday with a Nikon EM 35mm.

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.