The outsider (fragments)

Once upon a time there was a death of a beloved one.

You come into a restaurant and order thai food inside New York. Everybody speaks English but nobody really speaks English. You listen to 546 different accents every minute including yours. And you think you also have an accent in your mother language and people often ask if you are from a specific state in your country. No, you think, you are from a neighbor state. And now you are ordering food in a nice restaurant to run away from the snowstorm that all TV stations are broadcasting. Really far away from all the tropical beaches you kind of miss. It's like you're not really you. It's like watching somebody else moving, talking, having opinions. Do you really think this? Every language you speak, every continent you go, you're somebody else. You think about your loved one and the loved one is the loved one in that language, not your really loved one as a whole. You are fragmented. You read French philosophers in Spanish just because the bookstore in Chile had it and you were there not in France. You have friends in Facebook from Mozambique that you met in the World Social Forum in Nairobi. When you really think about Paul Auster, you think of him speaking French in Paris but somehow living in the same city you are right now, ordering Italian food with his Norwegian wife on 59th. You remember last night, you barely remember last night drinking too much wine with many friends discussing the reason why we are so unsatisfied being that we all are so privileged. You keep travelling from country to country, from language to language, from different parts of your brain to other different parts of your brain. You are, no doubt about it, doing fine. A bookish fellow, a little distant from your acquaintances. Very shy, perhaps, but indeed good at hiding it. Your face in the mirror of an apartment that never made you feel like home, each day more wrinkled behind the smoke of your cigarette. Still trying to quit, for decades you have been trying to quit. You got used to not telling anyone the things that really matter for you. You convinced yourself that they are not important, not profound enough. Your face behind the smoke of your cigarette have tears sometimes. But not very often. It is because of that short story by Dostoyevsky last night, that sonata you were listening too late at night. Not very often.

There are many different ways of being somebody else in the life. Only one of being yourself, but that changes over time. You are running away. You even forget your name sometimes. You are taking another plane to another place and you like it so much. Time is passing, and you value every second. You know you can forget everything. And after a few years, it is going to be so much easier because you have never had a good memory. Going to meetings everyday, talking to people and reading books at night. Oh, you are still young. You dream of finding someone who will complete you and you know that it doesn't make any sense. You know that Aristophanes was wrong, there is not this so called your other half. And you amuse being with different halves with different parts of your personality. You once met someone who changed your life and you are never going to be like you were before. Those light green eyes are in the back of your head. Still. But not very often. Oh, you love to go to Myanmar and see the beaches and forget that once people used to suffer so much there. Sometimes, when you talk about the life you live, you sound very snob to your audience. And you know it and you know also that you despise your life. But they will never know. It is even worse to complain about a life so privileged. And you know (yes, you know a lot) that it is privileged. The problem sometimes is just you. The world has changed, no worries about climate change, no worries about crisis after crisis. Yes, you stopped reading newspaper and prefer to enjoy the smell of blooming flowers after the rain. You enjoy the moment. No Heidegger anymore, not that old urge about the future. No plans at all. All that is important is here and now. You know how to live, finally after years trying to change. No worries about your psychoanalysis therapy, no worries about who you really are. You get lost in the cities and you love when you are unable to understand what people are saying when you take the metro to a unpronounceable station. You wanted to know the world and you are doing it. Your job is not important. Not even yourself is important. You are now in complete harmony with the surroundings. You like to smile at people and expect them to smile back at you. Sometimes it doesn't happen. But not very often. Sometimes you think of yourself and you remember there are reasons for you to be sad. But, oh, those smiles back at you, they are so spontaneous. So beautiful. Not very often.

You now spend a lot of time crying, listening to music, drinking. You are never alone. People say behind your back that you cannot be left alone, and you are not so stupid not to realize it. Oh, my god, oh my god, oh my god. Where are you. You started praying again. You would never pray after your childhood, and now you talk to god every night and every morning. And you refuse to speak your own language. You do not want to be that person that spoke that language. You are not from anywhere. You are never coming back to the places you went to with her. You do not want to be yourself. Sometimes you think of coming back and starting all over again. But not very often. That part of you must die. And you are killing it, like so many others have done before you. There are real tragedies that need to be forgotten, and you have to kill that part of you which lived the tragedy. Desperation is not wanting to be oneself. It is the impossibility of being oneself. Because you do not understand why such unexpected things can happen to those who had a life so uneventful. Oh, and you used to be so happy, you remember that you could not stop laughing. You even remember one day that you thought you were going to die because you could not stop laughing. You smile sometimes remembering that. You feel so light sometimes. There are good things in life. You are reading self-help books now, so pathetic. You read astrology, Buddhism, all kinds of oriental things, to see the beautiful things that you cannot see very often lately. Where is she? You stop crying sometimes. Not very often.

Você está vivendo o momento mais feliz da sua vida e nunca pensou que pudesse ser tão feliz assim. Ri de qualquer coisa, faz planos de se casar, de conhecer toda a família, de ter filhos e parar com aquela coisa egoísta de preservar sua individualidade. Você quer imergir em outra pessoa e não faz a mínima questão de ser qualquer coisa que não seja para ela. E ela ama você de volta e vocês vão ser felizes para sempre. Não existe nada que possa mudar isso. Você vai finalmente se estabelecer e viver o resto da sua vida com a pessoa que você mais amou na sua vida. Chega de viajar, chega de mudar, chega de procurar. Você agora vai ser só você, da forma mais espontânea e simples do mundo. A felicidade é algo simples e duradouro. Nada realmente pode mudar isso, porque isso vem de você. Você tem convicção de que merece essa felicidade e de que nada pode mudar isso. Existem momentos em que finalmente decidimos como será toda nossa vida futura. Você descobriu esse momento. É maravilhoso. Não acontece quase nunca.