Blog no.9: Do disturb

Dear insomniacs,

  You know that feeling you get sometimes that renders you completely counter-productive and forces you into a never-ending cycle of procrastination? Yeah you do. Everyone does. That's what's been going on lately, so bare with me. I'm writing today because why the hell not, I have exams in a few days and this shall be my gateway to communicate with other human beings, even if I'm the only one who's doing the talking. Hey, that happens in real life as well. Not as fun when you are expecting a dialogue and end up rambling on to keep the awkwardness levels low. Anyway, let us begin fellow humans, shall we?
  Everybody around me is telling me I spend too much time on the computer. Is that right? You're damn right that's right. Am I sorry? Kinda. Can I do anything to change that? Glad you ask! I certainly can, but more importantly, I certainly won't. My best excuse is really plain: it's easy. It's easy to converse where nobody knows your name. It's easy to find people who share the same opinions as you, no matter how far off they might seem to the people near you. You see, I'm not just scrolling an endless array of cat pictures and "I bet you can't watch this without laughing" videos, I'm not stalking exes, I'm not wasting any time. I invest on the computer to catch up on things. I take part in meaningful conversations with strangers, I discover music I would otherwise not be able to discover, I educate myself with the most random pieces of trivia which will probably never come in handy in my life. And whenever real life rejects me, I find comfort in the digital hands of strangers. It's indeed sad when you think about a piece of machinery being there for you more than the people around you but unfortunately that's the way things are. I'm not blaming anyone for this though, it's not their fault my reflexes opt to answer "I'm okay" to anyone questioning my wellbeing because it would be too complicated to explain something you can't understand.
  Of course I'd love to be able to do all these things away from a computer screen. Who wouldn't want to share all these experiences with people that he can actually interact with? And on almost every opportunity I have, I step away and experience the real thing. When I'm sure that I will enjoy myself, I take every bit of time I have to rest my eyes. The thing is, I'm surrounded by people who don't like the same things I do. They don't like discussing, apparently. The few times I was able to discuss, and I mean really discuss with someone on a personal level, they found out that I'm not a wannabe metalhead who wears a piece of hardware for additional style points (talking about my white on-ear headset). And the reason I wear my white headset is because I'm almost better off listening to my music rather than having meaningless chit-chat with people who don't even know me. They don't like going for random walks to just sit somewhere and talk. The Parthenon has been sitting there since I came to Athens, as far as I'm concerned, and nobody even mentioned going there to relax and savour life. If you have ever seen the sunset from the view of Acropolis, you will hate yourself every time you miss it.
   You might say that I'm pretentious since I can go watch the sunset whenever I want. It's true, I can. Do I want to witness it by myself? Hell no. There are things you just can't experience alone. I've been alone this New Year's eve and I got to tell you, it's pretty ugly. It's stupid, of course New Years is just a day like any other but it wasn't that way for me. New Years has always been a day to celebrate with my family, with our card-playing and coin-sharing and gift-opening, even though these traditions faded as soon as we grew up. Never in my life had I felt so depressed, watching everyone in the square being with their loved ones, and me listening to "Bones" as the ball dropped for whatever reason and wondering what the hell I was thinking. A few beers and a failed pickup attempt later, I found myself promising to never to do this to myself again. So yeah, some things you either have to experience surrounded by people you love, or you don't have to experience them at all. I can watch the sunset by myself a few times and it's all gonna be alrightbut one day will come when I will realize I counted so many sunsets spent alone that I wouldn't want to do it again until I've found someone to share it with.
  In the end of the day, I don't ask for a lot. I'm not asking for money or fame (even though I wouldn't mind some, ofcourse). I'm not asking for new memories. The memories will come, whether or not I want them to. The real challenge here is finding people to share these with. Without good company, life is like a roadtrip without good music. Even though the nature is daunting, the view is impeccable, the air is refreshing...you won't be able to enjoy it.

Leaving you with not a quote from a movie, but instead the most accurate description of myself

"I like drinking coffee alone and reading alone. 
I like riding the bus alone and walking home alone. It gives me time to think 
and sets my mind free. I like eating alone and listening to music alone. But
when I see a mother with her child, a girl with her lover, or a friend
laughing with their best friend, I realize that even though I like being alone, 
I don't fancy being lonely."

Keep on keeping on,
Stelios Zesiades.

Blog no.8: Fears, memories and faulty stars.

Well, hi, yeah, whatever.

  I'm not writing to redeem myself over not writing for so long, nor for the pleasure of someone else. I'm writing this one for myself.
  So, the end of "The fault in our stars" found me utterly sad; depressed one might say. The good kind of depressed, like the first time I saw the final episode of "Friends" depressed, like the ending of "Forrest Gump" and "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" depressed, the kind of depressed that is great but also sucks. The kind of depressed you feel after finishing a fantastic book, an incredible movie, or an amazing series, or in general things you are greatful you experienced, things that leave you wondering, things that will be engraved in your brain until old age, amnesia or Alzheimer's kick in. That kind of depressed.
  If I ever meet John Green I will probably tell him how much I hate him and how much I love him, I will hug him and flip him off at the same time. I know that I sound like a teenage girl saying this but frankly, I don't give a damn because I've been reading the last few pages of the book over and over again for the last hour or so. So yeah.
  This is so stupid. How come I get invested in non-existant characters? Works of someone else's imagination? Letters put together in sentences to create Hazel and Augustus's  heart-breaking, tear-jerking love story (yes, I did) which managed to also make me laugh quite a lot. The last time I remember getting this kind of depressed I was probably 11 years old and I was reading a book about a cat. A CAT. And I don't think I will be as depressed again soon after now, until I reread "The fault in our stars".
  I don't know why the story hit me so hard. I can't relate. I don't have cancer. I don't have friends who have cancer. I know that the book is not solely revolved around cancer, but it really makes me wonder. How do these people feel? I mean, I have lost some very important and close people to me but I don't think I ever felt like Hazel felt in the book. Is it because of the cancer? Does it unlock people's feelings towards you? Does it come with a superpower that makes people around you realize who you trully are? And what about all the other, not-so-cancerous people that die so young, with people never finding out who they trully are. For a long time know I've been thinking that my biggest fear is the fear of drowning. Well, "fear of drowning" has just been dethroned from the top spot in my list. My newest biggest fear is "the fear of dying before people find out who you trully are".
  I'm not saying I'd like to have cancer. Of course not. The fear though, it's there. The thing is, people settle too often to what they think about you and don't take the time to further look into you. Don't get me wrong, I do that too. That's why I'm writing this blog, in hope that someone will read this without me having to say it. Cause I'm afraid. I'm afraid that in the end people will be driven away because not everyone wants to be discovered. And it's a vicious circle, that. Our fear overcomes our thoughts, merges with them and plants itself into our consciousness.
  I hope that one day I will be able to discover and be discovered. I hope that deep down everyone has these over-the-top questions and sudden existential crises and that the world I live in, the world I feel with all my senses is not formed by superficial creatures seeking to exist, but rather huge complexes of molecules trying to figure themselves out.
 

Blog no.7: Versus the world

Dear friends,

  It's been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonley, lonely time since I last wrote here, mostly due to me slacking off really, it's not that I had anything better to do. So yeah.
  In the past year or so, I've had numerous conversations about varied topics, from religion to politics to music preferences, and I've come to realize that my opinions on the subjects have been contradicted for being way off from the others' opinions. You might be thinking "well that's normal, isn't it?" and you're probably right. The thing is that my opinions on every subject are mostly built around one core statement: I know nothing. This has made me look illiterate or dumb for not taking "facts" into consideration to back up my statements. Well that is because I don't believe in facts, meaning what some people consider "facts", I consider "possibilities". You can interpret this in many ways, like "how can you not believe something that you can feel, hear or see?", or "you're a fool for taking the easy path to face your lack of knowledge", or the more elaborate "you're stupid". Well, I can change it up a bit to make it easier to understand: I'm not sure about anything. There you go! I don't blame you if you think what I'm saying makes no sense at all, but I'll give you an example to help you understand.
  Let's say we have an item, an apple per se. Guy 1 says "the apple is red!". Guy 2 says "the apple is red!". Guy 3 says "the apple is green!". Guys 1 and 2 laugh at guy 3 and tell him to go back to pre-school to learn the colours. So, guy 3 tells them: "What I percieve as green, you might percieve as red. That means that either I am colourblind, or both of you are colourblind. Does that change the way you view the apple? No, it doesn't. Everything in life is subjective, from the colour of an apple to my personal worldview and there's nothing you can do to change that". He then proceeds to to eat the apple like the badass he is. Unfortunately, I haven't found anyone who shares the same worldview yet, so I've come to wonder: Am I crazy or am I the only one who's sane?
  By now you might be wondering how I can deal with this, not being able to accept facts. The truth is I don't, I just go with the flow. You can say that I've become comfortably numb.  It doesn't really matter if I'm right or wrong, if the Matrix is real, if we are living in a dream, if there is a god after all, if this is real life or if this is just fantasy, because we will most likely never find out. Either way, I'm having a lot of fun addressing my theory to my friends and watching their reactions. I hope I have not come out as too crazy or too dumb and you can at least understand my thought process.
If you read this far, thank you for being open-minded and not storming off in frustration. I had a lot of fun on this one. Take care!

Yours faithfully,
Stelios Zesiades.

P.S.: You earn extra awesomeness points for getting the song references.

Blog no.6: Religion through an agnostic's eyes.

Dear few readers,

  Hello! First of all, I'd like to say a big sorry to the few guys who actually read these. I won't waste your time explaining the reasons behind my absence. I just hope you'll enjoy the following blog.
  So, me and some friends went to grab a beer in a bar the other night and got into a rather interesting discussion about religion. I'm aware of the fact that it's one of the most controversial subjects to talk about but if done correctly, it may change a person's view about the world. For starters, I'm obligated to say that even though I'm technically an orthodox christian, I personally classify myself as an "agnostic". For those of you that are too lazy to look it up, an agnostic is a person who doesn't believe that god exists OR that he doesn't exist. That's the simplest way to put it. Agnostics are basically people who need facts to believe anything, they don't base their opinions on faith, but solid facts. They are skepticists and difficult people to convince. Socrates once said "I know one thing: That I know nothing" which sums it up very nicely. Now for the reasons I chose to be an agnostic? I can't be convinced about anything. In some occasions, I can't even believe facts which might seem indisputable to most people. I believe that one cannot be certain about anything. That doesn't mean that I don't have an opinion though. I chose to have opinions on things that seem logical to me.
 Now that I've covered my position, I would like to say a few things from my point of view. I believe that religion was invented a long time ago because humans couldn't understand things that were happening in the world. Back in the time when cavemen lived, they believed that the god gave them the gift of fire. It was something new to them, something they couldn't explain with their facts and knowledge. Years later we found out that fire is created by some chemical reactions and a few sparks. Not exactly the most scientific way to present it but I guess it will suffice for the purpose of this discussion. Nowadays science has advanced so much that it explains a good part of what's going on in the world. Something that religion is credible for, is that people were sacrificing animals, food or even humans for their gods since those ages. To think that people still die for someone they're not sure that exists is unimaginable, yet it still happens to this very day. Aside from the explanation of inexplicable things and the brutal sacrifices, religion didn't have any other uses until the invention of Christianity. I won't refer to Hinduism or Buddhism, since I hardly know anything about these religions but I have done my research about Christianity. So, Christianity began spreading with the 12 "apostles" as people call them who were supposedly Jesus's students. Jesus is, in Christian belief, a guy who came to earth to save and help the humans. He is thought to be the son of God, though as I said before, I'm not even sure whether he existed or not. Either way, he seems to be a cool guy. He taught about loving your neighbor, helping others and such. There could be a book with instructions to "how not to be an asshole" and it would still serve the same purpose as far as I'm concerned. I'm not at all opposed to what Jesus stands for, but I think that someone with some self-awareness and logical thinking can figure these out by himself. It's true that people weren't very educated back in the day and having a mentor to help you understand what's good and what's bad was something good. My opinion on Christianity: it had some good points, it stood for some good values and it had the potential to make the world a better place. Thing is, since church took over the liberty of spreading "the god's words", it has gone to shit.
 To reason with what I said, let me explain. Christianity no longer stands for the values it was supposed to stand for. Now it actually promotes racism(mostly against homosexuals), fanaticism and sexism(against women). Not to mention the riches these "representatives of god" have for doing their duties for their "god". How come so much is invested in churches instead of philanthropic organizations? You will tell me: but church donates so much! Well, if it weren't for the gold scepters and the crystal chandeliers and the expensive BMW's they would donate much, much more. Religion has the ability to move masses, to teach people who are too naive to figure out by themselves to be nice to each other.Yet, it chooses to be the reason of most modern and ancient wars. The reason people of different religions hate each other.
 Of course there are exceptions, people who even though are religious, accept the others for believing in something different. Hats off to these people. Now for the rest who take their religion as the one and only rightful religion, I will say open your eyes. Look around, broaden your minds. We are all humans, no matter what our background is. And stop focusing so much on religion. God is not responsible for your fuckups, nor is he the one who deserves credit for saving your life or for the goods you have. Instead, thank the people who worked hard to provide you with these things. Just to make myself clear, I'm not attacking Christians. Same things apply to both theists and atheists. Being an atheist does not make you by any means more intelligent and it does not give you the right to bash one's religion. I respect you for whatever choice you've made, as long as you're not an asshole about it.
 To sum things up, I would recommend you to think positively. Cherish every moment you have because truth is, the only person you have to depend on is yourself. Don't waste your time hating and arguing with people. Life's too short for that. Instead, use your brain and think logically. As for me, I always try to follow these instructions. As long as you're nice to people, no religious people should be able to blame you. And if they do, they're not worth it. And my quote for the day comes from a movie called: "Ferris Bueller's day off". Yeah I know that the film is about a guy who skips school to have a day with his girlfriend, but it has a great meaning to it! "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in  a while, you could miss it". Until next time, farewell my fellow readers.

Yours truly,
Stelios Zesiades

P.S: Stay in school, don't do drugs! Unless it's medical marijuana. If so, be my guests.

Blog no.5: Beyond the horizon.

Dear remaining readers,

  It's not my usual writing hours but my sleeping schedule has been so messed up lately, time doesn't even matter anymore. I haven't posted for quite a while, due to my full schedule and the upcoming exams which I'm obligated to take seriously if I don't want to end up playing the guitar in the streets and hope they don't throw shoes at me. I have some spare time now though, so I'm using it to write something for you guys to read. Yeah, both of you!  
  It has been difficult coming up with a subject to talk about. It almost seems like my brain has ran dry. However, the best conversations always start with the most random questions. They have to be spontanious, unexpected and even weird. I remember a cold December night last year, me and my friends were staying in a lousy hotel. There was tension because of the bad quality of the hotel, so I decided to go outside for a bit, to get some fresh air. I took a chair and a blanket with me and just sat there. Minutes later, one of my best friends came outside aswell, brought his chair and sat next to me. We were both tucked under the big, warm blanket. We sat there, silent for a while. Suddenly, my friend asksed me "Do you think there's something else out there?" What was going to be just a small break for a breath of fresh cold air, turned out to be one of the longest, weirdest, most awesome conversations I have ever had. 
 It doesn't always have to be about a particular subject. This is basically me talking to myself through written word. Call me crazy. Call me lonely. Aren't we all, though? Nobody can see the world through your eyes. Think about it, the only person who understands you better than anyone, is yourself. Everybody wants someone to talk to about everything and nothing. Someone who will not judge them, who will not call them weird, who will simply "get them". Someone who can ask them "What are you thinking?" and they will be able to answer with something different than "stuff". I have found that someone. I see him everytime I look in the mirror. He has that troubled, concerned look but he never forgets to pair it with a reassuring smile. He's a neat guy, we get along really well!
  Now you must be sure that I'm a schizophrenic with a torn personality who talks to himself. It's nothing like that, ask the other guy! Right, man? All jokes aside, if you think about it, you can all relate. Haven't you ever been in a situation where you just wanted some time for yourself? Not because you were depressed, angry or concerned about something. You just wanted some time, you and your thoughts. In a hot summer night, sitting on the balcony, looking at the stars while listening to songs with meaningful lyrics you can appreciate. Μaybe not even listening to music. Total silence.
 Observing the stars makes me think about how small I am compared to what's out there. It really makes me wonder. It makes me forget about every tiny, insignifigant concern I have. It makes me escape my reality, even for a little bit. It puts a smile on my face. 
 The sky in general is my favourite thing on earth. It amazes me how a little bit of imagination turns all the shapes of the clouds into anything you can think about. Each one has a story behind it, a journey to go through. Each one is unique. For some people they are not that fascinating. They are just clouds. Random shapes. They don't mean anything, right? No! If you use your imagination, you can give a meaning to everything. After all, it's your most powerful weapon to escape reality. Use it wisely.
 That concludes today's blog. I know we are in difficult times and we have to worry about a lot of things nowadays but in case you want to forget about them for a bit, you know what to do. Sit back, relax and observe. Open your mind, escape reality. I'm leaving you with this famous quote from the first man on the moon, just food for thought. Thanks for reading and have a nice day!

"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small".

Neil Armstrong

Yours faithfully, 
Stelios Zesiades

Blog no.4: O tempora, o mores!

Dear insomniac people,

  Yeah, all the 20 of you who stumbled upon this blog. Welcome! It's 3 a.m., I'm listening to sad, atmospheric music and I'm bored. You know the drill... I'm back for another afterhour blogging session, since my last one was such a huge success. As long as there's free and unwanted space in the world wide web...! Hey, I even bothered to use a latin phrase for a headline to make it look fancier. "O tempora o mores!" means "Oh what times! Oh what customs!". Now whether I have learned that from Asterix or not is a different story.
 I'm back to talk about something that has been an item of discussion since a long time ago, though it has gathered a lot of attention since all these funny content sharing websites such as 9gag and Reddit went viral. I'm sure if you occasionally check any of these websites, you have come across with some, if not many "only 90's kids will remember this" posts, ranting about how cool and superior the 90's kids were. Yes, I know you can relate to most of them. And yes, I know you were, most likely, born in the 90's. If not: go to bed! You have school tomorrow, what's the matter with you? Ah! I'm such a great role model!
 Anyways, I have to say that all of us who lived through the 90's agree those were awesome times that we all loved. Have you ever consider though that the 90's were more than a decade ago? Do you know what was great about the 90's? We were kids back then! Of course we had fun. Of course we played outside. Of course we remember them as "the best years of our lives"(most of us). Our only worries were: "Oh man, if it rains, I won't be able to play football today" or "Damn, I can't remember were I put my toy soldiers". It was fun and it was easy. But, you know, times change. People change. It's the logical continuation of things.
 We like to recall the 90's because it brings us back to these childhood years. We like to think that our generation was better than the next one and we like to blame the newer generations for being different than us. But the funny thing is that the 70's kids said the same thing about the 80's kids, the 80's kids about the 90's kids and so on and so forth. What is so special about being born in a particular decade? The music? The television? Nowadays with the development of the internet, we can listen to whatever we want to, we can watch whatever we want and we can find any information we'd like. I have to say that I feel lucky I get to enjoy music from several different decades and I get to watch any film I like by just searching for it in the web. There's nothing bad about technological evolution. If used correctly, it makes our lives easier and much more interesting, while opening infinite doors for us to discover. After that, it's a matter of the individual whether he choses to do so or just ignore the opportunities. Our boundaries are set by our thirst for knowledge.
 Some might say "Yeah but the kids nowadays never play outside". Well, the kids of today are raised by the previous generations. It is their duty to teach their kids how to use the tools given to them in a good manner. And besides, last time I checked there were plenty of children playing outside. That's just something we say to fulfil our image of the current generation. The other common phrase is "There is no good music nowadays". If you believe that, you obviously haven't searched much deeper than your local radio station. There was always good and bad music and we've proved that it's the good one that survives the tests of time.
  Wow, that was a gigantic rant! But hey, these are just my thoughts on the 90's nostalgia trends. I'm not by any means saying that I don't get nostalgic over my childhood. I even consider blogging about that in the future. I'm just saying that as an individual, you have to adapt to the current situations and appreciate what you have now, rather than imagining what it could have been. Don't be close-minded, don't generalize and accept change. And by the words of a great man, I bid you farewell.

"Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious...and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

  - Walt Disney

Yours sincerely,

Stelios Zesiades.

P.S.: I swear, one day I'll leave a quote memorable enough to be put in Italics, in front of a random background!

Blog no.3: The little things.

Dear random citizens of the world,

 Greetings! Sorry for taking me so long to post a new blog, had some obligations and...oh who am I kidding, I was bored beyond imagination, stayed in bed and watched soft rom-coms throughout the weekend. Sometimes you get into a state where you have so much stuff to do, you just decide to do nothing and eventually get sucked into procrastination and mindless web-browsing, or how most people call it, laziness. I prefer to call it "weekend crisis".
 Oh well, enough about that. Today I decided to write about something that everybody can relate to, even though they might not realize it themselves. That is the little things in life. What I mean by that? The little things you do unknowingly that define your character. The little things you randomly stumble upon in your everyday life that might not be important or even noticable to most people but you notice and enjoy. The little things that can put a smile on your face after a miserable day. I for one, try to notice these as much as possible, in order to find a reason to smile even in the roughest of days. In order to be a happier, more positive person. Because happiness is something you pursue, not something you wait and expect to happen.
 And you are asking what are these little things? You might laugh at how simple they are. What might make your day? Making the perfect cup of coffee before a morning class. Listening to your favourite song when walking around the neighbourhood and singing along. Walking your dog while listening to music, practicing the air drums along the way, without caring about the guy who's looking at you as if you were nuts. Doing a special 5-minute secret handshake with your best friends.Trying to remember where you have seen that actor before and after hours of torturing your poor brain suddenly remembering. Getting a reference from a movie you watched which your friends didn't. Knowing the answer of a very difficult question because of randomly encountering it previously. These are just some examples and I'm sure you can relate.
 But it's not just the little things you encounter everyday. It's the little things you can do to make you a better person. Saying thank you to a stranger who held the door open for you. Giving your bus seat to someone who needs it more than you do. Helping an old lady carry her bags across the street. Giving directions to the tourists in font of you who are obviously lost, struggling with a gigantic map to pinpoint their location. Offering to keep a stranger under your umbrella on a rainy day. Basically, just being nice to others.
 Even though my examples may seem insignifigant for some of you, they mean a lot to me. Why is that? These little things help me stay positive no matter what the situation. They make life more interesting and they relieve stress. They make me a happy and positive person. People might say that being optimistic is being unrealistic. Well, I have to disagree with them. Being optimistic gives you courage, strength, hope. It helps you overcome every obstacle life throws in your path. It makes you a better person. If you manage find a balance between thinking logically and being optimistic, you are in the right direction. Don't expect things to happen if you don't have the mentality to pursue them. "When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade". No! You don't wait for life to give you lemons. You seek the lemons and you get them yourself. And then you make some freaking delicious lemonade and enjoy it with your friends. You can either go through your life or live it. It's your call.

My regards,
Stelios Zesiades.

P.S. Don't forget to enjoy the little things!