Blog no. 16 - A skullful of thoughts

  I think too much. Or at least I think I do.
  Shit, I'm doing it right now!
  It's like my brain is in a constant race with my heart about who does the most work. I get it guys, good job for keeping me alive and all but by any means, slow the fuck down, will ya?
  From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep it's just a constant barrage of thoughts streaming into my head like a hailstorm of apple sized balls of conciousness. Quite random too. One second I'm happily thinking about all the stuff I'm gonna do in the future and everything's happy and rainbows and unicorns and all of a sudden everything's grey and I'm suddenly contemplating my life or, as my stupidly philosophical self would say, lack thereof and the rainbow is actually a huge scythe and the unicorn is, well, still a unicorn. Those things creep me the fuck out, like how the hell could you put that sharp of a horn on a creature and call it adorable? But then I'm back to being all smiles again. It's exhausting, both mentally and physically. Do you know how many muscles you need to smile? I can't be bothered to look it up right now but it's gotta be a whole lot more than keeping a straight face. Sigh. (sighing doesn't take as much energy I think so technically I'm allowed to do it.) If I didn't know any better I'd say I'm bipolar, but I do know better and I'm just kinda fucked up.
  I think the problem is not that I think too much, rather that I overthink. A lot. When I'm walking down a street I'm so aware of my environment I will never ever bump into anything unintentionally, even though I always wear my headphones to keep my ears busy and listen to the soundtrack of my life. That level of awareness though, it's the level of awareness that people go to the mountains and stay with monks for a year and a half to achieve. I don't know, maybe it's the fact that I'm always listening to music so everything kinda gets postponed while I'm adjusting the fucking cable or attempting to rap an overly sweary Kendrick Lamar song, being from the ghetto and all. That was sarcasm by the way.
  As I was saying, I overthink about stuff. When I'm ordering a pizza I have a manuscript of what I'm going to say so that I don't fuck up any of my sentences.
"Yeah hi, I'd like two medium sized pizzas. Yes, with bacon, mushrooms and cheese. No, no green pepper. The one without the green pepper is more expensive?" Shit shit shit this aint in the script what I'm I going to say. "Uhh green pepper is fine, then". I guess I like green pepper now.
 Overthinking has made me miss quite a few opportunities. It's a curse, I'm telling you, a stupid, cock-blocking curse. Why the latter you ask? Alright, let's say you're at a party. It's kinda lame, not many people are dancing and the music is, well, crap for lack of a better word, but you're drinking a beer with your friends, chatting about some funny story and you're not having that bad of a time. You see a girl sitting by the bench with two of her friends, having a quiet conversation, much like you actually. She's a really pretty one at that, blonde hair, nice face, cute smile. You're thinking about talking to her but your bladder decides that you had two beers too many and you're also starting to get really cold all of a sudden, as if the North fucking Pole shifted positions with the equator. You wanna talk to her but you're not in a position to do so, as you're dancing to the rhythm of your near-busted-bladder and your hands are trying to generate as much heat as they can to stop you from shivering and, frankly, looking like a wuss. So you're saying "I'll talk to her in a bit, I can't do it right now." All of a sudden this asshole swoops in with his friend and starts chatting your girl up. Your girl! The love of your life! The mother of your future-non-existent children! But then it all comes back to you. While you were thinking at every possible embarrassing scenario, doing the math to come up with a percentage in which you either piss your pants, drop dead from the cold or, well, both, he's just taking a shot. He might not do everything right, he might not have thought what he was going to say to the last point but goddammit his leatherjacketness took the damn shot, while you're sitting there, arms on sides and hands in pockets, pondering about what you were going to say to her. He's not the asshole after all, you are. For being too scared to face a potential failure. For always wanting the perfect setup, and a great pickup line to go talk to a girl, as if that ever worked for you. That story was totally made up by the way, and it definitely didn't happen to me about two weeks ago. Yup. Completely fictional.
  Either way, this brain thingy is either hurting me too much or helping me too much. Sometimes you gotta take a swing, and even if it misses you could at least say you tried. I should think less and do more. I should not calculate my every step up till the point of no return. I mean, even if that works once in a while, isn't it funner knowing you actually put your resourcefulness and quick thinking to use? That shit might actually save you in the future. Emma Stone might spontaneously call you and tell you to whisper dirty things to her. What are you gonna do then, smartass? Read your pizza manuscript? Use your goddamn instinct and leave your brain to rest, not everything needs to be planned ahead of time. Live a little! If not for yourself, do it for poor Emma. Once you're done thinking about stuff, that's when the real thinking begins. 

Blog no.15 - Turn that page

Dear hopefully non-psychopaths,

  Taking into consideration the fact that right now you're reading this, which is a fair hypothesis to make assuming the circumstances, I can see that you're fixated on your computer screen, wondering where I'm getting at and lingering between being casually interested if even briefly disconnected from the outside world, and being all the more intrigued in what's about to follow, completely and utterly unaware of your surroundings. That's the beauty of reading, you see, and the reason we've evolved past to being talking apes. 

  Now what happens if you stumble upon something genuinely good? Something mysterious, something entrancing? I'm telling you, that feeling is in a league of its own. Buying a new book, touching its cover for the first time, opening the first few pages and feeling each small lump of the paper on your fingertips, smelling the fresh scent of your newly acquired companion, all these seemingly small things are parts of a multi-hour trip to the end of the author's world and back. "Brace thyself he who enters, for tears shall be shed and emotions shall be triggered." 

  You jump into your bed and quickly assume reading position: belly facing downwards, elbows on the mattress feet kicked up high and intertwined, head straight forward leaning in the open book, hands delicately handling both sides of it's colourful cover, fingers edging the yellow-ish pages ready to turn at any moment now. And you start your beautiful journey. At first you're getting annoyed easily, by the fly that can't find the fucking window, the car that keeps screeching as if it hasn't been oiled since the middle-ages, the neighbour's dog who won't shut the fuck up, but as you're getting further and further into the book all these noises start to fade; in fact you can't even hear them after a while. Did they stop? Fuck no, the goddamn dog seems to be in a personal vendetta with every single eardrum in the building. You, however, are safe from all this racket since you have abandoned all the senses not responsible to making your brain decipher these markings on the paper and correlate them with images you can connect in order to create the characters, the story, the world that the author meant to pass on to you. 

  Turning the pages hastily, absorbing every single piece of information presented unto you, imagining the appearance of your new-found friends and enemies, you lose every sense of time and space, so much so that the only time that is relevant for you is the fictional one, and your posture has gone to shit since you first started reading. 

  Your upper body is turned sideways, half-hanging out of the bed, your right leg is bent in the most uncomfortable angle possible and your left leg is swinging at a stable frequency, hitting the foot of the bed on each oscillation. Unfazed, you continue reading as if you're lying on a comfortable mattress with puffy pillows and silk sheets. 

  Unknowingly and unconsciously you are smiling, occasionally cracking up. By the end of the novel your heart starts beating faster and faster, and as you turn that last page it almost stops; at least it feels like it. You read the last sentence, the last word, the last letter and the last point of the book. Turning the page you realize that there is no more, the journey has come to an end. As you're closing the book from it's rear end, you feel the back cover for one last time before letting it slide from your hands, hopefully landing on the bed. 

  You stop for a second to reflect on the story you were just part of, to figure out your emotions. Eventually you start noticing the details around your room. The sun has set but it's August so you figure you don't give a shit. You get up and in one swift motion you grab the newspaper from your desk and smack the fly against the window, relieving the poor blind, deaf and possibly mentally unstable bastard of his misery. At least the car has stopped, it's parts probably committing mass suicide over the fact that there was more grease on their owner's hair than on them. Oh, and the dog is still singing its now weaker and forever monotone "I'll shit on your ears" piece, in Fuck You minor. 

  There's a feeling of emptiness in your heart, a feeling of closure, like saying goodbye to an old friend. You close your eyes and let uncle Morpheus take you in his sweet embrace, slipping further and further into a world inhabited by your thoughts and your thoughts only, now embellished by the wonderful adventure you experienced a few blinks ago. That happens every time you pick up a new book from the shelf, one waiting to be read, to be experienced. And every single time it ends, by the time the sun has set once again and you close your eyes, dreams start becoming reality, reality starts becoming fiction, and you are now the author of your next great adventure, hopeful that one day it will lead to the one that will help you realize what your worth is in this world. And that dog still won't shut the fuck up. 

Happy international books day!

Kind regards,

Stelios Zesiades.

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one."

- George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

Blog no.14: Collection of recollections

Dear photogenic people,

  Fuck you. Seriously, I couldn't get a good picture if my life depended on it. Now that that's out of the way, let's get into business.
  Being unusually bored to do anything else, I figured I'd dig deep into my facebook profile in order to see how things were a few years ago with me. As I'm going more and more into the past I'm thinking "I couldn't dress for shit" on top of "wow, I was dumb as bricks". It's true, some times we think back to ourselves and cringe at what we did when we were younger, and then we stumble upon the younger ones going by their everyday lives and doing stuff they consider normal and we do the same thing, constantly reminding them how "superior" our generation was and how much better we behaved, when it really is not true at all. I kinda feel sorry for the younger generation that they can't erase what they put on the internet because I honestly believe that in 5-6 years they will be looking back, thinking "wow, I was dumb as bricks" but frankly, that's the natural continuation of things. I tried telling my cousin what to do and what not to do because I've been through the same stuff more or less, but we all know that teenagers won't listen to their parents let alone their 20-year old cousins. They will do stupid shit and they will learn from it, and there's nothing we can do to stop them. Don't judge a person by who they were when they were teenagers, most teenagers come into adolescence as completely different people, and those who don't were either too serious or too childish growing up.
  Now, thoughts of my past self aside, I can't help but remember all the good memories that accompanied all these pictures. It's pretty neat looking through them because they are impressions of the brighter side of growing up. Each picture has a story behind it, a laugh to be had. And that's all that sticks with you through life, isn't it? All the memories, all the laughs, all the people you shared these with. You can be jealous of somebody as much as you like, but remember that no two persons share the same memories, the same experiences. Try to cherish what you have right now because remember: these will all be memories in the future, pictures to be framed and hang, a photo album to be read, "a collection of recollections." Next time you take a selfie, remind yourself that what you will be seeing in a few moments is a past version of you. Try to be a better person every time you look into the camera, since everything you do contributes into what you will eventually become. And try not to fuck it up, will you?

Cheers to all the good memories,
and the ones that are yet do be had.
Stelios Zesiades
  

Blog no.12: On the road

My dear few,

  It's 9 a.m. in the cold October morning and I find myself sitting on a bench by the train platform, waiting for the "7:54 train" to Salonica, alongside a young lady in her late twenties. She is rather pretty for what I managed to see; I'm always quite gentle when observing my surrounders. I was eating a cheese-pie and kept thinking how it was more pie than it was cheese while sipping from my grown-up drink through my grown-up straw, a chocolate milk carton. The few stray dogs were staring at me while I halfheartedly ate through my pie-pie so I shared half of it with mama-dog, who admittedly enjoyed it more than I did.
  Afterwards I krept my hand in my 5-year old schoolbag, found my way around the various sweets and snacks I had packed for the trip and pulled out my newly acquired copy of 'Gone Girl', the movie of which I had already seen twice in the theatres and loved if you can't tell. While I'm dissecting Amazing Amy's skull, thinking of her head and all that sweet nonsense, my co-bencher is lighting up her fourth cigarette since I had sat next to her, and now I'm wondering if she's that bored, that addicted or if my mere presence forces people towards destructive cigarette marathons.
  Nick Dunne is now wandering about his childhood memories and I'm not trying to seem sophisticated anymore, I'm really into this book! My mind is still on the now late "7:54" train though, it's lateness irritating me as much as its 54-ness, a rather cruel test for passengers with OCD. I don't even have OCD but I'm mildly annoyed since I don't get why you would someone bother pinpointing the exact minute if they are gonna be late anyways. I guess I'll never get these 10 minutes of doing nothing back, huh.
  Passing through the endless and seemingly empty green fields, I'm still more into my book than I am contemplating existence while looking through my smudge-covered windows into the suburban nothingness that is the northern Greece countryside; I've done this so many times in the past I'd argue there's not much more to contemplate about. I see the sun creeping through the cloudy mess of a morning sky, I put on my white headphones over my still-buzzing-from-the-club ears and I'm thinking how fine I finally feel, because for a moment, I only have to worry about getting off at the right station.

From the foggy northern Greece countryside,

Stelios Zesiades.

Blog no. 11: O Captain! My Captain!

  Why did you have to leave so early, my captain? Was it because of that one time I said that Flubber sucked? Maybe because we all laughed at your crossdressing adventure in Mrs. Doubtfire? I don't know, captain, I really don't. What I do know is that you have made millions of people sad to their very core, after making them happy for the span of decades.
  I don't remember watching any other film as many times as I have watched Jumanji. Growing up, that was a movie that had everything for me: adventure, drama, comedy, Bollie Hunt, and you. Did I mention you were brilliant in it? Then again, you were brilliant in any movie you were in. You could have played any role and nail it every single time, you talented motherfucker you. You were the reason I wanted to be a funny man, captain, because I saw how capable you were in making people smile and like your own Patch Adams, you were the best doctor to treat an open wound with the most potent drug there is: laughter.
  Here I am hoping that the world isn't responsible for the saddness of the funniest man I've ever known or that whatever drove you past that line is something people can fend off. I wish I knew what you  and many others are going through, but depression is a prison and the only person who holds the key is the victim itself. Me, even if I had fallen into that trap I would not give up out of mere stubborness. After all, if you can't take life seriously then take it for the joke it is, with a smile and a hint of a chuckle to go with it.
  This might not be the best of worlds but it's the only one we have, and I know you did the best you could to make it a happier place. You succeeded, cap! Your ability to make other people laugh was something to be admired, even if it wasn't enough to keep you going in the end. Your comedy nourished multiple generations of children and grown-ups all together and it will continue to do so, as far as people can help it, which they surely will. I for one promise to show your brilliance to the next generation. I promise that I will try to make people laugh as much as you did. And if anyone mistakes you for Robbie Williams, I will gladly hit them in the face with a Jumanji board. On behalf of the whole known universe and several unkown others, thanks for all the laughs and memories. You will be greatly missed.

"O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead."

- Walt Whitman

"It often seems I've skipped a rung,
Some days, for what it's worth.

I've missed a step - I've slipped and swung
To some peculiar Earth

On days like these, those moments tossed
Emerge with careless haste - 
To leave me hopeless, hurt and lost,
With bitter truths to taste.

I'm sure it seems absurd to hear
I'd grieve to let him go - 
I'd close my eyes and shed a tear
For guys I didn't know - 

But all the same - I will a while
That man I never met -
The man that made me laugh and smile - 
I never shall forget."

- From Reddit: Poem for your sprog 

Blog no.10: A sense of purpose

Dear humans...

  Feeling down? Feeling insignifigant? Feeling lonely? This one's for you!
  Freddie Mercury tells us in the Bohemian Rhapsody, "Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see", and we do just that. What do you see? You see the stars. You see the blue of the sky, with or without little grey and white patches of clouds floating around. You see the moon, providing you with just enough light to be able to see but not be blinded by. And the sun, oh the big bright sun. You can't look directly at it, but you can still enjoy its gifts at the utmost. But you feel small, so very small compared to what's out there. That is not the case my friend, as it's not a matter of matter, it's a matter of mattering.
  Now close your eyes. What do you see? It's dark and scary, I bet. The trick my friend is to not use your eyes. Use your senses, set your mind free. Now, what do you really see? What you are seeing with your eyes closed, that's what makes you signifigant. It's what makes you unique. Remember, you are part of this incredible ever-evolving organism that's called life. You have changed the lives of everyone you have ever interacted with, the old lady you gave your sit to in the bus, the poor little kid you gave your spare coins to, the teenager you bumped into to whom you apologized, the cashier you said "Hello" and "Thank you" to this morning. Every single thing you have ever touched is forever marked by your star-forged molecules. That's why you are signifigant. Your signifigance, my friend, it is not valued by the amount of space you occupy in the physical cosmos, it is valued by the space you occupy in other people's conciousness.
  Make sure you are someone to be remembered, someone to be admired. Your time in the world as a physical entity might be finite but your mind can be as infinite as you make it to be. People cease to exist, ideas do not. That's why what you should strive for is not to be remembered by the expendable body of yours, but rather by your indestructible mind. Treasure this limited time you have. Don't waste it.
   You say you can't change the world no matter how much you try. You're probably right, you can't. The idea of one person making a change is, nowadays, rather utopic. However, it's not how much people try, it's how many people try. Like molecules, we are all tiny bits of existence, which when united form a bond that's so strong and so fierce, it breeds life from within itself. Pink Floyd say that we are just another brick in the wall. I agree, but not quite in the way they meant it. Take a few bricks out of the wall and watch it collapse upon your feet, or build it strong and tall and create things far beyond your imagination. Brick by brick, bit by bit we will eventually change the world, I tell you this one for sure. You might not be there to witness it, but knowing you were part of it should clear all your worries. "Be the change you want to see in the world". But don't let the world change you. You might not be the special snowflake in a sea of sand grains, but you are the sand grain that will eventually become part of something bigger, a sand castle perhaps, which no tide will ever be able to destroy.

"Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars."

                                                       - Serbian proverb

Yours sincerely,
Stelios Zesiades.

P.S: I hope I helped you out.

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.