August 1, 2025
Untamed
March 30, 2025
Murakami and Our Uncertain Walls
I truly
believe literature and children are at the core of who I am. They're my square one - where I find my peace. All the time,
in any second, these two aspects are in my DNA. Life seemed to have had other
plans for me, and I don’t yet know what this newly forged "I" will look like in
the future, but whenever Life pushes me too far – into its
chaotic mazes, its never-ending working hours, when I feel like a marionette, I
pull the string and try to go back to square one, to my real sanctuary.
Style has
always been something that I look for in a book, and although I
have always enjoyed Murakami’s writings and his ideas, I have always felt
something missing in the language, something that felt false, like it got lost in
translation. Dialogues that sound unnatural in Romanian, descriptions that
lose their meanings, and so on. So, with his latest novel, I tried the English
version, which I think sounds much better than what I have read so far by him
in Romanian.
Reading this
novel felt like sitting in a quiet place, jazz playing in the background, rain tapping the windows. It’s like stepping out of reality, of how the world
goes, and enjoying the other World that is in all of us, surrounded by our own
Uncertain Walls. The borderland, the place where fiction and reality,
conscious and unconscious, meet and have a drink together, where no one has
a Name, and it’s ok, because here, in this place, there is no time, no hands on
the clocks, no running, no egos, no shadows.
“In my head, there was a battle going on between reality and unreality. At this moment I was standing right in the interstice between this world and the other world. There was a fierce split between the conscious and the unconscious, and I had to choose where I should belong.” (121)“The flow of the river became an elaborate maze, and, just as it traveled deep underground, our reality, too, seemed to proceed inside us, branching out down several paths. Different versions of reality mixed together, different choices became intertwined, out of which a composite reality – or, what we come to understand as reality – took shape.” (131)“Single people need those kinds of modest rituals in their lives. To get through each day.” 366
“I shut my eyes and thought about time. In the past – for instance, back when I was seventeen – there was literally an inexhaustible amount of time. Like a huge reservoir, filled to the very brim. So there was no need to consider time. But now was different. Time, I knew, was limited. And as I aged, considering time ahad even greater implications. Time, no matter what, ticked away, ceaselessly. (370 )
“However, there isn’t just one reality. Reality is something you have to choose by yourself, out of several possible alternatives.” (423)
March 9, 2025
Black and White and Tons of Colours
If there is something I truly
believe in is that the world is not only black and white, but there are always dozens
of greys and tons of colours in between. We are not only the “I” that we see in
the mirror, or the “you” that we see in front of us. We – the simple people - are
our ancestors, their stories, our stories, overlapping, mixing, meeting at the
borderland that we define as “I” or “you”.
Despite everything, I still believe in humanity. I still believe that there is that “good”
part in most of us – in the humble, common people – we just need to really
listen, not only hear that “You” in front of us. I believe in the simple people who enjoy a
sunset, a walk in the park, a talk with a friend, a cup of coffee on an orange
bench, or we, who see all our humanity in the smile of a child. The people who
try to breathe and keep on living in the wrath of history.
I am tired of people who think
they are the only ones who detain the truth. Tired of judging people, tired of people
who see only the ugliness of this world. I am tired of the noise around me. So sick and tired, beyond my own words. Nowadays, in the new world that arises, and that
shall pass one way or another, we, the common, simple people, need to keep on
caring the fire of humanity in us. And accept all the colours around us. Because
our truth about the other is not THE truth if we can see only the black or the
white.
January 25, 2025
Blue January
This too, shall pass …
The phrase that I keep repeating to myself during these days.
"I was bruised and battered
I couldn't tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
Saw my reflection in a window
And didn't know my own face
Oh brother are you gonna leave me wastin' away
On the streets of Philadelphia?
I walked the avenue, 'til my legs felt like stone
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone
At night I could hear the blood in my veins
Just as black and whispering as the rain
On the streets of Philadelphia
Ain't no angel gonna greet me
It's just you and I my friend
And my clothes don't fit me no more
A thousand miles just to slip this skin
The night has fallen, I'm lyin' awake
I can feel myself fading away
So receive me brother with your faithless kiss
Or will we leave each other alone like this
On the streets of Philadelphia?"
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