Visual Poetry

When aesthetic pervades, even the most unfamiliar topic becomes incredibly fascinating. 
Thanks Wong Kar Wai, for a beautiful evening. 

   

“Remember when I told you that there is nothing to regret in life? 

It's all bullshit. If life had no regrets it would be really boring”.

“No news is news”.

Letters to Milena

"I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones. Basically it is nothing other than this fear we have so often talked about, but fear spread to everything, fear of the greatest as of the smallest, fear, paralyzing fear of pronouncing a word, although this fear may not only be fear but also a longing for something greater than all that is fearful"

Franz Kafka - Letters to Milena 

Bauchgefühl, are you real or just a crazy bitch?

Sometimes I wish I could hit the fast-forward button. Obviously if I could then press the rewind button shortly after: I am not eager to become old instantly or dying to see how I will look in my 50s, 60s or 80s (if I ever get there, after all it´s not guaranteed). I am just sometimes puzzled by my feelings about other people´s choices and would love to see, without having to wait a decade or two, if my “Bauchgefühl” is right or if it´s totally messed up, which could even lead to make me look like I am being a jealous moralist spinster instead.

When we observe the lives of people around us we have a somehow privileged viewpoint: we are somehow detached (or at least generally more detached than them) not carried away by the incontrollable stream of passion (it´s not our life, chill out, no big deal!) and we spot right away the nice little hints that reveal the real “underground” motivations of those choices, which sometimes are not that healthy and could lead to a sudden crash. Much later, obviously, but still. They are the same little hints that we so very skillfully “oversee” (aka totally ignore) when it´s us, that we are talking about.

Lately I cannot help but being, if not disappointed (that sounds way too hard, doesn´t it?) at least a little puzzled about some choices of good friends of mine. There seems to be a sort of magical planetary influence, lately, because big changes are taking place in my circle of friends and, when they drop those news-bombs, I really, really have to control my facial muscles as to not let that eyebrow immediately rise in an explosion of pure, unfiltered skepticism.

In the past years I have been told several times that it´s good to trust your gut feeling, your “sixth sense”. Though thinking that it was a splendid suggestion, I first had the proof that it was also one to follow when I went out with a guy that I had met at a party and had already seemed to me a little weird. I had felt that there was something odd, yet as the guy sent me an email that night (through a group-website of which we both were members: I had not given my address to him directly) asking in the most mannered way if I wanted to have a drink with him, instead of listening to that little voice that kept saying “no, no, find an excuse, say no” I mentally scolded myself with a snappy “now, don´t be bitchy. He might be a little strange but he is also kind, he asked you out, what´s the problem?!”. The problem was that the guy is mentally disturbed, as it later turned out. And though I was lucky enough to get back home in one piece that night (for a few seconds I had doubts about that) I did end up experiencing one of the most unpleasant nights of my life. Ignoring my instinct was not smart, now I know. Yet back then it was somehow hard to believe that my stomach had superpowers that my brains did not have. Learning by doing, I then decided to tattoo the claim “Listen to your Bauchgefühl!” on my cerebral cortex.

Now, what does a bad date have to do with my friends’ life choices? Nothing, for sure. Only I am wondering if my sixth sense is merely auto referential or if it works also with those decisions of thirds which make me feel strange, which I find a little…hazardous. 

I remember being doubtful about a pregnancy in a shaky marriage. The child was not even 2 when the marriage imploded. I had a pretty strange feeling at a wedding where I nevertheless was moved to tears and that also turned into a very complicated and pretty unhappy situation shortly after.

Now I witness a friend perpetrating her well known scheme of long-distance-high-complex-factor relationship, a second one conducting her life as a driving learner at her first lesson with a stoned teacher sitting beside just laughing hysterically (foot on the accelerator pedal – down on the brake – panic - oh, speed is actually nice - foot heavy on the accelerator again - but maybe it´s scary - full brake again - no no, accelerator, now and 1000 miles per hours, whatever!!) and a third couple with a remarkable age difference exchanging unofficial vows of eternal love only a few weeks into their new-born lovestory.

I honestly still don´t understand if I am just being jealous of their happiness or if I just want to protect my friends from situations that in the rational corner of my brain are banging loudly on the bell with the big red sign “d-a-n-g-e-r!”.

But in the end, what do I know? I live in such a perpetual status-quo that maybe my “third party Bauchgefühl” comes only from my fear of changes. And who am I to judge, who am I to know? Nobody. I don´t know anything, in the end.

Time will tell, and since there´s no fast forward button (thankfully), we all just have to wait and see.