How easy it is to be productive when there are no distractions to entice one into idleness of mind. With little to occupy one in a new environment, it becomes a simple matter to do what one must; to become what one is. It is as a reset switch that is clutched and drawn to eradicate all previous accumulations. Baptized by the violent heat and cleansed internally by the allowance for thought, I feel refreshed despite it being nearly three in the morning.
The excitement in my heart may just as well be the result of what I absorbed from the heart of a cow I just came from eating—a moment is necessary to indulge in the novelty of ingesting a cow’s heart at two in the morning—or just as likely, from what resonates after a day of splendid stimulation. I have not felt so proud of anything I have written as I did for what I churned out today over the course of some hours. Love, explored by means of dialogue between two brothers—for this conversation I produced much to enclose it and I am satisfied, although with two or three chapters yet to write. I felt so protective of the source of my satisfaction that I placed it in a locker with what else may impair me if lost. I would sooner lose all that is in my possession than that composition book I am almost tempted to retrieve now and keep in my presence—would a mother abandon her child as I have mine; hers could never satisfy her as mine does me, but this I will keep to myself lest the mother neglect hers for envy of mine.
It is a day like this when I am struck by a sense of fulfillment that my heart fills with love and gratitude for God—not to say that these are ever absent, only less prominent than on moments like this. Soon after I finished the chapter, I went with my friends to practice my ability to assume in perceiving their rapidity in speaking. I was with a feeling similar to what I knew in university when I would go to the gym before class, lift four hundred pounds, then attend lecture under the influence of the fruits of accomplishment.
Fatigue came from a crevice I overlooked. I learned today that taxi drivers make for excellent Spanish tutors.
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Is it arrogant presumption or ignorance manifested into naiveté that led me to assume I would find a job on the very first attempt I made in searching for one? Considering that I was told I would have been hired if a position were only available by individuals who cannot benefit from saying so, it may be neither, but as it stands, I remain a tourist. If I remain one for a few more days, then I will embrace the role completely and proceed accordingly. Yesterday, I applied to two places before an interesting thing happened: on a bike slightly superior to what I rode last—a higher seat came at the price of riding through the city on a bicycle adorned with pink flowers—I rode and fortunately, found a piano in front of a café.
The instrument had evidently been long neglected: the keys that were not chipped away, deteriorated, or completely absent were out of tune to the extent that pity is evoked for the instrument, as it is for a child that is found dirty, abandoned, and in tattered clothing. As I would try to encourage the child by giving him a smile or meal, I approached the piano and encouraged it with my eager fingers. As I played Alla Turca on the grateful instrument that bid those passing by Sonrie! a woman approached and asked me to relieve her of the challenge of recalling the name of the piece she recognized. A brief conversation revealed not only the name, but my present position to her and the kind woman expressed a desire to help me. She took my information and said would share it with a friend of hers who might be with a job to offer me—time will tell what will come of it. I am indifferent to whether this leads to anything; the idea that Mozart’s resonance is so influential and significant that it would inspire the desire to be of help is piquant enough to fill me with contentment.
I have found the inoculation that protects the mind and body from the virus that is disappointment—it is available to anyone who signs his name on the dotted line of that contract between man and fate which calls for total resignation. The vaccination need only be injected once for the consciousness of an inability to do more than make an attempt, to be accessible indefinitely. How can one acknowledge the arbitrary outcome of all that is external and still expect? It is obstinacy and only an unreasonable mind would take it so far to be in the slightest affected by what results from coincidence—a man may earn a position for no other reason than there being a peculiar jocularity in the one reviewing his application! With this in mind, it is far from difficult to expend the effort required for the attempt and then retreat to allow fate the movement that is anyway impervious to the concern of man.
The incident with the piano was interesting, significant even, but not more so than what I found later that night. At times, there are those occasions so inspirational, so exciting, inherently original and fascinating that I am left beside myself with childlike joy that goes so far as to provoke a maddened sort of muttering that is altogether beyond me to contain. I went out with my hostelmates for the pleasure to be found in alternating company, and although I did not stay long for my inability to tolerate those darkened rooms where men dance to a cacophony that can only degrade one’s hearing as it does one’s soul—if my hearing is to be lost, I will give it to the masters, what a waste to lose it to trifles!—I saw what granted me the joy that my friends found in dancing, namely, an idea.
In front of one of the many clubs we passed was a man in a variegated garb that covered all but his face and fit in such a way to reveal all of his contours and vulgar indentations. The face of this man was painted an inhumane white, his dark, bead-like eyes were accentuated with mascara, and his nose was equipped with a red ball that matched the tint of his lips and the peculiar, pointed wig he wore. This man produced from his mouth a sort of sharp trill and no more; a sound as original as it was strange to perceive emerging from the lips of a man supposed to be not unlike myself! The clown—indeed he was neither more nor less—eradicated all boundaries drawn by propriety and approached those who passed him, discerned what he ought to do to falter confidence and in turn, the men who suffered his attacks, presented under the guise of innocuous comedy, and delivered the blow as only instinctually knew how to.
This clown, a martyr for individuality and sincerity, in his very tragic being—for needless to say, the martyr’s existence is an inherently tragic one—provided me with the means to proceed from that snare in which I have been caught by the sixth string quartet of Mendelssohn. I feel that miraculous process of development and growth of life transpire within me and I know inexpressible excitement in anticipation for what I cannot even fathom to come from this blessed maturation.
aerochameleon 