So, giving a shot to this whole "blog" thing that stopped being whatever it was around 2007. Maybe I can bring them back again. Me and the fracktons of blogs still running around (if anyone found Barney's one, I'd love a link, tyvm). See, after seeing a few of my friends had this thing called a "blog", I thought "Hell, why not? I should write a blog so no one can see what's on my mind! I'll be like a Portuguese Chuck Lorre, only without the actual audience!"
So yeah. Hey there.
Curiously, though, that opens up the possibility that I'm simply doing this to mimic my friends. Those who might know me more, however, might be privy to the actual truth: that I'm doing this out of sheer boredom, and because delivering this kind of speech in real life usually ends up in me alienating everyone around me (except for my current friendship circle over at shrink school. I literally found the two people who actually like me rambling on, for some reason). And THAT, of course, leads to the realization that I shouldn't be bored. There's the channel, there's the book I've been working on for the past two years (and still hasn't been published, barely dodged vanity publishing, thank god), there's school, or, as you might call it, university. I shouldn't be bored.
See, some people might tell you that you're bored because you don't fully appreciate the value of work. Others might tell you you're bored due to spiritual anguish. Others yet might tell you all you need is a good lay. My view on the whole boredom thing?
YOU'RE FRACKING BORED = NOTHING FUN TO DO
That wasn't me shouting, that was me pointing out something in a highlighted fashion.
See, when I'm bored, that's usually because I've ran through everything I wanted to do in my day and have just a few moments before having to go to bed in order to sleep. Sometimes, though, I'll have everything sorted out and, not wanting to re-read Pavlov's dog for the fifteenth time, I'll just stand there going "What now?".
I'm bored because I have literally nothing to do. And, as some of you might know, nothing to do leads to lots of thinking. And, as I like to say, thinking is the enemy of happiness.
Yes, I said it. You will realize that to be true, sooner or later. The more you think, the less happy you are. I don't mean thinking as in "school thinking" or even "writing thinking". I mean "thinking thinking", those moments where you just stop and question life, death, your fate, what you're doing with your existence, the inherent deadline of the Grim Reaper, stuff like that. It starts out small, of course.
But it escalates. TRUST ME when I say it escalates. Soon, you'll be losing nights. Then, you'll be losing brain cells. Soon enough, you'll realize you just ran yourself into the ground and you're now miserable because you're a freaking teenager who's juggling the ideas of life, death and purposelessness.
I was a weird kid.
So, what did I do to get over the thinking? Simple.
I stopped.
There is no process. There is nothing. There are exactly 2 exits: professional help (the kind I'm training to be, oddly enough) and raw self-discipline. For me, it came slowly, but began one day, during band practice, when I was 16. I realized, there and then, I didn't give two shits what others thought of me. It was such a beautiful thought I actually cried. To truly realize, to understand that your life is SEPARATE from others, that others' reactions shouldn't condition what you do, is the epiphany of a lifetime. Still took me years, though. I had epiphanies along the way.
I learned the value of friendship. Honesty. The value of staying true to one's ideals. The ability to understand that the world will go on without you and, as such, you need to leave as big a footprint as you can (which is when I began writing the book, by the way). But, above all, I learned the value of loyalty.
And I ended up here, today. A 19 year-old Portuguese guy who never drank a drop of alcohol in his life. I say that because that's what essentially defines me in this crapsack society. Don't ask.
And now I'm writing a blog. Because I'm bored. And because my brain wants to talk and needs keys, because my penmanship is awful.
See you next time. Thank you for tuning in.
