luni, 23 iunie 2008

Impresii de Bucuresti II / Bucharest Feelings II

If anyone told me, some time ago, that I would once reach this place, I would have laughed in their face. Only because I had such a preconception about it that nothing good could have emerged in my head when thinking about Bucharest... Strange how sometimes you block yourself systematically and maybe uncounsciously and you don't understand how it can be that the world seems to wrap around you instead of opening up in front of you. Well, it's only a matter of working upon yourself and allowing yourself to "suck in a new experience", to quote from The Beach. Amazingly, new experiences may bring you to despair or ecstasy, they may either drive you crazy and you may give them up or they may give you dependency. Dependency on adrenaline and the feeling of coming closer to some edge or dependency on the experience itself and its content. Either way, I believe that you need to cultivate a certain taste for these new experiences in order to make them real. Otherwise, they will never happen to you or at least you'll never feel them as such. Some people prefer to be quiet and calm, to settle down and remain in a familiar world.

To anyone coming from outside of it, Bucharest will surely be a new experience that both sucks you in and that you need to suck in. Else, it is going to hurt badly. And the major challenge is to stay true to your essential self, even if being emerged in it sometimes wholly!

miercuri, 18 iunie 2008

Impresii de Bucuresti - I / Bucharest Feelings - I

Nume gol.
Sună a gol, pentru mine, cel puţin…
Nume care mereu mi-a creat un sentiment ciudat, uneori de groază, alteori de necunoscut, mereu de patemi, vorba lui Nichita...
Să-l trăieşti şi să-l simţi pe pielea ta este oricum o experienţă cu totul şi cu totul diferită a numelui şi a conţinutului său efectiv. Este ca şi când te-ai tatua, nu doar ai vorbi despre tatuaj sau ai încerca să te înţepi cu acul... Iar tatuajul, ca orice implică sânge şi voinţă şi artă, doare. Durere dureros de dulce, în fapt... pentru ca fiecare lucru are preţul lui. Cineva îmi zicea zilele trecute un lucru extrem de interesant, o altă versiune a acestei idei, cum că şi fiecare om are preţul lui. Cugetare tipică de Bucureşti, probabil – deşi tot mai mult observ aici un punct de întâlnire al tuturor contrastelor posibile...

**
Empty name.
Sounds empty - to me, at least...
Name that has always given me a strange feeling, sometimes of dread, others of unknown, always contrary and passionate, as our Nichita used to say...
Living it and feeling it on your skin is, however, a totally different way to experience its name and its real content. It is as if you actually got a tattoo and not just talked about it or tried to sting yourself once with a needle... And a tattoo, just like everything which implies some blood and will and art, hurts. It hurts a sweet pain, in fact...because everything has its price. Someone was telling me a different thing these days, a quite interesting version of the same idea, that every person also has its price. A typical piece of wisdom from Bucharest, i guess - although i see already how this place attracts all possible contrasts...