"Gentlemen, I suppose you're all considering my statements, asking yourselves which one of them is correct. Don't reach your conclusion just yet, please. As a matter of fact, I understand your stance. Many of us are failed novelists of our own lives. We speak of stories that only happened in our head, and sometimes one's fantasy substitutes one's lot altogether. Once, I used to love someone whom I let go because of one mistunderstood absence. I didn't ask any questions, I just vanished. Years later we met again and we talked. I understood then how the whole silence between us was the result of my imagination. Nothing could be done about it anymore. Something that was never real has managed to create something real."
(I wonder if Paler's work has ever been translated in English)
Anyway, I'm a bit reluctant to read my own words. You know, from earlier posts. Or write something new. Gentlemen, since when have I become such a bore? You miss the fun and the jokes, and so do I. And since when have I started giving motivational speeches?! "Why so serious?" Let's make fun of everything again and be best friends, shall we?
Have you ever stumbled, fell and hurt yourself pretty bad? Have you ever swallowed your tears and burst out laughing instead? "I'm okay! I'm okay!" No? Well, I did, more than once. Joking always worked for me. Whatever was bothering me was always being deflected with a couple of smart words with a twist.
I don't remember who told me that Romanians in general tend to joke about their problems instead of solving them. That by joking about the effect we can't fix the cause. I raised my shoulders then and probably told him to fuck off. I mean, what did he know about us, about me? If it hadn't been for cynicism, I would be long dead.
Cynicism was my armor. Cynicism helped me survive. But cynicism didn't help me live.
So I'm alive, I'm getting with the program every day, and I can't say that all my days are necessarily bad. I still enjoy a great deal of bad (taste) humour, and that's not going to change. But if something is bothering me, I no longer laugh about it. I no longer ignore it.
I have a chronic gut feeling that the surest way to die is to survive.