Buoyancy: My Late New Year's Resolution

Buoy·an·cy

ˈboiənsē,ˈbo͞oyənsē/noun

1. The ability or tendency to float in water or air or some other fluid.

2. An optimistic and cheerful disposition."the happiness and buoyancy of his nature”

It’s seems like a challenging notion for any self proclaimed cynical person to embrace, let alone participate in the infamous new year’s resolution tradition. 

The idea that from one day to the next, a day that -away from human conception- is as equal as any other sunrise in history, we can all change our bad habits. Publicly proclaim that our mistakes, patterns and unhealthy habits are a thing of the past and that from now on we will work harder, eat healthier, act kinder. All of the while manufacturing these bold statements in the midst of loud music, screaming people, contaminating paper crowns and glittering confetti and lots of champagne.

It’s been my experience that the socially embraced way to spend new years is to consciously revoke all sense of responsibility or maturity, stay up late, abuse of your favourite vices and desperately look for a stranger to kiss at midnight… And for what? 

For the first day of your so called “fresh and new” year to wake up with a headache, blurred memories from the night before and even sometimes a total stranger sleeping next to you?

It’s difficult for me not to look at these customs with the proverbial pinch of salt, and with a false sense of superiority. Scoffing at the hopeful neurotics around me, repeating the same problematic rituals year after year. More often than not, with little to no result, each time they practice them.

This time, I spent new year’s with my boyfriend (that was a first).

It was a small gathering of friends. We drank and smoked in moderation, played board games and went to bed at a surprisingly reasonable hour. 

The next morning, we got up and got on a plane to the beach for a holiday we’d been planning for quite a while now.

One day (already a little stoned), I went swimming in the ocean with my friends. 

A little important sidebar about me is that I’ve always been bit jittery in the ocean. Being in such an unfamiliar territory has never let me feel at peace when surrounded by what seem like an infinite deep blue. 

As soon as I’m swimming chest deep I begin revising in my head the countless stories of lost people and eventually Steven Spielberg’s gigantic and clumsy shark animatronic comes up from my imagination, swimming around my feet, that I can no longer see thanks to the murky green and sandy waters.

But not this time. I don’t know if it was the fact that I was with three of my closest friends or the fact that the little and harmless weed I’d smoked a few minutes before was already giving me the natural giggles, but for some reason, my body began relaxing, and after a while I -quite unintentionally- laid on my back. 

My entire body became horizontal. I could no longer hear my fiend’s laughter, the music coming from the beach, or even the wind. The ocean’s water was covering my ears, and emitting a hypnotising, deep, revolving sound. 
I opened my eyes and all I could see was clear blue sky. 
I was alone, with myself. Surrounded by friends, the noise, the world and the chaos, but I was floating. 
I was effortlessly drifting, not drowning, but naturally existing. And then I remembered the word.

‘Buoyancy’

It had been 3 years ago. 

I was alone in London, in the middle of winter.  At the time I was dealing with the complicated procedure of coming out of the closet in two countries at the same time. I had just dropped out of my masters degree and undergoing a pretty terrible depression.

Back then, reading was about the only thing that made me feel sane and safe.

I was reading “The Marriage Plot” by Jeffry Eugenides. One of my all time favourites.

I was just finishing a long chapter when the main character finally finds the right word to describe what she was feeling in her relationship. 

‘Buoyant’.

I must admit: It’s not everyday I find myself with a completely alien english word. Much less one that fascinated and drew me in so much. 

I can’t explain why, but at the moment of googling it, and finding out what it meant. I wrote it down on a piece of paper, and put it inside my desk drawer.

I never thought about it again. Until three years later, thousands of miles away from my snowy London apartment in a hot, Mexican beach.

With the history of failed deadlines this blog already has, it should come as no surprise that my new year’s resolution is only surfacing now, in the middle of January. 

It’s still a bit unclear, what I mean by saying that my new year’s resolution is to be Buoyant. But in other ways it makes perfect sense to me.

I plan this year to be very hard and challenging. I plan to move around as much as I can. To be brave enough to actually pursue the things I want, no matter how unexpected or strange they might seem. 

I plan to make efforts I’ve never done before, and I’m taking it upon myself to leave as much comfort zones as I possibly can. 

But in the midst of all this -for a lack of a better word- “Battling”, what I plan is be confidant enough to float and dwell in what I already have. What I’ve already accomplished.

It may not be a lot. But the fact that since I graduated I’ve had four jobs, five bosses and countless challenges in the past three years, assures me that I’m not a graduate anymore. 

However small they might be, I have my own experiences. Professional and personal. And I’ve worked very hard for them to help me, to lift me, to be firm enough so that I can float on them. 

No matter how big the challenges will be this year, I guess my new year's resolution is to be trusting and ironically, to be calm and still during all my future struggles and combats. 

This may not sound exactly eloquent yet, or may not seem important or deep enough to you, dear reader. 

But in the midst of all this chaos, isn’t in important if not vital to sometimes to remember that no matter how much pain or fear, if we lean back and take a proper breath, we naturally don’t drown. We naturally survive. 

We, for better or for worse, are Buoyant.

Midnight thoughts and a whole lot of coins.

I dropped the box full of coins tonight.

You know, the box, right?, The one everyone has in their room. Where you put the objects you know are not useful today but you hold on to them in the faint hope that one day someone will need them and you will know exactly where you have a spare. 

Call that a box with two moist matches inside, the stack of pennies  you refuse to carry around but forbid yourself to give away, some times a couple of questionable AA batteries are mixed into the pot.

In my case, it’s a not so small wooden box I’ve had since puberty.

Over the years, -and to this point, almost decades- The box has been a great saviour to me when I know I’ll face a day full of parking meters or small tips. For all these years, the box has remained put, in it’s original scared place and today I dropped it.

It was an astounding sound, one I admit I’d never heard before. Deafening, as more than a hundred coins of different materials, values and nationalities, hit the hardwood floor of my bedroom. Some of them staying right where they fell, others scattering around all over the room, probably rolling as far away as they could, enjoying their spontaneous and unpredicted freedom.

“Why does this kind of shit always happens to me when I’m exhausted?” I asked myself.

All was wrong. The room was a mess. Picking up the coins would’ve probably meant wasting at least fifteen minutes of my precious time lying in bed, eating dry cereal and watching episodes of sitcoms I know by heart.

How dare these coins oppose my sacred regime of procrastination?

After toying with the idea of simply gathering them up and leaving on the floor for a “Better time to pick them up” -If such a thing even existed- and once again surrendering myself to my complete incapability of inhabiting a messy bedroom, I began the dreaded task.

But wait. The torture wasn’t over yet.

I don’t know if any of you, beautiful readers, have ever tried picking a big handful of coins, perfectly resting on the ground at the same time, but if you were as ignorant to the situation as I was, here comes the kicker:

You can’t just gather them up and then lift them off the floor all at once.

It’s not like picking up seeds, or beans.

Coins are flat, and thanks to their shape,  gravity -and what I suspect is pure evil on their part-, they have the ability to stick to the flat surface of the floor like amazing and tenacious mutherfuckers.

I tried it all. I tried gathering them all with my hands and then lifting them, cornering them into the wall. Creating levers and exploiting my very limited creativity in physics.

It was all for not.

I came to the horrible realisation (at 12:23am on a Wednesday) That if I was going to pick up my mess, I would have to pick one coin at a time, patiently returning them to their designated home. 

And of course, being the overly sentimental and ridiculous person that I am, I managed to turn this terribly mundane and boring experience into a fucking life lesson.

The thing is, I’ve been meaning to write this column for a while now, and I wasn’t sure how to go about it. 

It’s a pretty big irony that after making big preaches in my latest column about the importance of persistence and commitment to long term hard work, I put a moratorium on my blog for an entire year.

I wish I could say, “Guys I’m sorry I stopped writing, but wait ‘till you hear the life changing twists that happened to me in the last year, I sold all of my possessions and went to live in an underground ashram where became a Reiki master, saved the elephants and was able to transform and completely find myself. AKA Eat Pray Love can kiss my ass.”

No.

I’m still the same guy.

Things happened. Obviously. Some good, some bad. But blaming the situations that happened around me to justify not making at least three hours a week to continue my blog would be a waste of both our times.

I stopped writing because I chose to stop writing.

It’s as simple as that.

The reasons, however of choosing to stop were not simple.

They were complicated, confusing of different sizes, shapes and colours, just like… (You guessed it) my awesome box of coins!

(See how I did have a point?)

The reason I’m dragging out this seemingly empty and excruciating experience is because I have troubles accepting reality.

My reality is that I stopped writing because I loved my writing and I hated my writing.

Because I thought the blog was great and I feared the blog was garbage.

Because being honest with my emotions and writing about them is a total necessity of mine, yet it makes me feel raw and vulnerable every time I do it.

Because I have a deep fear of failure, and an even deeper fear of success.

All of this potpourri of neurosis, packed into the same pretty wooden box.

I wish I could wrap this up by stating that picking up a bunch useless coins in the middle of the night and wasted what felt like months of my life was a cleansing and transformative experience and that I know have a clear view of who I am, what I want and promise a series of up coming columns that will knock your socks off… But I won’t.

Truth be told, I still have a lot of looking through to do. It is a tedious task that takes a bunch of time and sometimes I go out of my way to avoid doing it, but the thing I have realised is that only by investing the time to pick each coin up and examine it individually will I ever actually understand my own content. What can be tossed away and should be saved for now or the future. 

What I do promise is to try and translate and communicate every trite and mundane self epiphany I have in the hopes it’ll ring the bell for someone, somewhere.

I do hope you stick around to see what other knick knacks come up.

Young Entrepreneurs

For all those with great ideas, and not so great follow through routines.

Entrepreneur Sophie Boyce talks about starting her own business at age 20.

“Never give up on your goals!”

“Follow your dream!”

“Never let anyone tell you you can’t make it!”

These are all repeated bumper stickers we hear in our twenties. 

Given that our goals and ideals aren’t really clear yet, “follow your dream” is a tricky advice to give at best, the first problem being that most of us don’t actually know what our dream is yet.

I’m a firm believer that to know what you want to do in life, you first have to know what you don’t like doing, thus trying a little bit of everything.

The chances to know what you want to do the rest of your life and following a specific bullet point plan to make that goal come true seams unlikely. 

It seems we early twenty year olds get ideas about what we want to do and pursue every five seconds, some can be pretty brilliant, some difficult, and some plain unrealistic. 

The problem with this recurrent phenomena is that it becomes increasingly difficult to identify which dreams we can and should pursue, and which others to put in the back burner.

As smart, creative young adults, it's important to identify that what we lack, as a generation is not intelligence or wit, but mere effort.


My official diagnostic for our generation?: 
Perseverance Deficit Disorder.

22 year old Sophie Boyce announced she was opening her very own musical theatre school about three years ago.

With some experience working before on film and T.V, she made her graduation short film “Mâché Man” in 2012, releasing it as the first official production from Spirit: Young Performers Company.

The short film, which entered the official London Independent Film Festival selection that same year and the soundtrack, “Made of Paper” performed by 11 year old Oliver Award winner Cleo Demetriou from Matilda the Musical and Les Miserables, received great attention online. The same music video already has more than 30,000 views in Youtube and worked as the perfect presentation card of what Spirit could offer young performers all around the country.

To this day, Spirit is buzzing all around London, already with more than 100 students and every final graduation performance professionally filmed, so the young artists can show it in any future audition.

Spirit has already earned the attention from The Telegraph, naming the article, in honour of it’s founder: “Drama school earns rave reviews on Youtube”.

We asked Sophie a few questions, not only for any young entrepreneur out there but for anyone else in need of a bit of inspiration to make their goal a reality.

inkBox: What made you think of Spirit for the first time?

What did you think it could offer that didn’t exist yet?

S.B: I love musicals. Actually, musical theatre was always a greater passion of mine than film, but I couldn’t sing or dance whilst I could hold a camera and tell people what to do… So I started making films instead! Then I decided I wanted to direct musical films but I didn’t want to sit around waiting for that opportunity to arise, nor work my way up from a runner… I wanted it to happen now. 

I also love working with children and after seeing Matilda the Musical in the West End, I knew I wanted in – I wanted to work with kids like that and produce work to that standard. 

So put the two together, and somehow the idea came about: I could work with kids (the very best kids, hopefully), produce showtunes (original ones, hopefully) and get the camera out – make it a film. And have people watch, hopefully.

inkBox.- What kind of education and information did you need to start the business and where did you get it from?

S.B: I have to admit, I kind of blagged it. My parents told me to attend classes in business and networking, but I never did. As far as education goes, a degree in practical filmmaking helps with the filmmaking part of it… and then surrounding myself with people who are very talented in theatre; advertising choreographer jobs and being lucky enough to generate the interest of West End creatives for the roles. 

Saying this now, I realise why people are surprised when I tell them I started the business by myself. My only experience of performing arts schools really was attending a couple of bad ones myself as a kid. As far as research goes, I had spent years trying to find a good dance-school for my little sister and being continually frustrated that so few performing arts schools seemed to take the kids seriously. So much wasted talent and time. 

I knew what I DIDN’T want Spirit to be, and that was all the information I had really, to begin with. Other than that I just had a very clear image of the type of company we were going to be, the type of videos we were going to make and the type of audience we were going to generate… And then focused on making it happen.

inkBox.- What would you say were the main challenges you first encountered when starting the company?

S.B: Finding customers! 
It’s hard to get people to take a chance on you. 
Right away I was getting the attention of serious stage-parents. But it’s a big risk for a serious stage-parent to take a chance on a brand new endeavour, to put their little star in the hands of a potential failure, and trust the words of a random 20-year-old film school graduate. These parents want the best for their kids, after all. 

The first workshop we did, I had 8 kids and only 3 of them paid. The rest were all kids I practically begged to take scholarships! 

inkBox.- The company has earned so much attention online. Was including social media always a plan for the school?

S.B: Yes. I knew I wanted to build an audience for these kids. I’m still working hard to get that audience to the size I want it to be… But it’s finally heading in the right direction.

There wouldn’t be a business without social media. I don’t know how these other drama schools manage to get anyone through the doors without it! 
With YouTube, our clients can see EXACTLY what they’re signing up for... that’s usually how they know about us. Then I also used Facebook advertising, which worked pretty well, and Instragram is a good one for us as well. 

Nowadays it’s pretty much all word-of-mouth bringing in the kids, but for six months or so I was 100% reliant on social media. 

inkBox.- What would you say is the most useful or important lesson you’ve learned during these two years running a company?

S.B: To be tough and sure of yourself. I’m still working on it. 
I think – maybe because I’m young – people overstep the line a bit; parents want to make ‘suggestions’ (tell me how to run my own company) or they make ridiculous demands or they take a mile. 

I am confident in myself and in my business… but I’m also too polite to some of those people; nodding along and saying ‘I understand’ even when they’re out of line. So I’ve learned I need to be tougher; put my foot down more, say ‘no’, say ‘leave it to me – I’m the expert’, say ‘Please don’t call me at 10.30 on a Friday night’, say ‘no, I will not turn away talented children just so your child can be the star… why on earth would I do that?’.

inkBox.- If you could give an advice now to yourself two years ago, when starting the company, what would it be?

S.B: Charge more money!! Our prices are the same as the average London theatre school – but the kids get so much more from Spirit, and then some. 
Would I have lost potential clients with higher prices? I don’t really think so. I think you are what you sell yourself for – sell yourself high, and people will believe you’re worth it. Then prove to them you’re worth it.

inkBox.- What does the future of Spirit look like? Any new plans?

S.B: I want us to reach more of an audience. 

I want my own studios in Central London. 

I want to watch more of my kids get into more West End shows. 

I want us to put on a full-length musical, and sell out tickets. 

I want to have kids training with me 4 days a week. 

I want our own reality T.V show or web series!

I want a touring musical theatre troupe. 

I want every child I have who is aged 8/9 to be in Matilda the Musical in the next couple of years! 

I want us to perform at West End Live and at Move It, and get a performance slot on a TV talk show. 

I want to hit one million online subscribers. 

I want one of my kids to play Sophie in Stephen Spielberg’s ‘BFG’! 

All of those are my dreams, and most of them are my firm plans.







Inspired enough yet?
After that interview, I should probably get out of bed myself and start making something happen as well...

All Ears: Teddy Blanks

To anyone who's already familiarised with the cheerful, contagious and camp sounds of the Brooklyn based artist Teddy Blanks, I apologise for this uninformative column, but I couldn't resist sharing my late discovery.

Truth is, I've been a huge soundtrack geek ever since puberty.
Few people know this about me. 
It's a taste I developed when I was about 12 years old, and has developed and grown in quite a peculiar -to not say freaky- way.


It started innocently enough; Appreciating a good John Williams, buying the necessary James Newton Howard or Phillip Glass.
Then, It took on a life of it's own.
The harder the soundtrack was to find, the bigger was my thirst.


To this point, I've found myself plenty of times obsessively hunting down pieces of music that were never officially released to the public, sometimes of underwhelming films that nobody really remembers or gives a shit about (let alone their score).

It's a little weird fact about myself, and now it's out there.



However, my little addiction can sometimes lead me to very lucky and pleasant discoveries of a lot of great artists. 

The thing that struck me most when finding the music of Teddy Blanks was just how well he's managed to stay away from the sometimes destructive internet spotlight. If you're lucky you'll find about two tracks of him on Youtube, and only one official -Albeit, adorable- Official music video.

His obscurity took me aback particularly as he is the composer of the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of Tiny Furniture; Otherwise known as Lena Dunham's first feature film that worked as her golden ticket to the pearly HBO gates... -I apologise for the mixed metaphors-.

Apart from Tiny Furniture's OST, -which has a free download available at the artist's website, that's right, FREE-. Blank also released his first album last year, entitled Therapy. 

Both albums are great, but being the Soundtrack buff that I am, I particularly enjoyed Blank's work on purely instrumental tracks, that manage to be funny and charming with an offbeat sound.

I seriously recommend visiting his website (here) at least to listen to my personal favourite track "The Emperor's New Clothes".


I'd share the song, but it's nowhere to be found on online -The relentless hipster inside of me kinda loves that-.

Therapy can also be found on the iTunes store, as well as the singe "Famous Friends".

The Adaptation Dilemma

It’s a crisis waiting to happen to anyone who’s got that horrific tag: “Not The Relationship Type”.

That being said, this column may not be for everyone. Some may not relate at all with the “intimacy issues” I’m about to describe. Sometimes, it seems that some people are born with the ability to just be in a relationship.

For some of us, however, it’s a little bit more complicated.

I believe I’ve been an independent person my entire life but with time and certain particular challenges, I’ve learnt to not only handle being by myself but enjoy it.

I was 20 years old when I moved to London. I was all by myself, no acquaintances, friends or family. The first three months were very difficult, I was homesick every day, I missed hanging out with my friends and my every day routines and there were days where I wondered, looking in the mirror, what had I gotten myself into, enrolling on a BA that would keep me separated from everything and everyone I loved and knew for at least two and a half years.

But then, as the weeks passed, something began to happen. Being lonely didn’t have the same meaning as it did when I arrived. Magically, I started to find joy in my little new routines -mundane as they were-. Something inside of me, I didn’t even know existed, adjusted quickly, and helped me discover the things I enjoyed the most, without anyone’s help.

Before I knew it, I had mastered how to do everything on my own, not only the basic stuff, like laundry or handling my bank account and finances but also the recreational stuff. Going to the movies, taking long walks, visiting art galleries…  One could almost say that in the midst of loneliness I began to date myself.

I know it sounds pathetic, but it turned out to be pretty fucking great.

Enjoying my independence is something that I will never apologise for. It’s one of the parts that I most love about myself.

All of my close relationships have come to learn that about me. This doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate or enjoy the closeness of my friends or family. But with time, everyone sufficiently close to me learns that there is a moment, after which I need to separate from everyone. Do I need to work? Meditate? Pray? Study? No. I need to do absolutely nothing. By myself. 

Ironically, somewhere along the road to independence, I -quite unexpectedly- developed a dependance to be alone.

My old roommate in London once joked that my idea of paradise was probably an infinite road for me to power walk on, listening to my music.

In some ways I can’t think of a more successful description of me.

Personally I’ve developed a rhythm of life that, requires certain rituals that to others will make absolutely no sense, whatsoever.

An example? I love watching T.V series, in my room, on my laptop. (Never a T.V. Even if there’s one available) while eating cheap, sugary cereal with no milk. 

It’s not logical, but it works for me on every level.

I love it so much that I’m more than willing to watch a series several times afterwards to share it with my loved ones, but only after I’ve watched them by myself under my terms.

This is only one of many weird little activities I must do only on my own, not only for enjoyment but sometimes as a refuge for the crazy and chaotic outside world.

However, the need to have time for yourself can take over and actually work against you. Especially when having to let someone new into your life. 

Opening and sharing yourself can start a spontaneous storm of contradictory emotions.

What if you like to do certain things by yourself and when finding yourself in your first close relationship you begin to struggle to integrate this new person in your set routines?

A part of you that resists to change your life as it is, will inevitably appear.

Does this make you a narcissistic freak incapable of giving or receiving love? 

No, it does not.

It only means that to make space for a new person in your life you will need to:… (drum roll) Adapt. 

Let’s face it: Adaptation sucks.

It’s difficult, sometimes painful and it takes a lot of time.

Never the less, its probably the most important aspect of any kind of evolution. Without it, our species would never have learnt how to breath out of the water. 

Babies would never survive out of the womb.

And I, most definitely would’ve never survived those first three months, all alone in London.

Accepting that we need to change the way we live our lives to be complete human beings is a painful reality, especially if you -like me- are sometimes dead set on staying on your beautiful, peaceful and utterly destructive comfort zone.

Shocking, you’d think that at age 24 I would’ve already realised the pretty simple truth that constant change means self improvement and growth, but truth be told I’m only just realising it now. (I’m kind of slow. This on the other hand, is not news to me at all.)

The question remains, however: How much should we adapt before we compromise the very essence that makes us ourselves?

Haven’t we all seen it? 

The friend that used to be the most fun and adventurous one of the group, and becomes the most insipid and boring, three months into his or her her first relationship.

Having to compromise certain things that you love about yourself for your new relationship to be successful is a pretty scary concept, however if you’ve ever found yourself in this dilemma, I would simply recommend three deep breaths, patience and opening yourself to change. Only time will tell what parts of yourself you can change and what others are simply a part of who you are, and who you’ll always be. 

Jeez, someone put me in the self-help section.

I realise how trite and cheesy this all must sound but these little self involved epiphanies have been coming to me these last few weeks, and I figured, if there’s another stubborn, introvert bastard out there who’s also getting all choked up about letting someone in, I might as well buckle up, start writing and hope that someone out there will relate. 

Remember if it doesn’t work out, there’s always getting a bunch of cats and living happily ever after… 

Sorry, that wasn’t funny.

To lighten the mood in the midst of all this unnecessary anxiety, I leave you with the beautiful Albert Hammond Jr. And his super french new wavevy video. My personal 

best friend to start the week. 

Must go now, if you need me, I’ll be in my room, with a box of Captain Crunch by my side. I will be out in no less than an hour.

Romance: Out Of Style?

All caught up in the romantic genre, I decided to continue down the “Best Books of 2013” by The New Yorker and stumbled upon “A Hundred Summers” by Beatriz Williams.

I will offer a full review once I actually finish the book, but sufficient to say the book is about a love affair that never became, in the 1930’s.

I usually don’t fall for romantic novels, and the ones that I do like I need to take them with the necessary pinch of salt. Otherwise, all of the heartfelt thoughts, actions and emotions of the characters feel like sticky sweet honey that I can’t seem to wash off.

Call it cynicism or plain bitterness, it’s challenging for me to buy the whole romantic thing. Books, films, music and evidently, life in general.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against love. I’ve lived it and know what a true force of nature -or more cynically put, force of hormones- it can be. That being said -and contradictory to what I previously stated- I’m a fan of the classic love stories. (Casablanca, Breakfast at Tiffanies, Roman Holiday, Gone With the Wind) Because, for all it’s epic love gestures and operatic score, it’s seems that, in my mind, people before the 80’s were allowed to be romantic.

Romance became that era. Just like long coats for men and pearl necklaces for women.

What is it about these times that make me think of romance as… flaky? 

If right now you’re thinking:

“This poor lonely guy, I have the BEST boyfriend/girlfriend. He doesn’t have a clue of what he’s writing about…” 

HOLD your horses there, hopeful reader.

True, I am single and true, it might not know what I’m talking about. Never the less, I’m not saying that It’s impossible to find a good relationship. Intimacy, companionship and passion are still very much a real thing, and it happens every day, for some people. 

I’m talking about the old fashioned, big, over the top gestures. 

Waiting for that boy to come back to your home town for months on end, even though you just spent one summer with him. 

Writing to that girl every day, even though you just met her at that one dance but you were baffled by her beauty…

That kind of shit.

So let’s take these overwhelming romantic gestures of the movies for example.

How much romance can exist between two people that meet at a party now as opposed to those that meet 80 years ago?

Well for one thing the guy in the 1930’s couldn’t get home and immediately text the girl. They couldn’t search their name in the google bar, find them on facebook, Youtube, Twitter and quench their fascination by looking at at least 20 pictures of said girl online, creating an immediate personal conclusion of who that girl is.

Modern days have given us the time and the freedom to express ourselves, and in that I think a kind of cynicism was born.

Have we evolved past romance? Was it just a kind of side effect of lack of immediate information about the other person? 

Lots has happened since the Casablanca times. The world realised a lot. Women took a stand against the system, pacifists took action against violence and equality was a thing to fight for, for any race or sexual orientation.

With this, in the western world, persecution itself became persecuted. Information was democratised with the internet, and self expression took on a whole new meaning.

This -it goes without saying- opened the door for amazing opportunities. If there’s something you’re going through, there’s probably already a book, a film, a website and a chat forum discussing the issue at hand, that being said, romance and relationships are probably the most talked about issues in the internet. 

Has the world become too fast paced for something so slow and patient like a truly old fashioned romantic infatuation to bloom these days?

The being separated by your loved one, the writing love letters, and the promises of waiting for that person, no matter what river, mountain or war was the cause of the separation, seem like such unrealistic gestures today.

In the end, intellectualising our feelings as a society has given room for incredible social growth and self awareness, but even in my most bitter and cynical, I wonder if, as a generation we are in fact missing out on the experience that was falling in love and courting the object of your affection the way it was -apparently- done in the old days.

Our expectations when it comes to relationships have gone to getting married and living happily ever after to hoping to have at least ONE good date.

Constant flirting turned into casual sex.

Courting turned into Facebook stalking.

And the fear of a broken heart became the fear of an STI exposure.

Maybe we Millennials need to take a step back and let emotions take front place in our lives. Maybe cynicism is not the way forward but our own demise. To never come to terms with our own emotions and never expressing them in enormous and epic romantic gestures may just be the most detrimental repression of our society.

Maybe we should still actually hope that we might one day find our own Humphrey Bogart or Ingrid Bergman, however devastating the real life experiences may result.

Who knows, maybe we find our very own fairy tale ending… 

Are you convinced?

I was almost, kind of getting there, for a second…

Book Of The Month: "The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P."

Whoever said the mind of guy is simple, should very well give a read at Adelle Waldman’s first novel, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.

Having decided to take a break from the fast paced psychological terror of my usual suspects such as Stephen King and Gillian Flynn, I decided to take a look at the book everyone was talking (and tweeting) about.

Guilty as charged for judging a book by it’s cover, this novel, named one of the best books of 2013 by The New Yorker, can be deceptive at it’s first glance.

The title as well as the fun and modern looking cover art, can suggest that the book will be a light romantic comedy, episodically told, as our hero, Nathaniel, goes from woman to woman. 

Could this be an attempt to flip the coin of an unnecessarily hyped Sex and the City, or a comment on it’s progenies like Lena Dunham’s GIRLS?

Fortunately, I was relieved to find out, neither of my guesses were correct.

The book starts where you would hardly expect it to begin. 

Nathaniel is already late for a dinner party at his ex-girlfriend's, when he abruptly bumps into what we quickly know is an old flame. 

The conversation is minimal, and results on her telling our hero “You’re an asshole”.

There’s a good start.

From then on, Nathaniel meets his friends -All newly successful New York that are more often than not a bit too full of themselves- and meets Hannah. A friendly, attractive girl to whom Nathaniel takes an immediate interest. 

The book from then on focuses on the progression of Nathaniel and Hannah going from friendly, to casually dating, to having a "more serious relationship".

The stakes inevitably begin to rise, despite the fact that there is no other guy, or other woman for that matter. No annoying parents or massive economic or cultural differences that will put in danger the character’s relationship. 

The problem, and conflict of the book, is Nathaniel P. Himself.

Waldman can take true pride in knowing how to get inside the mind of the character and narrate with exquisite timing his ego and self worth as well as his insecurities, fears and confused emotions.

Being a guy who also happens to know what dating other guys is like, I found myself experiencing a roller coaster of extreme reactions, not unlike the emotional journey the protagonist himself has.

Nathaniel’s fleeting and volatile emotions towards the relationship versus how he acts upon them found me feeling infuriated with him, while also feeling terrified at just how much I identified with the parts I most hated about him.

The author’s complete and utter understanding of her main character’s physique lets the reader sit comfortably in the therapists chair, allowing a complete and complex analysis on his neurosis. This results on an inherent lack of surprise at how the plot unfolds, however this doesn’t make it any less interesting or satisfying.

The reason why the plot is at times predictable is because in fact very little actually happens during the book.

The novel's realism doesn’t give a lot of space for actions to be front and centre. 

The reader will hardly care about the characters staying together or splitting up, mainly because the relationship itself is incredibly ambiguous. What the book actually focuses on and where the entire character arc takes place, is inside our hero’s head.

That being said, the book -as any relationship- is not without it’s annoying traits.

As Nathaniel himself talks about having an inherent guilt towards issues such as poverty and social inequality, Waldman also seems to be irritably apologetic about the novel’s plot, that -some could say- is full of first world problems or as one of the character's describes it "Girl Stuff".

The book can spend a good 25 pages analysing the character’s feelings and emotions as well as the rising problems of the relationship, and then, out of nowhere the narrative takes a turn both in tone and content talking about “serious” and “real” issues, like slavery, minimum wage and poverty.

While the main character can have incredibly deep and complex emotions, and there are times where the book is close to bringing a tear to your eye, the characters then have conversations that seem over intellectualised. They talk to each other in a cold and detached manor that can almost remind you a Bret Easton Ellis novel. This back and forth can be frustrating at times, as the book can’t seem to stay in the same tone without feeling ashamed of it’s own content.

Be that as it may, the merit of the book is that Waldman has succeeded in creating an incredibly real man; so much that at times I found it hard to believe this was actually written by a woman.

Her efforts of understanding the male psyche in the context of love and sex have truly paid off. Nathaniel is real. I’ve been Nathaniel. And I've definitely dated a bunch of Nathaniels. 

For all the good, and all the bad.

Waldman’s style is to create incredibly ambiguous scenarios that are perfectly crafted so that the reader can ponder over them and get his or her own very personal conclusion. 

The only thing you’re left with, at the end, is a dyer need for a sequel.