vVvA log

after almost two months of being in my home country i want to write a few things about the public life, the news, the politics, the jet set, the reality that is public to everybody. the narrative strategy of the telenovela has permeated everything. it seems to me that is a kind of filter, or maybe better a sort of distorted mirror in which colombians like to see themselves. the way the political news are presented is an example of it. specially regarding the corruption inside the political system. but, in the streets, in the open space, the public space of our cities, there is also the drama of the displaced people. almost homeless citizens that have been expelled out from their rural land. the relations with our international neighbors has been also dramatized so much that it has become normal to break diplomatic relationships year by year. and is perhaps the drama of the war what has increased this telenovelesque environment. the guerillas, the paramilitars, the militars, the police, the thief, the president, the watchemen. the danger of a betrayal, a fraud, of a back stab, is part not only of the fiction narratives but also of the politics, the economy, and it seem to be in the public space as well. specially in the cities. and specially in bogota. even if such a thing is not true, it seems to be a sort of unconscious feeling of the people. that is perhaps why it has been so nice to travel in this country after so many years of distance. it seems like i am not afraid. it seem like i dont care to share and to feel part of the mix. a chaotic mix indeed. it is necessary to change this narrative strategy. enough is enough. lets explore other genres and let the telenovela be only in a-prime frame.

el ritmo telenovelezco. el tempo del meledrama. en tiempo real. real time.

some weeks ago i visited the state of cordoba and fell in love with the deep caribbean region of colombia. today i just came back from a week in cartagena de indias, and have fallen in love with the caribbean coast again. i miss so much the sea roar. nothing is as pleasant as sleeping with a sea lullaby. perhaps the best song for sleeping. the rain is also good. this was the third time i visited la tortuga, a beach house located in front of the sea, at the crespo neighborhood of cartagena. however, this was the first time i became aware of the flow of sound, of the constant roaring of the sea. i am not sure why this happened until now. it could be possible that is the sea who is becoming noisier nowadays. perhaps is a matter of a season. there were certainly more birds at the shore. amazing. pelicans, seagulls, maria mulatas, and many other kinds of birds that i couldnt recognize. very inspiring to swim in the warm waters of the caribbean sea. it is very rewarding to float on the top of the waves and see the flights of the flocks and single birds. surprising to run into pelicans that are just floating near you. delightful to imagine and dream the story of the pelican man. coming soon. i love the caribbean time elongation. love the sea and the sound of the sea. all the waves crashing in constant motion. love to be inside the sea and to feel his enormous volumes.

just imagine the 22 second century here, in bogota, colombia. an oportunity to explore science fiction and changes.

lets change all this culture of lawyers by creating a super computer where all the code is systematized and people can just deal with a machine to deal with all the law procesess. at least the simple ones, for instance for creating a new enterprise, or a a company, or for creating a new radio station, or a tv channel. lets make it simple. a logic machine. that gives rights and land to all the citizens and can not be biased or corrupted or killed. something like that.

lets allow people to implement their mezclas and hybrids using new technologies. thru, perhaps we can not be a society of programmers or cutting edge electronic engineers, but we can assemble and create new things. colombianadas as somebody said.

after almost 2 years in the north, i am back to my natural septentrional latitudes. as in previous visits to colombia or previous returns, the feeling of time traveling to another technological age is conspicuous. time traveling to one of the most singular countries and cities i have ever been. of course, my original city is bogota. the convergence point for all the human diversity from the country. a city, recently cataloged as one of the worst to live in the world by an international study. these international studies always reveal some true that is hidden for the locals who live immersed in the routine. but the social injustice is evident here. as is also evident in some cities of the north. imagine for instance just the homeless people of central square in cambridge, massachusetts. however, here, in colombia, in bogota, some of these homeless people have been victims of the systematic violence that rules in the rural areas of colombia. paradoxically, colombia has beautiful and rich natural resources and landscapes, but the greed and ambition of the political rulers, drug dealers, landlords, and guerrillas, have transformed this land into a war arena. sadly indeed. specially because the story of the spaniards colonizers who displaced the indigenous people back in the sixteen century seem to keep happening. greed for gold and money without caring for the social equity, for the redistribution of resources, land, money, education.

attending a seminar about politics and power taught by manuel castells, and then jumping into a talk by noam chomsky on participatory democracy are those sort of things that i will definitely miss from mit. having powerful thinkers around you is inspirational. you can learn a lot from listen to this great professors. the lessons of today are quite provocative. while castells introduced me to the theory of affective intelligence, chomsky confirmed the obsolescence of markets and wage labor. the field of affective intelligence is a crossover, a border, between neuroscience and political psicology. in a nutshell, it is a research and methodology that has identified and proved how the brains of the people and ther bodies are manipulated by the media environment. the social systems works sending signals to peoples brains. those signal produce emotions, those emotions make feelings, and those feelings make reasoning. that is the change. the interesting thing of the signals that are transmitted to people brains is that the primal feeling of pain, when is created among citizens makes them less critical, more inclined to vote for war policies, and stop recording information. fear is related to anger and it has a sort of negative thing going on. conversely, positive emotions, such as pleaseure, induce critical thinking, careful information processing and gathering, and encourages learning processes. listen to this catalan professor, on of the major sociologist of our times, made me think in my country and its history of wars and violence and terror. and specially in the figure of the president uribe, a tropical dictator as the ones that gabo portrayed in his books. but maybe even worst.
it is interesting to see how critical thinking and learning processes are connecting to the signals that the citizen gets from the media environment. it is also sad because when one analyses the colombian scenario, there is not much hope. just ignorance and fear. listening to chomsky and his point about how isolation is what makes people be under opresion created a kind of crossover. it is fear a mechanism to have people issolated, to avoid talking to each other, it is fear what prevent people to organize themselves in groups, organizations. it is the fear what also creates racism. colombia is perhaps one of the places where the society has more fear inside. that is also one of the reasons of the violence of this country. it is very sad. everytime i think of it i discover how spoiled it is. all the actors are totally degenerated: militars, police, paramilitars,guerrillas. but they are creating more fear, and keepping all the people inside the stupid loop of the war. an infinite loop. very sad. that is one of the reasons i try to not speak to much about that. but maybe is also because i have fear as a colombian. fear sucks. and also that is one of the reasons i am now not in my homeland. fear does not make you free. and freedom is the essence of life. what keeps our rhythms going.

now that i am preparing application forms, the name of a country has called my attention again: the cocos republic. a country which is near to my country in the internet forms (alphabetical). i remember when this country appeared to me for the first time at the middle of the nineties. the name cocos is hilarious. what is more absurde is the fact that this country is right next in the in the alphabetical menus of the internet forms. another absurd situation added to the ones that my country survives. absurd situationism. sometimes not funny at all, very tragic.