Life should be more like Instagram

I also discovered the perfect coffee yesterday. I doubt anybody cares how good that coffee was. Unaware, I poured the right amount of hot water into the fabric filter and there with the right amount of ground coffee and the right amount of everything, I made a coffee that felt like no other before. 

If life would be more like Instagram, I would have taken a picture of this coffee and share it with the world. Based on the quality of the picture, on the angle used (for cup of coffee, I would use above and centered), whether people like the technical aspects of the picture or feel glad for the fact that I just had one awesome coffee... based on that, people would honor me with their "like." If an instagramer likes a picture, he or she takes the time to pay attention to it and hits the like button. If the picture failed to make any impression, the instagramer would simply scroll down to the next, more remote and preferably better, photo that they like. We're the good kind of snobs. Instagram works with a very innocent system of likes mostly. People can't be mean collectively with this system. Life has a lot of moments where people are mean collectively.

Life has a lot of words. People so often misuse words. Twitter, for example, is a lot of words, spat as frequently as you like. That, sometimes, could be a lot of ugly. I insist Twitter in Costa Rica is a whole different experience than in any country. Twitter serves as a diary of the everyday for many of us (us because I've fallen into the trap quite a few times and continue to do so). There we connect to a collective consciusness of the people we follow and the people that follow us back. If at least there's a group of active 30 users at the moment, whatever you write goes there and reaches 30 people instantly. Others may read that later and have a reaction, but these hypothetical group of 30 people got it first hand and may have a reaction that goes from approval, sympathy, admiration, repulsion, disapproval, or indifference (for providing a humble array of emotions,) and it is all happening in real time. The active user of twitter in Costa Rica, at least, engages in a virtual agora. In this pool or words, a lot it is said. That lot can make a lot of garbage and a lot of damage. "It's just twitter, is not the real world" we often excuse ourselves. "Words are wind". Words are beautiful and words have the greatest power, but we often misuse them. Life, just like Twitter, has a lot of people judging us on a word basis, and that's a really harsh world. I, in fact, tweeted that I just had the most amazing coffee. No one celebrated. It is not a something that deserves celebration, I'm aware, but that's what I was experienced at the moment. I have read two tweets after that, mocking the people that often tweet about their coffee. I'm not going to be paranoid and believe they tweeted against the people that tweet their coffee times because they wanted to make fun of me specifically, but how can I be sure it was not? One thing is for sure: that's a lot of contempt directed at someone or something. Whether it was part of my life or not, I came across it and I may feel it was personal. It could tarnish any good experience: any perception we imprint in others—which is a shade of the same problem. If someone has been actively reading the timeline one of those nights when I get drunk and tweet the most irrelevant, nonsensical stuff because I found it funny, they are entitled to think I am one jackass. I don't think anyone following me on instagram would feel something as strong as loathe for me. In the Twitter world, hating someone you don't even know in person is always a possibility. Haters have words, a great lot of them and they are yours and so easily to hate on. On instagram, a hater does not have a lot of material, or not as often. Haters won't be around instagram much when Facebook and Twitter generously satisfy their need for loathe. In real life, people can become haters easily. 

Whether we like it or not, the technological era is full of likes that elicit a certain reaction. If we share it, we are fishing for likes and for Facebook algorithms to keep our post on top of the feed. Likes are stimuli to our brain, and affect our emotions. I've noticed people at large are moved by likes. If someone's gets liked, they feel encouragement. If someone posts a certain content that no one minds, this person is very likely to drop posting the same content. The lack of likes discourages. If we have the idea we have an audience and we like it, we immediately start acting it out for that audience. Anyone denying that the amount of attention we get has a direct impact on what kind of content we decide to publish has not realized the psychological trap of the social media. Likes are not evil. It is alright to encourage people (and even celebrating their skill in something as hard as denouncing and as controversial as dark humor). A like is a little pat in the back. In instagram, if you don't get the like, you at least still have the picture. The like is not the reason, the picture is the reason, and the like is just someone agreeing on the image you captured. I believe so because people join instagram on first place because they like pictures. That much all instagramers should have in common. There, you snap and the image is yours-- the moment is yours. People on Instagram would be so busy appreciating artistic depiction of moments and creating theirs that would have less time to focus on negative feelings. In real life, people have an awful amount of time to dedicate to negativity. 

Maybe Instagram means obsession and social pressure for some people too (#toomanyhastagspeople) and Instagram could end up being just as sickening as any other social medium. This is not the instagram I know, though. The instagram I know allows me to connect to people through purely artistic manifestations. The instagram that I know only pushes you to make an effort to take a good picture or a better picture next time. The instagram I know tickles the everyday person with the curiosity for capturing a moment, a place, beauty (or ugliness so aesthetically perfect that it becomes a concept and therefore beauty) in an artistic way. I don't know. I am very fond of my instagramers, and that's more than I can say for a lot of people I know in "real life." 

The guy in the red adidas.

You’ve chosen to ignore that I think you sensuously. And I like you to believe that I’m not aware. Is in in the effort you put your apparent lack of interest that I see the evidence that you have not allowed yourself to even think of me the way that makes the heart tickle. One would even think you just want me to go away --until you play me, and let me come upstairs and get drunk of you, and take a picture of your naked body against the light of the lamppost outside, and kiss goodbye in the threshold of your door. Only then, I’ve dared to think there’s already a story.

 You serve me every day with stone cold indifference, yet you were happy I remembered your birthday, and told me you were happy for me and my future plans. I would have thought you really wished me to go from the neglection that came after a period of cold feet – until you play me, and make me talk about stars to kiss me right after and get me drunk of you, but for one night only. 

I’ve come to believe that deep inside you know I think you sensuously, and you have the conviction that I savored every inch and wish you so intensively it made your heart tickle. It is in the intensity you devote to believe I am not worth any of your attentions that I see you would naturally feel comfortable gravitating around me if you didn’t talk yourself against it. Contempt knows no hesitation, yet I’ve seen many cracks and oh so tiny but oh so often.  Hope comes not from your long tundra gaze but from the tiny volcanic fire lock in the minuscule part of the iris that serves as the channel to your soul. I’m next to close to give up soon, unless you play me, and remind me of the drink I owe you, and allow me to see how your laughter brightens up your face, and look me like someone you also desire, and wish to test if the kissing was actually good or your senses were deceived. It’s all happening because, even though it has a story rather long and lacking romance,  one night you played me, and you let me come upstairs and even called my name in a moment of pleasure, and got me drunk of you. However, you also drank of me and you never thought it would mean something, but it did.

You may not like me after all, but you like the way I think you sensuously. It is in this contradiction that I find an excuse to keep on hoping you will stop treating me like an enemy and find a temporary accomplice, but it is also in this confusion that I know you could just lock yourself away from me, and in the most inglorious way finally ask me to fuck off.

This is Costa Rica

What's been happening for the country is huge.

For a while, I had been extra critical of Costa Rica being displayed in the happy planet index because, let's be honest, we all know this is not the Scandinavian utopia they want us to believe it is. The previous government sold the idea we were an exceptional country to mask the fact that we were a boat sinking- so accurately portrayed as such in the objective media. Then we managed to kick Liberación Nacional out, the underdog president won, and there was a wind of change. It started out pretty romantically.

This Sunday changed my idea of everything. I started the day by joining a Pride with a group of straight friends mostly and we had a fucking blast. I no longer have to dream of joining a Pride in London or San Francisco because I can have a similar experience in my city. I have this group of extra supportive people around, and they are willing to attend this event to make a stand for tolerance, understanding, and difference. As a gay man, this is already a victory in life, and it means a lot more than seeing all those super hot guys I am sure attended pride in the big metropolises of the world. This was only half of my Sunday though. Things were about to improve.

Costa Rica won against Greece, as the world is aware. These guys wearing the white t-shirt with the red stripe defied all odds and waited until the very last moment to give a victory that unleashed chaos in a country. It is hard to explain. You have to be here to understand what it is to see the red tide of people swarming.

We have never been good at soccer, or at anything to be honest. We, as a nation, have done decently and clinged too much to historical turning points that gave us something.
-1821, and the first time we assemblied an army to fight the expansionism of the south of United States.
-1949, the abolishment of the army and the birth of the second republic.
-1990, The world cup in Italy where the Costa Rican soccer team made it to the second round, the furthest we had even been.

And there are the things we just happened to have, like being ridiculously gifted by nature. We speak of the Caribbean and the Pacific as part of us, and we're extra cocky of hosting 5% of the world's total biodiversity-though we are not as involved in preservation as we should. Creationists really feast on the idea that there's a good up there, and that he likes us, as natural disasters usually treat us kindly and do not strike as hard as in other places. We've been spared a lot of pain, and for that we owe the university some degree of gratitude.

Awesome as we are, we mean very little to the world. We live under the long shadow of Europe and the more recently under the grace of the United States.We keep on fighting our way into Latin America because most of people in the region resent we try to fit in when we have not shared the struggles that have endured.  As we have seen in this World Cup, most people couldn't even find Costa Rica in a map. Is it South America? Is it Puerto Rico? We seem to have accepted that as a small country, we should not pretend to be too much and be content with the little protagonism we get.

The discourse is changing, though. The lesson La Sele has taugh us is that part of the Costa Rican spirit is giving it all. The words of the national anthem make a little more sense now: "Cuando alguno pretenda tu gloria manchar, verás a tu pueblo valiente y viril." Whenever someone intends to taint your glory, you'll see your people rising valiantly and with virility. At this moment, so much is expected from us that being mediocre - the most common criticism to Costa Ricans, no longer seems like a choice. We have one path and it is ahead. It is happening in soccer only at the time, but I believe the optimism can spread and become a new national value.

I have the feeling this is the start of something beatiful. I mean, a team of fellow Costa Ricans is giving it all for the world to watch and everybody is rooting for us! The team is standing there as pure virtue and a representation of all we cheer for: bravery, courage, PASSION. Passion is definitely a cultural value we should cling to. I could picture Costa Ricans giving their best just because so much is expected from them. I cannot wait to go to other countries and introduce myself as a Costa Rican because I like giving my best, and now this attitude is trending.

The lesson goes beyond soccer. I do not like soccer that much and may not see another game for a while after the world cup is over. I'm mostly elated because of the opportunity this is giving to Costa Ricans of becoming the happiest planet of earth on a solid basis. This is Costa Rica in 2014, and it rocks.

A different meaning for pride.

In case you missed it (because I'm sure my very conservative family did not), I posted this picture online yesterday:

What goes behind making something rather personal and shaming for the world to see available for everyone to judge and have an opinion? It took insomnia, a sketchbook, pens, the recurrent image of my last hook up, and a point that I needed to make. I should be proud of myself.

Pride time is here again. I'm suscribed to the news coming from Out Magazine on Facebook plus other minor gay media publishers, so everyday this week has been a parade of articles about how pride is being celebrated or planned around the world. I have been out for quite some time now, so the whole event becomes another holiday just like Halloween or New Years Eve. Attending my first Pride was that act of liberation that burned all the bridges to my past where I would find only condemnation for being who I am and who I have not chosen to be. All of that is long forgotten. Ever since coming out, each year stands as another oportunity to increase the visibility of the gay community in my country. The celebration however, started missing a more personal feeling. What does Pride really mean to me? Why should I be proud?

Though I project myself as a very shameless person (not really caring about getting drunk in public, uploading rather questionable photos of myself, yet another victim of the selfie phenomenon, talking about hook ups in a rather positive tone,and so on ) I do care a lot for respect. I believe that most of the times someone has felt disrespected by me, that's because that person clearly intended to step on one of my rights and I simply did not allow them to make that move. Being perceived as mean, rude or arrogant does drag me down and makes me wonder if I should be ashamed of myself for the things I am doing wrong. Being in front of a large group of people and in a position of authority often exposes me to really hard criticism  and constant judgement of the things I am "doing wrong", the things I should be ashamed of. I tell myself that at least I can go back to "just be gay" and just "be with the gays" in our alternative reality for the world to go back to its course . Sure the gays will treat me a little better.

Within the gay community, I have been rather ashamed of myself for not completely fit the mold though. When I came out, I found this rainbow world so open to take me in and shelter me from the hate out there. It turns out that's only a stage, and the gay world didn't take long to become a battleground of lots of people disapproving how masculine I am at times and how femenine I can be some others. People judging me for being super gay and others for not being gay enough were at hand. I'm sure super cool gay guys don't waste time uploading a poorly executed sketch. "Why would he do that now that he was kind of becoming cool again?" I can hear someone say. Wait, so this world of rainbow flags also had its standards of shame?

Shame for not being fit. Shame for being nerdy. Shame for being promiscuous. Shame for what you post on your social media. Shame for your tweets. Shame for your lack of achievements.

Shame on you. Shame on you. SHAME ON YOU.

Why should I attend pride after all? Well, because I actually am proud of myself. Being gay is just that part that the heteronormative world finds hard to accept. That's fine. Not being the kind of gay that is culturaly encouraged earns me criticism within the gay scene. That's fine. Being a dreamer is the kind of thing people too grounded hate about me. That's fine. The fact that I am so determined to live one awesome life generates a lot of criticism. That's fine. Not for one second I should be ashamed of being gay, and being my "own kind of gay", and being a dreamer and aiming high in life because this is who I am.

As it turns out, coming out is not the only battle for pride one is going to have in life. Now I'm in a point of my life in which I have to stand proud not because of who I am inclined to love but for who I am and for whom I want to become. Pride is fought over and earned every day and in every aspect of life. While we move around people and social interaction proves a must in our lives, we will always have to stand up for ourselves. I am an out gay man, so I do belong to this diverse -and many times disfunctional- community. It is my right to be acknowledged as a person what is worth demonstating in today's event. The many other battles are to be fought elsewhere.

When I hit the streets today to stand for pride, at least I'll know what the concept means to me.

P.S. Topic aside, I keep on writing Pride Disguised as Shame, the short story anthology I meant to publish last year. I'm making it even more beautiful so that when I present it to the world, it fills me with pride.

Vow to Adventure

I don’t need a lot of approval where I am going. The realization of it has both given me the wonderful light armor that I need to go far with the wind and left me vulnerable to take a few arrows in the process. I’ve decided what my next move in life is, and that has left me blind to what happens and what will happen for the next few months. I understand my drive might be mistaken for arrogance, and my methods for irrational behavior, but I hope that the outcome reveals that there was not much of that but maybe just the will of work in dreams. We all need a healthy amount of ambition.

The way I’ve understood struggle in life more recently comes from the one truth I found on my own. I believe that one wages wars with oneself the moment the heart chooses a path but the mind refuses to go with it. Unhappiness comes from dreading the distance that the heart takes: the separation from it. Happiness comes only when the mind figures out going against the heart is a lost cause and decides to walk with it providing counsel.

Overall, we live in a world of fear that has made us addicted to comfort. How often do we hear praise to bravery and where have we put it in our scale of values? I feel the constant need of testing my limits. I get in trouble a great deal as well. I come out of it with valuable lessons and with a satisfaction that no other thing in this world gives me. I understand now this is not a curse but a blessing. I accept the rest of my life will be ruled by adventure, and I do not fear the occasional losses.  I don’t know how this is possible, but not those who die have lived.

My grandpa told me once the story of the most significant climb of his life.  He made it all the way to the top of the mountain to see what was on the other side. The sight of the flatlands expanding to the north until the eye could no longer reach left him so speechless that he decided right in that moment that he was going to go to distance and as far as he could. He lived in a world with no buses, and no maps, and fewer people that could possibly assist him if a tragedy befell him, yet he ventured into the nothing and lived one of the greatest trips he cherishes. “Much better to travel under your own heart’s command and not under other people’s desires” he would hint later when he told me how after the civil war, his squad was forced to exile in that same north he had visited once. His story was so imbued with the passion of discovery that the time and the years to come failed miserably in fading away for my brain; if anything, the fire for adventure became hotter and brighter. I’ve seen the weight of the past in my grandfather’s eyes when he speaks of his misdeeds, but when he talks about that climb that change it all, I have seen pride and not even for an instant regret.

I have received much love from people. That’s why it took me long hours to plan what I would tell them when I looked them in the eye. It wounds me when they feel that aspiring for more is rejecting the current support they provide. I hope I can prove to them one day that I aspire to rise so that they can rise with me. There’s also that satisfaction one gets from having spoken your mind. It feels glorious to live by your own standards. I believe the ones that matter understand that.

I speak of many things that seem to be forgotten. I speak of magic. I speak of virtue. I speak of adventure. I dwell in a world long gone where bravery actually matters and where adventure is valued above all. When I voice my thoughts I lose some respect earned by the results of the things I have done well in life. Such blows hit right in my confidence, but I can take them. I don’t need a lot of approval where I am going, see? When one walks ahead, all those voices and reprimands stay behind while one keeps on pressing forward, eyes fixed on the rising sun.

Him and the elements

I wonder if he noticed that I've been exploring him with all the elements. 

I started out with water, but he was a rock, and I knew it would take me some time to dig a hole into his life. I wasn't part of his solid world, so I started to pour a single drop everytime with the hope my feelings would dig a hole and reach his. I was wind, because once I doubted water would be any good, and then I fled. I came back, to stir his surroundings, to make some noise, to carry sounds from afar in one attempt to impress, and the storm I was causing kept him interested, but I barely erode his surface. Then I went back to be water, and kept on pouring one drop at the time. Then my heartbeat went faster, and the drops with it. I saw the cracks in the boulder, and my drops were streams and then rivers. The water went flamable; here's where the physics made no sense and you risk to think magic does. I was fire and he was fire. We burnt the time wasted. We immolated the ghost of our pasts, and we consumed every last bit of oxygen until we were forced to gasp for air and wonder "what now?" 

Life came to a stop. And then I wanted to be earth. I wanted to be a soil where he could grow his thoughts into a beautiful trees. I was willing to be a hill where he, in the form of wind, could blow freely and play. I wanted to be earth because I wanted him to build the platform that will launch him to see the stars from close. 

The thing is, he was a rock before, and I had no idea he could switch his element as well. Now that I've discovered it, I want to be wind when he wants to be wind, but I want to be earth to offer him a place to come back to. I've seen with some satisfaction how I draw back and become earth slowly to see what he wishes to do, what element he wants to turn into. That's when he, in his ethereal form, comes back and decides to be ground with me for a little while. "What now?" He asks, so I suggest he reads a poem by Jorge Luis Borges and plants his own garden. "I'm here to help you water it" I offer. And I mean it, so I know I'll have to be rain to keep his garden fresh, and I'll have to be wind to blow away some of his clouds that may threatened the growth of his plants. I never thought I could be earth, so maybe by turning into all the elements, I not only explored me, but discovered the most fertile side about myself. A flower just bloomed in my garden too, and it is way too beautiful not to want passionatedly to take care of it. 

I hope he does not mind I drew inspiration from him. I hope he doesn't mind I've been exploring him with all the elements. I still want to see how his garden grows, and I desperatedly need that my wind caughts the scent of his first bloom.

Sort of dating

Since my last break up, my status has often been "sort of dating". It was like, after coming out of two intense monogamous relationships, I was done with the idea of sticking to one person. Sure I've tried, but just when I am about to succumb to my predominantly old fashioned loving style, something takes commitment out of the picture, quite dramatically. Among my excuses, I work too much and barely have any time for myself. Last year I was often out of the country, so no one wanted the prospect of me cheating on them with a foreigner. That saved us all some serious drama. One guy told me I lived too intensively. He could make a case of someone who loved fast because my lifestyle puts things to end just as easily. Then I met the "we don't commit until we are sure we’ve found the right one" generation. As a result of two years of comes and goes, I find myself totally convinced that monogamous relationships are only one shade in the spectrum of how we choose to love.

In an attempt of coming to terms with myself, I accepted "sort of dating" was my current status. I’m sort of dating someone.  We're not a couple but we're not strangers, and we most definitely do not base our interactions on sex to call ourselves friends with benefits. The pre-existing categories of our human interaction do not describe us. However, whenever we are together, we'd like to think we are a couple. We are there to spend quality time, support each other, discuss dreams and aspirations and have wonderful physical connection. We share our food and drinks, and we have Access to each other’s belongings really easily. There isn't a selfish secret agenda,but there aren't any promises other than the openly stated. Such are the terms in which we have learned to come to the other.

I'm going to burst the bubble of this idyllic dating model. Sort of dating is complicated because your availability highly depends on how close you feel with the other person at the moment. I've had truly monogamous times perfectly alternated with some very carefree times .During this ambivalent stages, I struggle trying not to take personal that he's not there to catch me when I fall plus all the other expectations built around the couple's archetype. That's a need I may have to ask friends to cover. Or what about sucking it up? Or what happens when you feel emotionally closer to other person? You take the risk of playing along and create a two week to one date (whatever is suitable for the occasion) getaway with someone else. It all happens, and if the people you just invited to your life temporarily do not leave a stronger impression, you go back to your sort of dating comfort zone and nothing has really happened. There’s always the risk of making a bad choice and leaving a real opportunity go. There’s always the risk of not going back to the sort of dating state.By society's standards, I should be some ruthless libertine for even considering sort of dating morally right. On how life works, I'm happy to find that the own social constructions I make are equally valid as those others have shaped for us. People can find mine offensive, yes. People can react skeptically; that's also a possibility. My consolation is that I no longer feel I have to justify (beyond this entry, that is) how my way of loving is truthful to my principles and how real it feels for me.

Can sort of dating lead to actual dating? If the time is right and the stars are aligned, I do not see why not. In the meantime, if I happen to be to be single it does not mean I'm available just as if I happen to be sort of dating does not mean I can't explore my possibilities. If I have an encounter with someone else while sort of dating, it would not mean I've stopped caring for my sort of date. We're clear on redefining our relationship the moment the current arrangement threats on hurting any of us. Middle finger to all traditional models and the way we’re taught to understand and judge the world. I’m 27, sort of dating, and life has never felt this down to earth.