Striking gold
I love writing. It is a part of my life, a part of who I am. My identity walks pretty closely to my writing abilities, per se. I’m not at all a great writer, most days I’m not even a good one. I don’t know many technics, I just follow my instincts, based on things I’ve read my whole life and on things I’m feeling whenever it is that I’m writing. I don’t know if I could ever be a professional writer, damn, I don’t even know if I would like to be. I don’t know if I have what it takes. I write because I love it. I love to sit down and put ink to paper, type vigorously on the bus, or just do what I’m doing now, sitting in my room, typing some hundred words on my old and lazy computer.
There’s not much that I can do now. It’s devastating to even think about. The laptop is basically dead. The mainframe won’t allow it to charge the batteries anymore and will put it into a lazy GHz setup. Yes, I understand a little bit of IT, enough to be able to talk to the ones who understand a lot and not be manipulated by them. That’s an understatement. Whatever it actually takes to build it around what I would call knowledge. I like to know about many different things. I like to be able to talk to people about all kinds of topics. I’m a talker, what can I say, literally? I tried everything to save this computer, but it just won’t work. But that’s okay. I’m already thinking of some other way to replace it actually, probably an actual computer instead of a laptop, just for money’s sake.
Today I’ve been reading a bunch about this new AI technology called DALL-E 2. It can literally create images from specific sentences like astronauts riding horses or teddy bears on skates in Times Square. It can recreate famous paintings by great artists by reinterpreting them and even make a bowl of soup that looks like a monster made of knitted wool. Yes, this monster soup is important. My roommate and I decided to hang one of those soup images in our dining lounge, along with some astronauts in the living room, and chemical experts' teddy bears in the kitchen. Very appropriate vibes. I’m pretty excited about all this and enough afraid to fall in love with it as Joachim Phoenix falls in love with Scarlet OS Johanson in Spike Jonze’s Her. We’ve been talking a lot about this movie and about how Taren looks like a washed-up colorless version of Joachim Phoenix in that film. That’s not important. It is, but not right now.
I love to write but I lose my thread of thinking too easily. That’s not a real issue I have, just something to pay attention to. Although, it is some lack of attention that sometimes takes me away from the original topic. But I’m not supposed to write a masterpiece a day. I’m just supposed to sit down and write a couple of hundred words. If I can do that every day, at some point I might be able to strike some gold. Sometimes what I write feels like gold to me. “Are We There Yet” felt like gold, the entire trilogy actually. “Tomé de Souza” also. “Alguma coisa acontece no meu coração” is also gold somehow. “A ladeira do fim do mundo” can also be read as gold. “The Hundred Dollar Kite” is a golden piece of my heart.
But most stories are just that, stories. Poorly written, badly paced, insensitive, but honest. That counts as good intention when you write out about a hobby you love. And this is more than I can actually offer for now. If I ever get good in this (or even great, who’s to say), I’ll let you know. That’s when I’ll be probably charging people to read the blog as advised by my publisher. Don’t worry. This will take some time. I’ll wait long as heaven takes.
