Happy new year

In my fourth post in this blog, in 2004, I used a quote from Muriel Rukeyser at the opening of my text. I said I did not know who was this author and promised to find out.

Well, Muriel Rukeyser was an American writer and activist, feminist rights advocate. She wrote a series of poems when was young and, well, I also said in the same text that would speak more about using phrases from famous people and the implications behind this custom. I will, but not now.

Before, I must to remember that we are already in January 2011. A new year begins and I hope it is a very good year. I hope it's better than 2009, a bad year and 2010, one of the worst imaginable year. We must be realistic: not all years are good years and there are years really tough.

I want 2010 to be remembered as a year personally difficult, but at the same time productive. A year of sowing, of struggle, achievement not effective yet, but in promise. Achievements to be fruitful in the years ahead.

I also remember that I'm on vacation. I'm in a premium lay-off, actually. The first of my life.

I'm home with absolutely no commitment, but by no means peaceful, calm or happy.

How can I be calm with a life so difficult? How can I be at peace when also 2011 promises to be one most very tumultuous and uncertain year? How can I feel happy with so many challenges?

How could I be happy just to be able to fight?

I do not know whether the mere struggle for life is in itself reason to be happy.

Anyway, I'm insecure, frustrated and without direction. I see no solution to my problems in the short term, and they, the problems, are many, though not necessarily fatal.

So that 2011 be a year of change, though not of peace and tranquility.

But this view of the uneasy future is just that: a vision. The world continues as it always followed, unmoved front of my life and my problems. I do not mean a thing and I step through life as a fly passes its existence in a vast and dense forests. I'm in my forties and living an existential crisis more severe and painful that I have lived in my last year. Yes, life is for me an eternal crisis. I'm hairy, bearded and fat. I'm terrible.

 

My chaotic life remains chaotic.

Just to try to lessen my feeling of guilt for not fulfilling my promises, for not having the courage to chase my dreams and for being a coward by not making decisions that could change my life for the better, so today I decided to tidy my books .

My bookshelves were and are crammed. I buy books compulsively, as if the mere presence of them forming one pile on a shelf would solve my problems.

Then, with free time and plenty of guilt, I decided organize this big disorder.

Then I counted the books.

Yes, I counted my books!

I figured it had something around 700 books.

But no: I have about 1330 books.

That's right: 1330 books or so.

So I came to a conclusion. I need time to read them, but this is not the main problem.

The hardest thing now is space. I need space. I desperately need the space.

I can not stand to live squeezed into my little rented apartment.

I'll have to change soon. I live in rent and I can not afford sufficient financial and professional stability to the point of buying my own property. We live in a speculative real estate bubble in Brazil and buy anything right now is pure idiocy. But one way or another, I have to move to another location within a few months.

It will have the opportunity to get more space. Oh, how I need space!

Incidentally, I've been playing Sim City 3000. I have my little town called Tujuguaba, obviously, and it was stagnant for years, with its 25,000 inhabitants. So, I took the day off and took a few hours to play. It's a cool thing.

I actually have hundreds of computer games that, like the books I bought and never played. In fact, even took the packaging. I always hoped that one day I would play them.

Compulsive shopping. Mania of accumulate things. Inability to enjoy things that could bring me pleasure. Afraid to get involved in vices. Yes, I have a lot of trouble.

I hope that in 2011 I at least try to address them.

Merry 2011, even though delayed by nine days long.

The Firm

I am a person who likes money. Let me explain.

Not that I do not like to have the money itself, that we have in our wallet and the current account, and we gain expending a lot of sweat. I like this kind of money too, and too much.

But when I say that like money, is the sense of liking to study how the wealth is often created, stored, accumulated, transferred, lost and destroyed. I like money from an economic standpoint. After all, while I am not exactly an economist, I have a degree in Business Administration, and the two areas are closely linked. In fact, I might as well have done economics, but fate did not allow things went in their normality. I wanted to be an economist, but I changed my mind and went to study management.

But economics is a science more theoretical than practical, and manage companies is one way of doing economic theory turn in action.

Once I understood that money has relation with economics and business, it was as if I had discovered the wheel. Interestingly, there was not one thing quickly or early. I was living a life of a young adult, working and supporting me, but without a track in hands to touch the rest of my life.

So, since I chose to be a business administrator, they, the companies, have fascinated me.

But one thing is to study companies. Administer them in fact is another task, far more complex.

I ventured to open "The Firm". Like many millions of people make around the world all the time, I risked to join my knowledge and luck and tried to make money, lots of money. Nothing more welcome in our capitalist and competitive world.

But it did not work. Lacked luck, lacked knowledge, lacked maturity and remaining problems of all kinds.

The result was not a failure, but an abortion.

You see, abortion is a kind of failure, but in this case, we can not even speak of a "firm" in its real sense. There was never any firm. Simply there was a name and a public record, a formality. It is as if a child had his birth certificate recorded before birth, but still in the womb. Simply nothing happened in the real world. Only in the legal world, the papers and documents.

Look: abortion is a kind of failure, but in this case, we can not even speak of a "firm" in its real sense. There was not any firm, never. Simply there was a name and a public record, a formality. It is as if a child had his birth certificate recorded before birth, but still in the womb. Simply nothing happened in the real world. Only in the legal world, the papers and documents.

I changed my mind, I changed my plans, I left the firm of paper and walked with my life in other ways. But the firm of paper was still there, registered as a skeleton, an X-ray of a skeleton, a mere image of what could have been a firm. As a radiograph does not grow, does not evolve or enrich anyone, she did not die. The firm continued for years in its "inactive" formal status. All radiographic years of hibernation were marked by negative statements of income tax of legal entities, a kind of macabre ritual in which we testify that something is dead, but we can not yet rid of its skeleton.

Then one day I decided to remind me that I needed a kind of exorcism. For an administrator, or at least to me, a manager, a failed firm was like a certificate of incompetence.

Of course, now I think differently about companies that do not work, but for many years I tried to forget this company and all the pain that involved, abandoned dreams and chronic problems unresolved. I have created it on paper and never have been able to go ahead and have tried to do some of my dreams come true for me was cause for great sadness and frustration. And I'm not accustomed to give up, fail and lower my head, overcome or defeated.

Maybe that's why I only remembered it when I got the month of income tax declarations. At this time, a friend, an accountant, called me and said  that I needed to do the damn negative statement.

One day, I noted in my file of Microsoft Outlook, in a task folder, a reminder: close firm.

This was my most important task, but remained purposely ignored for over many years to come, because, I admit, it was painful to put a definitive end to it, closing it definitely in the record companies.

While hibernating, there was always the possibility of turning it back on and restart some grand project through it and their roles.

Then life took a new turn and changed my plans. No business, no business, ever.

So even the roles hibernating were a problem because with the new course, I could not legally have no company, and in this case even a single record was a potential problem.

So, I took courage and decided to face the huge bureaucracy that was to close a company in Brazil.

In fact, some years before I even tried to tackle the problem, but gave up. It was too much paperwork, too much money, too much work. I gave up.

This time, I would go ahead.

So I was surprised, because the laws had changed, and the thing was simple, quick, cheap and painless.

Today, I am an administrator who had a firm, which never came into work, and which is formally closed, in perfect accordance with the law.

I feel less frustrated now than I did a few years ago. This firm existed for twelve, thirteen years.

At this time, the pain left behind and what was a trauma seems to have disappeared with time, as any trauma.

Do not know if I dare engage in business today, but I also not see why I could not get involved. After all, I'm still a businessman, working intellectually in this field, though not directly.

If one day I venture to meddle with business, did I open a new firm?

I do not know, but this, for all practical purposes, will not exist again.

The "Firm" is definitely closed.

Tujuguaba

I just made ​​available on Scribd what I've written about my past until I was fourteen years old, in the village of Tujuguaba.

I know it's not enough, when I think of much that I might have written if I had more desire and more time, but otherwise it's very up, knowing in advance that no one cares for it and nobody will even read anything that is writing.

No matter, because I promised I would write and make available to the world what I wrote.

It's a few, I know, but it is a promise that will be fulfilling.

Yes, I try to keep my own promises.

Storyteller

I like reading, but also love to write.

Many of the things I write here are written in a superficial and random way. In fact, I would like to write short stories, short stories from my real life.

I enjoy writing, realy.

For example, why not tell how I came across my first self-help book?

Better, why not tell the story of my first encounter with a real book?

Yes, I guess blogs are not suitable for telling stories, so I created a website. There is nothing in it yet, but the sites are the best places to write stories.

About what could I write? About everything.

Where to begin?

By the beginning?

But then, I never get the latest stories, because I think any thing is worthy of interest, since I remember this thing.

What is the reason to write about everything? Write about all for simple pleasure of writing?

I do not know, I do not know.

But I'll write my stories and I will publish them on my site and I'll disclose it at this blog for myself, because no one will read anything at all, neither the blog or website.

I'll do it from my way...

Self-help books

I said I like to read and actually read a lot.

Then one day I came across a book of self-help and he helped me very much.

Now, I do not know if I've learned is still useful or not.

I do not know, and I think this is a good place to talk.

Yes, talk about self-help!

In English...

For all intents and purposes, I'm translating this blog (originally written in Portuguese) into English.

I created a new blog, identical to that one, with the same posts in the same order, finally, I clone it, only using Google Translator.

Yes, I know, it does not work so round, and no, I'm not a big star in English, but better something  is flawed, but overall, than something perfect, but limited.

Let's see what happens ...

My passion for books

I've talked about some of my tastes, such as listening to music, writing, etc.. I said I like airplanes and I was military. I posted about my failures sites and some issues that I have been addressing: ecology, safety, consumerism, mysteries.

But I do not talk about my passion for books.

Yes, I love to read.

I love bookstores, libraries, old books stores and e-books websites.

I read a lot, really. All the time.

I have hundreds and hundreds books in my house. I have hundreds and hundreds e-books on my computer.

I have a widely varied interests related to  almost everything that is written and published.

I do not know exactly how many books I have, nor how many I read. But I know that books are fundamental things to me. Read, I think, is almost an addiction.

Here is a good use for this blog: talking about books.

That's what I intend to do.

If you also really likes to read and would like to exchange ideas about books in general, this can be a good blog to follow.

Soon, I'll post about my first readings.

It is this: without much delay.

No fiddle-faddle.

Prolix, I?

I have a strong tendency to be a prolix writer. I start thinking in something and end up losing the way.

I think people in general already do not like to read, further read about things that no interest them and over, confused things. Then I need to be more short, sharp, dry.

That's what I try to make with my writings from now.

No, that does not mean I'm gonna be posting on Twitter.

I do not know what this means ...

Confused blogs, filters of socialization and urgent questions

I have broken my head with this blog, because, as I try to understand what exactly a blog is and what it serves, I can not reach any firm conclusion.

What's more, I've done an honest intellectual effort to understand this new tool, not so new as well.

This my effort includes to read a specific number of books on the subject, written recently by leading experts, but still seems very unclear.

Then I've had a number of difficulties in organizing  what I call simply "my ideas", "my memories", "my agenda 99", etc.. It is not so simple as it sounds, because my ideas are a lot, my memories even more and my agenda is extremely confusing. I have had great difficulty in organizing my thoughts in a clear way so that I can put any kind of useful text in my blog.

It is true that much of what leads me to write a blog is happy to just write and then post what I write to the world, except that nobody reads, except me. Not even my wife takes the trouble to read my posts, because I not do some advertising to anyone in an active way. At most, now and then I put some kind of link in a disclosure group on Orkut and stop in it. No one reads or comments, or anything. Only I do read my own writing.

So even though the world has access to my blog, he, the world, is not very interested in knowing what is in it, nor do I have much interest in releasing it to the world. The thing will be right only by chance, and I do not know no case of online success driven by chance. I'm not so good that takes half a dozen souls to spread to the world what I write only because it is this or that. In fact, the web is full of good people writing, and people far more tenacious and ambitious as well.

In short: I can not count with luck if I want someone reading my blog, including people very close to me. People simply have more to do.

But my blog could be useful to me at least, its most loyal and interested reader. But he has not, necessarily.

My blog has not been useful because it reflects the disorganization and lack of goals that reigns in my own thoughts and ideas. How can I organize a blog if my head is not organized?

And then, not everything that I think should be published. Not everything I do must be made public.

So here's another problem: what to publish and what not to publish. I have still no control on this filter that I'm sure, must apply to everything I think.

So here we go. Everything is a matter of socialization.

What does this mean?

What is socializing?

I have read and thought about it a lot lately too. As the subject blog has been a problem for me, the socialization issue also has me intrigued.

What socializing has to do with what rank or leave to post in my blog?

What socializing has to do with the filter I use to decide what to publish or no publish? In other words, what asking a filter must do to a text or a subject or idea in order to reach a definitive answer like: this subject, text or idea can or should be made public, be disclosed, socialized, promoted, advertised, or should not?

This is a good question and needs to be answered quickly.

What question is this?

But the answer to this question is not exhaustive.

It remains to organize my thoughts, goals, my lot of intellectual input that clutter boxes of emails, drafts in digital files, diaries and notebooks, PDAs and Web sites, books and magazines, papers and boxes of files, objects and memories. It is much to be organized.

How to organize it all?

These simple questions are already helping to organize ideas, and there is already a relatively organized, despite the apparent confusion. So this blog is not as useless as well, at least for me.

It remains to become socially useful.

So what is it that can be both useful to me as to others?

I do not know, but I think better on this issue, but not now.

Stay for a next post, which I do not know when will come.

Wait, wait, wait ...