From The True Truth and The Questionable Ones

I was invited by the guys at ExpedientesX.Es to participate on the Jose Chung Month, which very much served as an exploration of this episode.

After much thought, I hope you understand my point with this longish attempt to analyze this idea I had for a while. Sometimes, it takes a second read. So ... bear with me.

For the Spanish version, click here. Picture taken from the original article.

-.-

A lot has been said about the truth or the truthfulness of things. The fact is that the truth will always be… relative. Like everything in life.

Sometimes you find yourself in the presence of the truth, biting your hand, jumping in front of you, making faces and you, however, only know that can’t be true, “It can’t be!” because it goes simply against everything that you hold as true.

The encounter with the truth not only means a discovery or a satisfaction in case this doesn’t conflict with your belief system, but it is also a critic moment in the life of a human being. Is not a simple act upon a discovery, which ever size it is, is an event in life that brings change, whether you like it or not.

When watching “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”, the truth and the encounter with it is questioned from the very first frame of the episode. I’m not really going to dig too deep into the whole “do I relieve in this or not” deal, this is not the objective of this micro dissertation, in reality, for me is more fascinating the fact that depending on your own motives, surroundings, actions, etc., the truth could be a flexible, ever changing and dynamic entity, that at the end could end up being completely different for each of the participants of that fact.

I’m sure I’m not splitting the atom here with these lines, but think about it. During the episode, a situation like the “kidnapping or abduction” of this couple is being studied for a person that, to begin with, doesn’t believe in the truth of his subjects of study or the people around them that try to find logic to it, in this case, Mulder and Scully.

In reality, if there’s such a thing, the episode might be based on the complete mistrust in the individual truths of each person, given that these truths challenge a value system to which each of us is attached to and by instinct, human practice, etc., each of us wants to protect. Is in fact what holds us together.

Let’s look at the couple, Harold Lamb and Chrissy Giorgio. Both of them were “kidnapped” by the same entities, in the same place. However, the way they both lived the same experience, this truth that they both faced, is completely different.

Not only their interpretation of the tangible facts that they lived changed due to their own interpretation systems, but it did too because of the interaction with external agents like their families, the FBI, doctors, etc., At the end, for this couple, the truth about what they lived is just a draft of what could had been, to the point that they themselves doubt their own experience.

Why? Because it never happened? Because the truth it self is in fact a way of denial? We may never know, but the truth may rely on the fact that it’s an experience that rattled their own foundations too much to risk losing grip of their own reality.

Then we could analyze Roky Crikenson as well, a witness to the “kidnapping” and a partial player of the event. This person not only faces the experience, but also the alleged presence of the “Men in Black” that are actually trying to dissuade him of believe his own experience, or the truth that he claims to have experienced, and that he claims to be true.

Not only is he facing his own mistrust and trying to adapt to his own version of the truth, that is comfortable to his belief system, but he also has to fight and defend that truth from a group that is threatening him on his most basic fears and pushes him to forget his experience, and with it block his own need to live and remember what he has registered and faced.

Crikenson has assumed that his truth is strong and powerful enough to not only preserve it for himself but also good enough to be proven and convince others that are not necessarily available to believe.

To what extent is his truth true or a fact, also will remain a mystery, but its curious how this man holds onto dear life to his beliefs, while others may find that task a lot harder.

I wondered what made him different… is it his age? His experience? The lack of dependency from others? Does he have anything else to lose if he were to defend this truth to the end?

Sometime the truth becomes just that, as we saw so much in the series, a matter of life and death and how far would you go to defend that truth. Would you risk everything if you were sure of the truth you know? How do you know that what you have in your hands is not an illusion created by your own mind in this effort to keep it together?

Then, we face Blaine Faulkner, the young man that wants to be abducted. He could very well have nothing to lose. He’s not only looking for the truth “out there” but he’s also running away of what should be his own truth, face the facts and the reality instead of creating it. For him, the non-truth is a truth preferable to the total truth.

The denial of his own truth not only brings him a total stall in his own life, but prevents him from being in touch with reality, if this should ever exist, and doesn’t allow him to evolve in the organic way that we all do, Discovery and progress. For everyone that doesn’t follow his or her own truth, in my opinion, gets locked in this useless search of road that leads to nowhere.

Maybe this is a very abstract concept, but in reality it applies perfectly.

Take for instant the conclusion of the episode; after all of the efforts of the author to publish a book in which he doesn’t even believe in, meaning he’s actually starting from a point where he’s the principal aggressor, denying the credibility of everyone’s truths, he gets an acknowledgement from Mulder, who identifies perfectly that the purpose of this book not only is wrong, but the consequences of its publication wouldn’t only mean no advance and also is going against the development of his own truth, of his purpose in life, and ultimately, is a book without an objective other than satisfy a monetary desire.

The truth, that is out there, everywhere, in reality, is inside every individual, because the truth is no other than the psychological interpretation of a fact. The truth is not a fact, the fact is the fact, and the truth is only the glass we use to look at the complex actions and experiences that become the fact.

At the end of the day, we all go to bed with our own version of the truth. I believe, reflecting on this, and looking at the series just from this episode, had Mulder ever hold the complete uncorrupted truth in his hands, or the facts that constructed then the truth, all of it, like any of us, we could had never been able to reason it, and at the end make it our own.

Avi Quijada
Sept. 2009. For the Jose Chung Month organized by ExpedientesX.ES

3 Weeks

The last time I blogged, here at least, was long ago. Many things have happened. If you are reading this blog, you are probably are also my friend and have heard my rantings over and over again and nothing of this will be news to you. But in the slight case that you need to be refreshed, here's what has happened in the last months:

• I've lost 58 pounds. (Impressive right?)
• I've sold my car, my movie collection, most of my furniture, and my apartment.
• I had to sleep in the floor for several days.
• I moved to 3 different places in less than a month. I still have to move once more.
• In case you're wondering... I GOT INTO AFI.

Right, right... you have heard this plenty. I'm sure. Countless of times over Twitter, Facebook, Skype, etc... but the truth is that well I owed it to the blog as well.

In 3 weeks, after I'm done with Embassy appointments, and hopefully some conscious packing, I'll be leaving Venezuela for Sunny LA. In the space of 3 months I've gotten many blessings I think, or good luck or whatever you blame good things happening to people on. The truth is that this is a fantastic time for me, yet I'm scared, terrified.

Anxiety settled comfortably on me like 3 days ago, when over people constantly repeating praises or wishes or just plain hopeful comments make me feel overwhelmed. What if I'm not up to par? I second guess myself on the 3rd day of my period, is a known fact. Today is that day.

I like taking things with no expectations, none at all, blank slate, tonight that plate is like vibrating and I can't honestly stop it.

To you, you, you know who you are, the one that looks over me everysingle day ever since you parted my life at different times. Thank you. I hope I can still take that pencil up the stage.

100 Days...

This week has been a blur, actually, everything since February 13th has been this swirly place I barely understand, only to figure out that this place is my actual life. Before that, I don't think it was that much clearer either.

Decisions and choices that I've probably mentioned before have made me be in a continous jump from string to string, since almost a year ago, and while very exciting, I would sincerely like some comfort in my pocket.

I don't even remember why I started writing this... I'm watching Lost and probably drifting out too much into my own toughts.

This is what happens when you're forced out of your comfort zone, the rutine and your dynamics. The thing is that in the past year I haven't had that, every time I suppose I'm close to thinking that I can sit down and put up my plant in the desk, I jump... again.

Ironically, the only place I've found comfort in is out there, in the air. It only lives in the ungraspability, in the brief phone calls, in the urgency of something that, in the reality of other people and some time our own lives, does not deserve such urgency.

Even when this is unexistant thing in the material world, it has brought me the most satisfaction I've ever had in my whole professional life, because for once, I love what I do, with the people I do it with. This is the difference between what you do because you're told and what you do because you love.

So in the course of keep doing the things that I love, this week I've numbed my mind enough to not think that much, the days go by and I keep counting them.  I've been sitting and waiting for 100 days of 105 periods of 24 hours that brewed a decision, that guess what? Another set of  people made for me.

This time around, I gave them permission to do so.

And it so happens that I've always wondered about hunches, about signs, about leads that make you think that you're on the right path, that you took the right decision, that whatever happens, its for the best. In my case though, the implications, I'm afraid are too great.

I've come to the point where I've not allowed myself to read the horoscope (something I do every Sunday, yes, I'm somewhat supersticious) My brother offered to call a person that reads the cards and I was too afraid to do it, I don't want to even give myself the chance to think that this decision would not favor my wishes and that at the end, I'm back to square one.

In this little annoying, asphixiating, depressing, dark square.

To this point, I'm even afraid to dial a phone.

What do you do when you question everything? yourself, others, the steps you've taken to get here... what happens when you're so over critical of yourself that you never think is going to be enough?

It's all about who came first

So maybe its not a well known fact that I'm not only the first child in my nuclear family, but also the first grandchild of both sides of the family, that well, if you don't count that my grandfather had a gizillion children outside of marriage that had a tendency to be very reproductive as well.

So, anyway, I'm the oldest of my cousins, the oldest girl, the one that graduated first, the one that when I was 4 years old everyone fantasized I would turn out to be a Miss Venezuela. 

In a country focused on beauty, it was natural for people to wish a girl to be a beauty queen, after all they get to travel the world, and if you are smart enough, and this was my take on it, you may turn into such a personality that you could become the major of a very popular city, a human rights authority, hell, even more frivolous things such as singers and actresses.

The thing of course is that I never did embrace the 'Beauty Queen' Concept. If there was a definition for Tomboy, my picture must be beside it. I actually have to remember myself everyday to be femenine; I spent my childhood running after my brothers or from my brothers, pinning them down, beating the bejesus out of them, climbing, jumping, bruising, scraping, breaking and yes, the ocasional small explosive in the paint can was also observed.

Its the wonders of living in the country: no one cares as long as you don't burn the plants, kill a cow or maybe, just maybe, burn someone's stash. 

So being 27 now (oh my god...) having had a list of relationships with an expiration date no longer than 6 months and so many plans still on my waiting list; because I'm the oldest, I'm expected to surrender to my femeneity and do what my mom had already done by now, and what, yes, my grandmother wants... Have children.

Children.

Small bundles of joy that shoot out of your body demanding food and care and your time and love and parents and who knows what these days, cause kids are all kinds of special and complicated and generational and you name it. Children, but oh no lets correct that, Greatgrandchildren. Because the whole deal is that Grammie wants ME to have them. Not my brothers, not my cousins; ME, because I came first. 

And I go like this... 

1) I'm still not over someone pulling a feeding tube out of my stomach. A feeding tube, it hurt, but aparently is nothing compared to giving birth, I don't want more pain for another couple of years, thanks. The manager.

2) I don't have a boyfriend. And in this subject I realize I'm the most girlie, probably naive, "read-too-much-fanfic" kind of person... I will not settle for something other than swept off my feet, painfully exagerated in love of this person that I haven't met and have no clue where it is. Believe me, I've looked, I still feel that maybe lives in another country.

3) Even if I went to a donor, which I won't, its out of the question. Even when I adore kids, I practically raised my little brother, babysat all of my cousins, and many stranger's kids. Even when kids love me because I throw them in the air which apparently is so freaking thrilling, even then, I don't want kids for now.

And believe me, I've felt the clock, ticking, back and forth, its annoying, deafening some days, and I find myself gazing at baby pictures, baby furniture, baby clothing, baby diapers, and me and my friend, who's about my same age, we sat that one day in my bed, sighing at these baby programs and said to ourselves, "Fuck, we're doomed"

Is that in this day and age, EVERYTHING got delayed. It normal to get married at 35, babies at 40, yet, triumph and goals and money were somehow pushed earlier, 'cause everyone aparently is now expected to be a billionaire by 25, and be smoking hot, and own stuff. So to those like me that are 27, that the credit card company calls every week to find out about my payment, that freelances to not say that is unemployed, that are single, still planning on some extra education and with so many other dreams unfulfilled and that are stuborn, so very stuborn, these parameters are so unrealistic and conflictive. Time sometimes feels as if is not enough to please everyone and yourself.

So my grandmother wants to have greatgrandchildren, and that puts me in a timeline, since she's 82 and not getting any younger, and she's bored, and specially, jealous. "Why?" you may say... well my grandfather had them, her friends have them, the friends of the friends have them, and they all have pictures, and baptism parties, and baby showers that set her own clock going too... the one that tells her its time to have new blood in the family and the one that tells her, that unfortunatelly, there's not that much time for her to wait around until I gather my crap and streighten my mess.

So, I tell her, "you're not going anywhere, anytime soon." She crosses her arms, wrinkles her forehead (if ever possible) and says "you think you have the devil by the beard, don't you?"

Honestly, I have no clue what she meant by it. Maybe that I think nothing will happen, that I'm invincible and so are others, maybe that I can get away with everything, maybe all of those options or none, but the truth is that the timeline that is set for us based in pre-exisiting agreements you don't remember signing, have clashed with the changes in our current society... and my grandmother just won't understand.

She thinks I'm a spinster just like my aunt, that at 50, just found her 'sweep of her feet, heartbreaking, pasionate, overwhelming, curling toes, heated love' that she was looking for. At 50, where the contraceptive is menopause, and retirement if not a dot in the horizon but actually the house 2 blocks over. A whole life it took, and in her own standards, she's happy. Of course, she was not the oldest, but then again my oldest aunt, never got married, and yes she's the cat lady, only that she hates cats, and has 16 dogs.

Today, my grandmother brought the subject up again, and completed with the spinster comment, my dad was in the room. The terrified look on his face said it all.

No matter that I graduated with honors, that I'm fairly good looking, that I know 3 languages, that I've traveled a fair part of the world, that I understand computers, that I can write a line or two, that photoshop doesn't intimidate me, that I've lived by myself for 10 years now and survived 2 holds ups, no matter that I have these dreams that i want to come true, when it comes to being a girl, and being the oldest, and so many other little details... You must stop at some point according to this family and say, "hey I have to get serious and procreate."

So this is my Schedule for the next 10 years, since is aparently necesary: 

(feel free to compare it to Rachel Green's guidelines to getting hitched)

2009: Get into AFI and move to LA (no matter what, this is not negotiable)

2010: Get a scholarship for my second year. I'm going to be broke.
XF3 should begin shooting, and I should be offered a job picking up the kleenex, or distributing gum, of just going to get machiatos with maple syrup. SOMETHING.

*During this year it would be nice to find "someone" I mean, I'm not asking to get married... yet, but waking up every morning alone, its getting old.

2011: I'm supposed to be graduating, so expect that to happen, also... if any kind heart wants to sponsor me as a talented professional to stay in the US, that would be swell. I too think that by this time, Obama has solved the economic problems, brought back the troops, fixed the Guantanamo mess, ended the commercial block on Cuba 'cause Fidel died and Raul couldn't care less if dictatorship stayed or not.

2012: Hey... XF3 has to premiere sometime... 2012 would be smoking but if there's time to make XF4 I wouldn't mind... a girl can dream and be obsessed about Xfiles. I should had either mantained a relationship by now, I mean, I'll be 30!!! And maybe, just maybe, I can have a good careeer going by now... 

So, if the mayans are wrong, and we survive Dec. 21st 2012, I would think of marriage and a good date for me to have babies, would be 2014 to 2016. 32 - 34 yrs old... its not bad! Do you think that if I present this timeline, my grandmother would approve????

2019: I get my house in Malibu, and visit the philemune every weekend with my philes in training, while producing the next great blockbuster.

If anything were as easy as I came first, its my right to have this or the other, I would ask for the right to stop the world, cause is suddenly going too fast.

"I don't know how I am here"

Today, I'm back at my mom's. I'll tell you later why.

And I sit with my grandmother, just because I enjoy it so. She's sitting with her new friend, this old lady that has Alzheimers and that in the space of 2 hours, has told her at least 4 times the same story. Somehow, I think my grandmother is so caught up in telling her own stories that she doesn't notice.

Old age is weird. You have these two ladies that are basking in their own memories and in their simple handmade gowns and flying here, I spent 45 minutes with a lady about their age that was sporting Converse gold All Stars, a Cali hoodie, jeweled jeans and a Gucci bag. Somehow, I think my grandmother needs a deeper pimping.

Coming back from my reverie, they're talking about the island they come from. How everyone knows each other, and even though they met in their 80's, they have old friends in common, they know all the names, all their old businesses, who they married, how many children they had, who died and especially which town of the island they came from.

It's so that they come to explain that people in this old island, have so many old interesting names. Some come from old practices such as the kids being named after their grandparents that already had "interesting" names, others sporting names like "Peter of the Valley Virgin" after a promise given to said Virgin, the island's most important religious figure. Other names came from the Almanac. If it was Saint Peter's day, then said boy (or girl) would be named after said saint.

That's how my grandmother's name is Ezequiela. Yes, April 10th, St. Ezekiel day. And then she says: "I don't even know how I'm here." and she raises her hands to the sky. "I was saved just out of luck!"

And this is why. Back in 1926, in Margarita Island, the towns were nowhere near of having anything; no decent roads, sanitary fixes, or housing. My greatgrandfather had a friend that owned a donkey, in which he would carry logs for fire and other furnishings if hired. My greatgrandmother, very advanced in her pregnancy, got up in the middle of the night, thirsty, and with the need to use the non existant loo.

He gets up, takes the bucket, and walks to the well, about 10 minutes from the shack, and leaves her to go into the backyard. Long story short, a tummy ache mistaked with labor pains ended up with my grandmother landing into this world, face first to the gravel of the improvised bathroom.

When my greatgrandfather came back, the water was used to give newborn Ezequiela her first bath of planet earth.

It marvels me that aside from my greatgrandfather having that friend with the donkey, he used to be a sailor that would go to Curaçao and bring bootlegged goods. She remembers that the boat didn't have an engine, but sails, and that they knew the sea so much that they would steer back and forth and didn't get lost. 

From being a poor family with a mud shack and an outhouse, he became the owner of 2 plantantions, 3 houses around the island, and my grandmother became the heiress of a great inheritance.

She then says: "I named my son Ezequiel, not because he was born that day, but because its a great name for a boy"

The Countdown

3...2...1... go

Have you noticed how much we count stuff in our lives? We count money, relationships, days over due, minutes until midnight, weeks late, miles over the speed limit, points missing from the score, seconds left in the microwave... debt... numbers rule our lives, even when we try to avoid them. Damn, my math teacher was always right.

And so was my mother, but that's another story.

Today a sort of countdown has begun; one that should had started, and did indeed, back in December, but that had been stalled and stopped a number of times, and for the most ridiculous reasons you could ever think of. 

It's a wait that might change my future, as I've said before; It's a wait that will keep me nervous, will keep me guessing, will keep me wondering, and will make me question every part of what I've been in my concious life.

You see, little details, little decisions, little hesitations... little seconds, might represent the difference between me staying stuck and the shot at having a future. Yes, I'm dramatic, but then again, I live in the land of Telenovelas, where Chávez tunes into my life as he pleases and makes a living hell out of it.

Other days, I count as well for different reasons. I count them as they pass and they never come back, and that's the sad part of living in this country. Days that will never be granted to us once again, days lost in hatred, in violence, in mistakes; one after another.

And don't get me wrong, I'm all up for mistakes; you learn from them, because they bring the best and worst of you, they show you who you are, and if you're at least worth the while, you could become what you want, what you need. The problem is that in this endless thread of mistakes, it appears nothing has been learned, nothing has been won, nothing more than division and pain.

This countdown means to me the escape to this thread, and I blind my mind from negativity, cause in the past, all efforts failed, and this might as well be my last chance. Yes, again, I'm dramatic. My back hurts, I'm tired and I have brown circles under my eyes.

This blog is not exactly a work of art, is just a way to vent.

Either way, and I feel like I'm writing just like I speak, have you wondered how many countdowns do you have in your life? I've lived in a constant countdown and at 27, I'm tired. I want to stop counting down and start counting up. 

Only a few people will understand, but I want to count the number of times I can walk the entire Venice broadwalk in a day, I want to count how many grunions I see at night, how many waves it takes me to learn to ride one, I want to count the one candle on my friend's baby b-day cake next year, the number of times I can hug my virtual friends for real this time, I want to count kisses, smiles, goals... the only thing that I want to count down is the size of my pants.

These 40 something days will be the end of me, but also the start... do you believe in fairness, in wishes, in prayers? Do you believe in crossed fingers? Throw all of that for me... I'll keep you posted.

*Sighs*

I should be organizing interview questions right now. I am, but my soul, while it struggles to be in these questions, and how much I want them to be answered, my soul is just somewhere else.
I always dreamed to be the voice asking these questions, yet another dream slipped through my fingers today, maybe it was more than one dream.
As you grow up, your desires mature, or at least you would expect them to. I weirdly enough always asked for good health... that, well, that never happened.
If you know me any, you know I refuge myself in my work life. The workaholic in me has a job right now that not only I adore, I thrive on to, and thank every day that I came across it, and the people and the happyness that has brought me over the last few months.
I've identifyed myself so much into my own work dreams, it became my life dreams, and today one of those pieces of life, died.
Back in 1998, when still undecided on what to do the rest of my life, because at 16 aparently you are expected to take the most important decision of your life fresh out of your barbie dolls and the stupidity of middle school, back then when I had just seen some episodes of a show that now runs my days, back then I admired something, I dreamed something and I looked in awe as an illusion became the pursue I have as my life goal.
Kim Manners, though back then was just a name at the beginning of a show, joined other names that just like him became teachers, idols, examples, or just the bits and pieces of people I wanted to hang onto to have hope that one day, I would escape a reality that gradually became obnoxious, asphixiating and just, hopeless.
Him leaving this world, as we all will eventually, comes as a painful shock; the one that makes you realize that time passes, people grow and move on, and while we are pursuing these dreams that morph into what they become or not, so comes the eventual acknowledgement that some of them will never come to you, and they shall remain, just that... Dreams.
The 16 yr. old in me that once said "Wow, I want to shake the hand of this person" wants to throw a teary tantrum right now, but life doesn't even allow me that at lenght.  The 27 yr. old that lives in my body now, stepped into her living room this afternoon and suddenly, everything about her things and her space, seemed different in shape, weight and sensation.
Its like every dream that you have defines you in every sense, its your point of reference, your GPS, what gives you the drive to move forward or backwards.
The tenacity Kim professed for every little thing he did was something I wanted to witness first hand but now I guess that dream that I felt died today, might have morphed into following said example as a guide into what good leads you should follow, into the reference of what he was and still will be even though he's not amongst us anymore. He followed his dreams, it powered him to move forward, and that leaks thru every minute of film he ever produced or directed, in every smile people give at his memory and in every tear we could had shed today.

Perlanation and Moxed

This was the hill from my essay

My Scully!

Remember the stories of this car? This was my very first, red chevy corsa bought on feb. 23rd 2005. A petite fast redhead! I loved her so! I hugged and kissed her today... It was an emotional encounter.