Saturday, May 02, 2020

Ramblings

I have been alone in my house for more than one month. I am ok at spending my time alone; I am Generation X - we were built for this! I am not bored (I frankly do not understand how people can even get bored), but I have been feeling increasingly like a Robinson Crusoe with internet connection.
And with too much time, that someday will feel like too little time.
Talking about football, I have now become much better at FIFA19, and won the Serie A with Napoli in awesome style, and winning the Danish Superliga with Brondby. While I perhaps need to play online, I have to say one thing that makes the game very realistic: the referee totally and completely suck.
Also talking about football, among the so far 11 books I have read these days, Tom Holland's "The Shadow of the Sword" mentioned the 532 riots in Constantinople, when rival fans of two different teams in the popular chariot races nearly destroyed the ancient city. In the end the Emperor had to send in his most elite troops to crush the violence, leading to up to 50000 deaths.
The tradition of hooliganism lives on today; so a reflection is what in the world have we learnt from history?!?
Talking about history, besides the two online project management courses I have been taking courses in ancient archeoastronomy and modern world history. I guess football does not figure prominently (in fact none at all), but at the same time one can say that history is in everything, even as it happens all around us.
Have you ever read comic books? I have read all my old comic books. I always loved Asterix, but also had a few versions of Natasha, a sexy Belgian flight attendant that had plenty of crazy adventures. I had totally forgotten it, but inspired me to draw; despite all my drawing being crap, I have truly enjoyed drawing as I listen to a bunch of Ted Talk podcasts.
Ted Talks: they are great, even though some people talk a lot of shit, and are more full of themselves than their subject. I will never be able to talk like someone in a Ted Talk, so I greatly admire people who can talk so smoothly and without nerves.
Practice is not enough; I tell you from experience!
I have baked bread (it tasted like dry turd after one day) and I would like to learn to crochet. I looked at a video online (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q7vKB3ENws) but the problem is that I can't get hold of any materials in my current home imprisonment.
I also made a lego movie: https://vimeo.com/413379220/1cafbe54a7
In this way I am contributing to the world of entertainment which is the one that will further explode with this crisis.
Really, football may be suspended; but did the world fall apart?
I am supposedly "working from home". But more than ever there is time to question one's own work; having read a book on "pseudo-work" by two Danish anthropologists, this entire crisis must surely be leading to questioning the meaning of and depth of a lot of people's employment and their contribution to wider society. At least we may have finally and thoroughly confirmed that utility is not rewarded in this world. Rich celebrities who are good at acting, singing and looking good, have been telling us how to "live through" the quarantine, just as they have been telling us for years what it means to be successful, how to look, what to eat, listen and watch; what is worth living, and even dying for. And when this whole shit is over, Messi, Ronaldo and many other second-rate entertainers like them will all be rewarded with the millions of Euros that will never go to the doctors, nurses, drivers, cleaners, delivery boys and girls, who save lives and make the world turn.
So... when is this thing ending? I am surely not the only person waiting eagerly, but at the same time one is also developing a fear of the "restart". All these media are telling us that the world will not be the same, but frankly, are we not just going to look for the pleasure of normality? Am I weird for hoping things to be as before? And what if things are not the same? How can I lock myself up again n into this imprisonment where I am not responsible for anything but myself? Quarantine is making is making us afraid to live beyond our currently limited horizon.
Anyway, when this whole thing is over we can continue consuming and destroying the world, and feeling good about what some hot celebrity tells us to do.

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