Trains, cranes, and migraines

I'm glad to present to you the first journal-type entry on this blog.

This time I took the train to visit my significant other. While riding it, after the conductor checked our tickets, boredom got the best of me and brought out an elegant presentation.

This lovely crane found its place among other passenger, those who made up for my departure. A bland train ticket, which would've even sooner ended up in rubbish, was animated by avian likeness. I exchanged farewells with the crane and spent the Easter very well.

Key activities included playing "Cats Are Liquid: A Better Place" and watching "Watamote". My significant other dislikes playing video-games, but enjoys watching them, and I saw the whimsical indie platformer as something which would amuse her. Until then I hadn't watched "Watamote" in about seven years. I hadn't realised how disturbing it actually is, it's a very humiliating cringe comedy, my girlfriend wanted to quit on many occasions and I assured her that it wouldn't get any better. We went through half, there's only twelve episodes, so I'd easily recommend it to anybody. I found it enjoyable, as by now I have forgot what I originally saw, so the experience was almost like brand-new. I very much relate to the main character. Overall, the weekend was enjoyable even if not that out of the ordinary, but at least I tried avocado and tacos (individually as well as in tandem) for the first time.

Surely enough, during my trip back, I gave form to another feathered companion. This time with its own stand to balance on, made from the remaining piece of the ticket.

I hope that I left a positive impression on somebody with these birds. At least they won't bother whomever has to throw them out that much, as I will not be taking the train often enough for that to become an unpleasant issue.

I made it to Belgrade and ran across an older gentleman. What stuck out to me about him was his unique and well-fitted appearance. He had his hair, moustache, and even eyebrows if I caught that well, all dyed a bright red. His clothes were full of a pleasant shade of red and his body was decorated by all manners of jewelry. He could not hear very well at all, but he did hear my praises for his styling. We shared good wishes.

I had to sit and wait for a while. It was behind the monument to a Serbian ruler, Stefan Nemanja.

As you might notice, it is extremely tall. I'm not sure about the height of Michelangelo's David, but this is how tall I imagine his statue to be. I couldn't be bothered to take a picture of the front, but if you are sufficiently interested, you can find high-quality photographs on the web.

I had to sit for a while as I didn't have the bus I expected, this was due to Monday after Easter being celebrated as a holiday, a day off. Luckily, I had other buses for places close enough to my home. Though I couldn't afford a ticket to enter the platform and my phone's battery was nearly out... All that was an extreme potential amount of stress, as I have no notable familiarity with Belgrade. But fortunately enough, a friend was kind enough to help me out and I made it home safely.

Music to me

Taste is a very peculiar thing. During my earliest years of existence I didn't pay much thought to what I heard, it was just pop music which my parents played on the TV. It was mostly old and foreign, though I knew of both new and domestic music as well. Until the end of middle school there were only a couple of songs I would listen to at a time.

I believe it was TV shows ("Watamote" and "Death Note" come to mind) which awoke a major change in my yearning for sound. I was pulled in by grim imagery and unusual soundscapes. At the same time I gave some attention to the religion-philosophy of Satanism, which I had an immature attitude towards at the time (unsurprisingly, having in mind my age). Groups such as Ghost came to populate my ear due to that theme, but I still hadn't developed a particular musical taste, I still limited myself to individual tracks.

The opening of "Watamote", a show which means a lot to me.

My father got an electric guitar for me, per my plea, and ever since I spent numerous hours in practice of playing and exploration of music theory, because I had and still have the tremendous wish to compose. I'm not as successful as I'd like to be, but I won't be giving up anytime soon, despite the number of my current responsibilities, which I view as merely ephemeral.

Fast-forward to the beginning of high school, I attained plenty of rudimentary knowledge of metal music and the subculture therein. At the time I was actually really leaning towards modern deathcore (which has a simpler yet more aggressive sound and which could, despite its authentic hardcore punk origins, be more aptly described as alternative metal with death elements). Then I got closer to more concrete metal music, I became a fan of groups such as Death, Revocation, Cattle Decapitation, and Obscura. I became a true fan of technical death metal. With time, my love grew towards more progressive groups.

Then I had reached an epiphany, an entire range of doors now open to me. My ear shifted nearly exclusively to progressive metal. The earliest might be Caligula's Horse, a band which cannot receive enough praise. Leprous, Haken, Others By No One... It's an extensive list which mostly resides in my Spotify history.

Surprisingly enough, today, I'm no opponent of the domestic mainstream pop hip-hop fusion, which is very saturated here in the Balkan peninsula. It's not good to put others down for listening to something I don't deem worthy, not everything has to be serious.

For most of my free time, music was the only person I could talk to, I spent endless hours just laying or sitting and listening. It wasn't unusual for a day to pass that way. I had a good time with most of my high school classmates, but outside of it, nobody was really concerned with what I was doing. I have kept some friends out of that bunch, they care enough for me to appreciate that, and I shared further positive experiences with them: they invite me to their birthdays and so on. Additionally, before and after I got involved with my girlfriend, I showed her much of what I listened to, and luckily enough, she liked it. She also helped me discover plenty of music I hadn't heard up to that point.

Lost internet acquaintance

This is a phenomenon I often come across, not only counting my own experiences, but also the number of times I saw other people mention their own. I don't find the loss of in-person friendships as striking, as they fade far less often and much more slowly. On top of that, those instances tend to have more reasoning behind them.

Over the course of my 10 or so years of online presence, many personalities stuck with me, though with many I might never share another word. They were mostly met through online video-games, though sometimes it was through group chats which represented niche internet communities. Interests shift and people inevitably move from their past hobbies. Technology also changes—while software such as Skype used to rule communication, it was toppled by other options (which in many, including myself, caused frustration—but let's be honest, Skype didn't lack serious issues).

I can recall a significant amount of information regarding those people: their names, mannerisms, jokes, voices, internet profiles, and even some quotes.

In the end, I find solace in the thought that this might be for the best. It may be that these friendships are intended as temporary, with the amount of dissatisfaction never meeting cross-continental persons might bring. To me, the biggest issue is the time zone difference. You usually can't stay up four hours past midnight just for a couple of hours of fun. What brings me up is that online you can always easily run across the kindest people.

Ambivalent experiences

The thought which pushed me to start a web log. 

People tend to go through especially pleasant times, akin to intoxicated outdoor celebrations which populate the summer (large birthdays especially), where looking back you cannot connect a single unpleasantry to that memory. When something as valuable as a perfect experience becomes sullied by a horrible realisation, turmoil follows. It's a heavy form of loss, something to which humans are weak.

This reminiscence becomes now a permanent reminder of a mortal condition—humans, for the extent of their life, won't have the opportunity to rest from disappointment in their kin, they will suffer from the apathy of the rest. Even their own individual ignorance and complicity will they struggle to curb. It is far simpler to maintain the crooked disposition of the many, than to fight to correct it; the path of least resistance is so sickeningly desirable. What we are left with are everyday experiences to which most people wouldn't pay a second thought, but which still excite perplexion in the heads of few.

What might an experience of this kind be? It's the gentle caressing of a kitten at a birthday party... Though contrasting with the typical case, here we would not record this as a positive experience. Take note that an "ambivalent experience" isn't isolated to me or to this example by any means, but concerning myself I would call this instance the most personally striking.

It's the gentle caressing of a kitten amid a row of dismembered limbs.

Genesis

With the rising need of sharing the thoughts which cross my mind, trouble it, or positively engage it, I made the decision to start a web log. The wish to do so might have been exaggerated by bursts of nostalgia and curiosity brought by reading rich, hidden blogs, both new and old. The medium of a blog has always been, to me, a very personal one.

What I intend to share is not limited in any way, it represents simply an outlet for my mind. I will write about ideas I subscribe to, useful knowledge I wish to share, and questions I keep on asking. There might be something for everybody, seriously! I won't even bother with listing any potential topics, I'm excited for readers to deduce their perception of my personality from my articles.