sábado, noviembre 14, 2009

Empty Soul


Pido perdón por no haber escuchado
tus ruegos
pido perdón, por las lágimas que
hablan de mí,
pido perdón por tus noches a solas
pido perdón por sufrir en silencio por ti.

te pido perdón,
a sabiendas que no los concedas
te pido perdón
de la única forma que sé.

Devuélveme la vida,
devuélveme la vida,
recoge la ilusión
que un día me arrancó tu corazón,
y ahora...devuélveme la vida.

Yo no volveré a quererte de nuevo a escondidas
no intentaré convertir mi futuro en tu hiel
no viviré entre tantas mentiras,
intentaré convencerte que siempre te amé
y yo

te pido perdón, aún sabiendo que no los concedas
te pido perdón, de la única forma que sé.

Devuélveme la vida,
devuélveme la vida,
recoge la ilusión
que un día me arrancó tu corazón,
y ahora...
devuélveme la vida
devuélveme la vida,
esconde en tu cajón
los recortes de amargura
de mi amor
y ahora...

devuélveme la vida
devuélveme la vida,
esconde en tu cajón
los recortes de amargura
de mi amor
y ahora...
Devuélveme la vida,
devuélveme la vida,
recoge la ilusión
que un día me arrancó tu corazón,
y ahora...devuélveme la vida.
- Antonio Orozco

jueves, julio 02, 2009

No Line on the Horizon

Camp Nou stadium, Barcelona, 30.06.2009

U2 360 World Tour starts here, playing a lot of new songs from their new album and quite some of their previous hits.

It has been 12 years since I last saw them live, my last time was on 1997, also in Barcelona, during their "Popmart" world tour.



This time not only the sound but also the whole scenery has been outstanding, as always. I entered in the stadium around 18.30 and the show did not start until 2 hours later, this allowed me to take a good position in the crowd to take some nice pictures and videos to share with you today. So close! :)


Snow Patrol, the band that opened the show before U2 came into the scenery was great too. I did not really know this band until they sang some of their most famous songs that I surely had heard in the radio before.

The crowd came however all at once when Bono, The Edge, Larry and Adam came into the stage.

Their welcoming was warm and something I will never forget. To sing with them, to be their chorus, to share every single second of this 2 hours show has been really a great experience.

The contact with the International Spacecraft live, the song dedicated to the memory of Michael Jackson, the support to Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, Bono singing wearing a FC Barcelona shirt in the end made really a great evening that will last in my memory for ages, till the next chance to see them again comes...









I can start seeing a new line in the horizon for me, the future is approaching brightly, I can feel it, I will breathe again soon...


Thanks to U2 for this wonderful moment!

viernes, diciembre 12, 2008

The Tiny Line

And so here we are again, what the future will be it is yet untold...


A year ago I had to make a choice for my work and life, it was not easy but I think I made the right choice at that time.

Nowadays, it is a time to think, redraw and sketch what the next step in my life will be... hopefully for better... a time for meditation, to clear thoughts and let inner feelings grow... so that the right choice can be made... what the future will be has yet to be shown, day after day the fortune future magic ball draws a tiny line that will be part of the final picture resolution...

jueves, octubre 23, 2008

Angel Of Sorrow

I am not dead ...


... Just not yet alive.

lunes, junio 30, 2008

The Trophy


SPAIN

CHAMPION OF THE EUROPEAN FOOTBALL CUP 2008

29 June 2008

CONGRATULATIONS!!

A date not to forget... it's been 44 years since we won the last one!

lunes, junio 09, 2008

Lost Under the Sun

A few weeks ago I went for a small trip to Morocco, and I was happily surprised to see that country. It is just less than two hours flight from Madrid and it is yet so different from what we can see in Spain that you can hardly imagine we are so close in distance.

Being influenced by the morish culture in the past, the south of Spain, Andalucia, is a middle walk in between the modernity of Spain and the ancient feeling of the morish culture. Flying to Morocco you will feel like a step back in the history, to see also a culture that has nowadays not been totally changed even being incluenced by french, and that it still keeps its unique atmosphere and way of life and traditions.

Marrakech holds a very large variety of small shops where you can daily go around to buy species, leather, bags, pottery, clothes... all of the market is going through the city itself and its small streets. It is therefore a place with a lot of activity and where you can easily get lost looking around. In fact every street in Marrakech has the same feeling. The streets are rarely named, in the old district the streets are narrow and confusing, and even a map does not really help much on the right orientation.

Seems like the modernity given by maps has no effect in the old cities and there is only one way for a tourist to be orientated... just ask and pray for that you will not be cheated :). The confusing streets, the similarity of its walls and its people, anything looks different no matter how many times you pass through around the same streets. Upside down, going and coming back, everything, every single street has a different feel even you unconsciously know that for sure you have passed there earlier in a previous walk. Just we can't recall where we have been!

Its colorful shops, its people moving around fastly, along with the bright of the sun will definetely make you feel like in an ancient town where in fact, time passes so quickly.

It is good to be on a place where everything runs differently from what we are used to see. Shopping in Morocco goes all through a process of bargaining, where the sellers will try to convince you that their product is the best and you will not find anything similar anywhere. They are quite friendly and much better than what I remember in Egypt, where the staff in the shop will hardly let you get out of there unless you buy something.

Morocco in this sense is very open and nobody will push you to buy, moreover they are very friendly all the time. I liked that relaxing atmosphere and I could enjoy a lot the walks around the old cities discovering myself in a new environment.

Not only walking around was interesting for the sightseeing, but also people there was quite friendly. Children in rural areas may be at the same time curious and a bit despective towards foreigners, while in the big towns they become very friendly and helpful, especially when you want to be guided around the town with no need to pay anyone for that :).

Seems like there is still a big gap between rural areas and more modernized towns where everything runs smoothly and fast. The ancient cities seem to breathe still the atmosphere of traditions on foods, family roles and clothing while the serviced and business oriented cities run daily in a crowd and speedy life, for sure more opened to changes and new lifestyles.

It is still interesting to see how business and cities around the world develop depending on its location and culture. The way they deal with customers, the variety of services offered will differ depending on which country you are and its needs. In these days of globalization, to keep each country's individual fingerprints is really a good way and need to keep a distinction of identities and cultures. So does Morocco in a whole.

At a certain point of the trip I went to the desert for a night stay. It took around eight hours drive to reach there in a van with a small group of tourists. The marks of the road nearby the desert seem to disappear like traces of the unchanged history that vanish uncertainly under the hot sun.

Suddenly you get off the van and the first feeling that comes into your mind is that you are lost. Lost under the sun. When you look around all you can see is the long time effect the wind has stubbed for ages in the sand. The particles have become so small due to the erosive action of the wind that you can hardly feel them, even knowing they are everywhere around.

The sand is pure, beautifully placed in an endless scenario of dunes that seem to be taken from another world. When you look at the horizon, seeing such a wonderful place, you start changing your mind and feeling that the desert is not truly as lacking of life and beauty as you have always been thinking.

Indeed, the desert in Morocco is one of the greatest experiences I have ever had. Firstly because I always thought of a desert as a very hot and dry place, filled with endless similar dunes and views, with nothing else to see than sand and sun. When I think if it, I realize it is true in a certain way. However to experience myself, for the first time, how the desert is in proper conditions made my original thought vanish quickly and it even moved my mind to like it.

The Moroccan desert is full of beauty in every step the camel did to reach from a lost stone castle where the van dropped us to the tents during more than one hour. Every single step forward the camel did, pushed me more into the nice sceneries, the perfection of the waves marked since ages ago and yet redrawn currently every day by the wind on these dunes.

To see one dune after another, to look at the horizon without knowing how far it can be from any sort of human life, made this walk on camels unique. Not only for the good weather and temperature, but also for the unique views it has to show. It is certainly amazing, at least for me, that at the end of the walk you will be resting in a tent, in the middle of nowhere, staring at the blue sky and full moon, with a small fire, some wind and the only company of mostly unknown people that the only common thing they have with you is the time and the place, all this surrounded by big mountains of sand, dunes that have been there probably for ages without life along it. And it is yet surprising that camels have been living around in such extreme conditions at the service of men.

Lost under the sun with no definite place to go, being driven by a camel, was once more when I realized that not all in our lifes is always planned and drawn out, but it depends on us how we want to drive it and what we want to achieve. I never thought of myself being in the middle of the desert even for a minute, and, in spite of this, I would now still have a whole life to change and live forever in the desert if I ever determined to do my life there, as I could never imagine before this experience.

Of course I will not :), but what I mean is that there are still so many things to try in this world and so many experiences to live that it would be easy to, at least, be aware of what sort of lifes and alternatives we can have during our living.

We do not have always to be stucked in a place, predetermined to do a certain life.

Maybe yes several years ago, when traveling was hard and took long hours, but we are all in all lucky to live in developed countries that allow us to travel, to experience, and even to choose what life we want to lead as we are the ones who run our wishes and determine how far and where we want to be. This is a very precious value that not everyone has and it is precisely the reason why we should take good care of it.

The world is big enough to experience a lot, and we do not always need to change our lifes, but at least we can enrich our thoughts and appreciate what we have, at the same time we become wiser to choose and to be more happy with the choices we make as in every choice there will be always a whole learning on who we are.


It was lost under the sun without a certain path to follow when I became aware that being lost can be also a very enriching experience in our personal lifes.

Therefore to doubt, to hesitate, not to know what the future will bring can turn out in multiple ways and choices for our lifes. Being optimistic about it, this experience can lead us to our own self development and enrich who we are and our views of this world.

Even lost under the sun, you will be always the only master of your dreams, wherever they go, and it is in this effort, even the sun may hit your head and the sand may come into your eyes, you will realize that everything is part of a whole, that can be as beautiful as the perfect shaped dunes that do, at the end, give a lot of self happiness that may be otherwise never had been experienced.

Therefore, never be afraid of trying uncertain paths, as they may follow you to discover new dreams and achievements that will ever remain as part of your life, which will always make you unique and define who you are, who you were, and who you want to be.

There are certain choices in our lifes that we can do surrounded by those who will advice us for good, at the same time we have to deal with choices by our own that only ourselves can understand.

Surprisingly enough, I recall now how peaceful I felt when I was diving in Malaysia, under the beautiful sea in Tioman. I could feel that I was alive and that everything I knew, everything that surrounded me in my life had been gone as I was diving by myself, without any traffic jams, people, buildings around.

You can feel that at a certain point, the desert walk gives you a similar impression as in the beautiful Malaysian sea, as you get rid of worries, crowds and it is only you who interacts with the quiet nature in its original concept. It is then when you can feel that nothing is ever lasting and everything materialistic you have is not relevant anymore, but who you are and how happy or satisfied you can feel as a person and with the life you lead, surrounded by people around you.

This abstraction is necessary sometimes not to forget what our ideals are and that no matter how busy life awaits for us after these experiences, we will be always on time to discover and redirect our lifes in the way we want them to be.

Therefore it is not always late to be lost, wherever we are, as long as we have a wish to try to lead a better life or experience a temporary change. With no regrets on fails or with a hot sun striking your head, there will be always a much compensating reward at the end, shaped like beautiful dunes, personal motivations, achievements tried, and satisfactions for attempts themselves.

sábado, abril 05, 2008

The Labyrinth of Myths

Have you ever built up a small scenery inside a carton box so that when you look from outside, you can display whatever you wanted to recreate from a different perspective?

I sometimes did so in the school in my young days, cutting small pieces of paper, shaping them as chairs, desks, houses, people, with some coloured papers and finally after placing it all inside the small box, I did add some light.

And then, after the scene has been set up -like a small movie scene-, from a small hole in the box, I used to look inside and when you do, it does look like a small mini world has been created.

You can see your scene from the first until the bottom line of the box, and see how line after line your composition recreates a living story or event. Some of them are very nicely done with interior lights and it gives a very unique eye impression and delight.

Now take a piece of apple and put it in the center of a paper-boxed made labyrinth, just as one scenery described before, but much simpler.

Imagine at first that the labytinth has only one single entrance. If you then add a small group of ants on the same entrance, you will soon find out that a few of them start exploring around and the rest will follow them.

The result, even in the worse case, will be that they will all find the piece of apple, more or less in a similar time, because ants leave some smell whenever they pass through, so that others can follow them. You can observe this not only in this experiment, but commonly anywhere ants are, they make a line and follow all the group.

Give it a second try, add different entrances to the labyrinth, and one ant in each entrance. If every of them starts exploring around, some of them will pass several times for the same place, some lucky ants will find the piece of apple quickly while the rest of the group will be wondering around until they find the right way.


In this second try there will be local communication, but since every information transmitted to others is just partial, to find the piece of apple becomes more complicated, since any ant knows where the other has been.

Give it a third try, add not only one piece of apple, but several fruit pieces, several entrances and several ants on each entrance. Welcome to the chaos!


Some ants will get the piece of fruit, some others will not even know there is fruit in the labyrinth, and some will be lucky enough as to find not only one, but several pieces.

This experiment may, in a way, reflect how humans are. Replace ants for humans, fruits for wishes and the paper labyrinth for a world environment.

You will find out that we are all born in different locations, influenced by different cultures and people, and therefore our wishlist may be also different. Looking for an apple may turn into a quest, moving everywhere anytime. And so in our life, we walk around, see new things, change our wishes and priorities as we explore and live inside this huge labyrinth.

When I was seven or eight years old, I remember there was a contest in a computer magazine. I already forgot what could I win by filling in and sending certain survey to an office post box somewhere in Spain. But I remember clearly it was a contest for adults, even it didn't mention that children couldn't apply for it. So I did.

So I started filling in my personal data, name, address, and suddenly I had to stop in one field in the middle of the page, which was "current employment". Of course I was not working at that time, so I left the field blank for a while and I completed the survey. Then before I decided to cut the paper and send it by mail, I asked my mother what should I fill in the survery for "employment".


Her reply was like, "well, you dont have a job now, so you can feel free to write down there what you want to be in the future". I kept looking at her and went back to my desk to complete such a difficult task: think what I wanted to be in the future.

Such a nice reply from a mother to her son, which was followed by mine, after I have it some thoughts... what I wrote was, literally:

"Current Employment: 'I want to be a normal man.'"

Obviously, I had no idea what I wanted to be yet, I never saw myself at that time as with some ability to work and be paid for my work. Paid? What do I use the money for? I don't need a house nor a car, I am just a kid!

I can't help laughing when I imagine how the people in that company opened my envelope and found that an eight years old kid who wanted to be a normal man sent that survey to them in order to win something!!

Anyway, this answer has, indeed, some interesting points which I can recall now after so many years.


Firstly, normal man at that time to me meant have a regular life. Have a job -whatever-, have a house, a family. Just be like all the adult people around me were.
Which means, I was an ant already following what other ants were doing, or at least, I was conscious of what "others" were doing, from a very far distance.

Secondly, and I think this is quite common, most teenagers dream of a perfect life. A perfect life for me was to graduate early, get stability on work when I was 25, save money till 28 or 29, and get married around 30's. Build up a family before 35's, and live happily and peacefully for the rest of my life.


This was my master plan at that time, the apple I wanted to look for when I realized I was inside the labyrinth.

However as walking around, going through various steps, exchanging information with other ants that I found on my way, I realized that these dreams are not accomplished at the time I wanted to, and so the piece of apple I originally wanted is now spreaded in small pieces across the labyrinth that have to be found as time goes by.

How many of us have ever dreamt to have a peaceful life, or at least ordered life, and realize later on that only part of our dreams have become true? I suppose more than 90% of worldwide population? :-P . It is not that we don't fight for it, but that the challenge keeps going on depending on our environment and opportunities.

Dreams may change, knowledge, actions and chances may be different depending on where are we at the current time and what we have learnt so far from our experience and so we keep walking in the labytinth inside the same carton box, sometimes we pass through the same corner with different goals.

Myths may not always happen at a time we originally planned for, they may fade away or come back with a stronger wish for us to succeed. Time, place and environment will always affect our choices and way of life.

But yet we always look for a perfect life in the best way we can. The completion of happiness in life is not an easy task and there will be often pieces to be found in our quest. Which is at the same time not bad, as it pushes us to keep trying for what we long for.


A spanish proverb states: "Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar".

Its english translation would be like "There is no path to follow, we do the path as we walk".


This proverb has a lot to say and discuss, I do not know whether its true or not, but I think life is a combination of both, a labyrinth in which we are trapped looking for our dreams to come true as we do effort for them, and also, at the same time, an undiscovered path that will describe our life in a unique way.

That's the magic of myths to be followed, the quest of trying to succeed, and the nice feeling of spontaneusly, which can turn over our thoughts anytime.

Human instinct is unpredictible, and therefore, as long as there are myths in the labyrinth to follow, there we are, trapped and looking for our own quests to be accomplished.


Just like ants do.