Impossible forests

'Freedom is the possibility of isolation.

You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory of curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude.If you can't leave alone, you were born a slave. You may have all the splendours of the mind and the soul, in which case you're a noble slave, or an intelligent servant, but you are not free. And you can't hold this up as your own tragedy, for your birth is a tragedy of Fate alone. Hapless you are, however, if life itself so oppresses you that you are forced to become a slave. Hapless you are if, having born free, with the capacity to be isolated and self-sufficient, poverty should force you to live with others. This tragedy, yes, is your own and it follows.

Tired, I close the shutters of my windows, I exlude the world, and I have a few moments of freedom. Tomorrow I'll go back to being a slave, but right now-alone, needing no one, and worried only that some voice or presence might disturb me-I have my little freedom, my moment of exelsis.

Leaning back in my chair, I forget the life that oppresses me. Nothing pains me besides having felt pain.'
Fernando Pessoa,somewhere in Lisbon, sometime around 1931.

An extract from 'The Book of Disquiet'-world's strangest photograph made out of words, the only material capable of capturing the recesses of the soul it exposes.

October 13 was the 287th day of 2008. Until the 8th of December, 56 days were left to test my sanity & stability. And you bet they did as I was struggling to set up a low key version of my internet site for the Digital elective.

The inspiration pyre was set alight by various elements: Cure's classic 'A Forest'(Come closer and see/See into the trees/Find the girl/While you can), Nine Inch Nail's paean 'Hurt'(I hurt myself today/To see if I still feel), William Whalton's novel 'Birdy', underground comic books, Yoko Ono, 'The Head'(Eric Fogel's early nineties cartoon series for MTV)...The list is endless. But the main spark lever was my need of a sanctuary and the need to bring forth the undying human quest of freedom. Then, Pablo Picasso ('Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up') and Fernando Pessoa ('We are shadows roaming through impossible forests, in which the trees are houses, customs, ideas, ideals and philoshophies') collided in me and Desde Adentro ('Look Inside') was born.

In practice, not only forests proved impossible though. Everything was! Or at least seemed so in the beginning, as I was trying desperately to squeeze my infantile Flash skills into my vision. And as much as I hate compromises, under deadline pressure I had eventually to give in to some. So, the trees morphing into a girl's hair of my original (quite ambitious) storyboard, evolved into trees morphing in an endless loop. The menu page got twisted as well, where key elements, as the Bansky inspired girl, were only kept. In the end, my mind came round to the idea that while a project comes into fruition, some changes will always be inevitable. Moreover, the whole experience ripened into a quite enjoyable one, mainly for one reason: it allowed me the joy of being kept suprised. Because I would never, deliberately, throw myself in doing anything like that. Or, as K.P.Kavafis would say,'Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey/Without her you wouldn't have set out.'

On December 8 1854, Pope Pius IX pronounced the Immaculate Conception tenet, which states that Virgin Mary was born free of original sin. While Desde Adentro is far from being immaculate, it still holds as a miracle to me and a proof that whenever you don't know where you are going, then any road will take you there.