Fantasy Literature

A visit at the Carturesti Bookstores and you quickly realise that the world is still fascinated with fantasy stories. Maybe because the reality we see every day seems so dark that it’s hard to face it without a story with a bit of hope. Instead of facing the bosses, you enjoy reading about heroes you admire them for standup to the evil forces from a distance. And that is how fantasy becomes highly appreciated. 

And still why is our reality so dark that all of us prefer fantasy?

Why do we like naming the bad, the dark and dress-up the kitsch? Why not trying to beautify everything towards a fantasy we love?

These are questions I cannot answer. Maybe just take the fact that people buy books because of their covers and use them for their covers. And then it explains the lack of interest in bettering our lives. 

But maybe people still read books and there are dreamers out there who can make our lives more beautiful every day...

I am looking for a dreamer or more to share dreams about a beautiful world we could have around us?

Anyone?

The Age of Selfishness

In a world where information becomes more accessible every day, people learn to self-educate themselves. So each one of us will be an artist, critic and in the same time we will continue to be a consumer. Our taste is cultivated through a tradition hardly transmitted with some communist infiltrations and a western dream which is still alive. And our taste seems to influence somehow the true and educated creators. This fact cannot help lowering the world culture, interest and implication. We develop an age of selfishness, of independence, of individualism. This proves we haven’t learned anything from the world history. People have come to evolve in the moment they have united, the moment they have overcome their city limits and the moment the cultural conflict has given birth to a medium or long term compromise. 

Sadly we can evaluate we are in a reiteration of Medieval Age. Luckily, hope is still alive, that even after us, there will be some brilliant minds who will know to judge our times as a preparation for the next humanity jump. 

Our selfishness may head again towards humanity together with the realisation that individually we are nothing. And our art will then be considered as a step to a future age of powerful feeling as we cannot meet at this stage. 

True Beauty of Crises

Because our world is going through a crises, we seem to return to the good old "poverty" values. We aim more to the natural standards, which may result in a good turn for our ever consuming world. 

I am happy to be part of the generation that stands tall in front of the world crises. 

It's not easy to go through something which is in theory a collapse, which will be talked about as the world crises of the 21st century and yet it is a moment to realise that values are not lost, just rediscovered. I am happy to be part of projects which promote that kind of simple beauty we seem to have lost among the artificial things. And it's hard to know where beauty lies when all that has been promoted as premium has been fake. I believe brands are the first who need to reinvent themselves in such a world change. We redefine movement in a world that needs faster mobility and has less physical activity. We are the ones who learn poverty may mean beauty, if class is added to it and if harmony joins. It's not easy to return to values that were never taught and to educate kids in the manner which proves there is life beyond the unreachable aspirations of marketing. And the crises is teaching us just that. 

Consumerism is winning new values and reusability becomes marketable. Thanks to some big metropolis who redefine style in the vintage version and thanks to some smart marketing tools, we learn to recycle the old into new fashionable things. 

I take a bow in front of the artists and creators who know how to promote as classy the simple miracles in our everyday lives. 

We need to keep in mind the beauty of basics in order to keep track of our human condition. 

The Weakness of Being Weak

I was kindly asked today what is my purpose in writing. For the right answer I had to take some time to think about it, though I've known it all my life: there is nothing making me feel better than the writing. This is what helps me say things as truthful as I can. With irony and deep analysis I see the world as a better place. All the sad truths most people get angry about, I am now facing with a smile and an ironic thought that it shouldn't be changed or else we wouldn't have anything to laugh about. I turn the disturbing dysfunctional into the strange matter to laugh about and move on, the buffoon of the court. 

And with all your judgemental writings, you don't want to change anything?

said the man with the voice. No, I don't want to change anything. I want to make a point and those who will be willing to listen may change something in time or laugh with me at the moment. 

But this means you are weak and you are not a weak person, continued the man with the voice. 

I am weak, that's why I write about it. I am weak, that's why I never change things, but I rather stand back, as a decent and quiet observer to the useless panic, the crazy yells, the unfair thefts, the disturbing sounds, the indecent approach to the normal life and the rest of our everyday encounters. 

From dusk till dawn, walk your feet in a crazy pace or in a slow move and you will notice a funny story, you will see someone who raises emotion in you. And that someone has a story to tell, has done something wrong and while counting up deeds, you will have to laugh about it, about life, about the world we live in. 

And this I call weak, not strong. And proud to be standing up here on the mountain and chase the stories down the piece of paper, the blank webpage, the empty text message. 

From time to time I get my head in the clouds and forget I am still down here, with the feet deep in the earth. But it helps. It helps a great deal to be the urban anthropologist. 

A good day for thoughts, for chatting, for getting back to writing. 

A good day for a walk down Calea Victoriei, Bucuresti.