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bearodrigues · 8 years ago

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3 days to 30

I'm turning 30 in three days, and exactly five days ago I got back from Brazil for my first visit in one and a half years. Even though it's a lot of numbers in only one sentence, there's very little of logical thought or science in it.

I am not keen to nostalgia, as for I don't believe in living in the past or not appreciating the present moment, but this time around in Brazil got me revisiting many places, feelings and people. Well, to be accurate, I was visited by the people, since I was in the middle of the giving away an entire apartment.

Sometimes life really does go full fucking circle on you. From old lovers that I thought I would "never" see again to friends that I was missing fiercely, this visit was for sure very intense, and the cyclic aspect of some encounters got me thinking about ten years ago.

2007 was a very rough year. From cocaine to my academic studies, living situation, job situation, my bands and my friend group then, it was a damn hectic year. But I was turning 20, and as much as I didn't see much of a future to myself given the circumstances being quite scary, on another side I thought "well, I still have a lot ahead of me".

Back then I was studying Psychology, and during those studies I remember that I had a seminar called (beware, vulgar display of free translation from portuguese ahead) "adult's development". I have a vivid memory of my teacher telling the class about a point in life where you realize that you have gotten close to the second half of your time in the world, and that you have ceased to be what was then called "young adult".

I am far from knowing if I have reached half of my life. For all it's worth, I could die tomorrow or even the following minute. But as I searched my files on my old computer for a current project and came upon images of me and my friends in 2007, I could not help but wander back into that sense of possibility, of that energy that pulled me forward no matter what - just because I had time.

Now, this is where it gets tricky: I still have time. Maybe my visa document disagrees with me, and as I just said I have no idea what Madam Death has reserved for me, but in a more general spectrum most of my generation grew up believing that by the age of 30 you should have already your own house, a steady job and for us brazilian females, a husband.

As you can see I am most definitely far from that.

The only probable cause for me to marry someone would be a visa, even though I'm not really keen of that idea. The idea of "marrying for love" has not really crossed my mind, mostly because I don't exactly believe you need to marry anybody, specially out of love.

On the path of steady jobs I already decided to freelance a long while ago in photography, and even if: how can a photographer (or any other artist whatsoever) call themselves steady? I do still work at a cute cafe run by brazilians and for now that is quite enough.

And about houses, well... I live in Berlin. That doesn't seem to be a thing here.

Now I said a few paragraphs above that I still have time. Why is that? The same society I described on the previous text, the one that leads us to frustration due to excruciating standards, is the same one that compels us to feel we're always late for something and pushes us to compare ourselves with other people our age or - even worse - with younger people.

This last one is particularly infuriating for me since it is one that I happen to do every now and then. A few years ago me and a dear friend and also photographer from Brazil and I were talking about this 17 year old girl who was the lead photographer for the Diesel brand's campaign.

Her pictures were indeed amazing and she obviously deserved the spotlight. We, on the other hand, already a few years older and stuck working as assistants in a shitty studio for a sexist-awful-not-talented photographer, felt completely hopeless.

(she is a very talented photographer and is getting higher and higher in são paulo's fashion scene by the way. here you can see her work)

I even found myself making tough comparisons to my very talented boyfriend in a way that I sounded envious and really silly. I was going to type that he was "ahead" of me when about to describe how he already found a specific project he is working on with a defined style and language, when I noticed that the semantics already ruins the storytelling.

Our capitalist society tends to place us like the athletes who run the 100 meter competition: all in line, one beside each other, each one in a separate track and with the "ready-set-go" signal flashing at the exact same time. The only thing that they got it right is that we do have our own private track, or path, to follow.

Everything else they got wrong.

If I really was to compare myself to, let's say, the Diesel girl or even my boyfriend, I would have to consider the numerous chains of privileges we don't have in common, our personal histories, choices and so on.

Because the comparison is never on a fair standing point due to the fact that people don't start on the same beginning line as the athletes on the racing track, the most reasonable choice is not to make any comparisons at all.

But how to do that while the whole world pressures you otherwise?

I have been learning about that with the help of my closest friends and what I find interesting is that if we manage to keep the economic aspects out of our relationships with ourselves and with others it's already a big start.

Is it possible, though, to keep it out of our creative production and/or art?

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