Nena, Liebe Ist, an honest and hearfelt love statement

Today, following the vibe from Valentine’s Day, for those in love (like I am =D) you’ll bring a gift, IMHO the most sweet and tear-bursting love song I heard in my almost 3 decades of life. That’s a honest statement, but it’s in German. The singer/songwriter is Nena, famous for 99 Red Balloons. This post is about a huge hit (#1 in Germany) and few people outside Europe had the opportunity to listen to this masterpiece. Liebe Ist is a single containing melodies crafted with clockmaker precision and heartfelt lyrics. I must have heard this one maybe over a hundred times this weekend given my actual feelings. I hope you enjoy, and here is a link to the German Lyrics with English translation. Not mine, but me like a student of German, I recommend:

Click here for a side-by-side translation

Love Hurts?

Still on the Valentine’s mood, I was compelled to write this while reminiscing the frustration of some friends of mine. If we could enumerate the main false beliefs that people hold about love, maybe the ones that cause the majority of the rants are:

1) To love is to do unconditionally all wishes of the beloved person. Losing love fears have a lot of potential to turn love into game, and after the pampering and the damage done we cynically take our partners as villains when in the truth, we did the mistakes. Okay, it take guts, but simply giving all away is a disaster as the same way when we pamper the children.

2) Love should be easy, simple, it isn’t needed to show the right path and eventual hatred is a sign of failure. Unfortunately, when we love to some extent we are like islands and our partners, in their minds, even with the best of their intentions take decisions on the everyday life that hurt us and they will keep doing that until we stop, sit a while and tell them our anguish. On a first moment we get some bitter taste that doesn’t go away until we talk that in an honest manner.

3) “Love” and friendship should not merge. That’s the dynamic of infatuation, where lust and desperation drive us. I’m not saying that physical attraction should not take an important share of the balance, but friendship is the element of the long-lasting relationships, bringing fun, interchange and bridges the path to the different worlds.

4) Excessive jealousy means care. BULLSHIT. This is like a cancer or a time bomb that kills a lot of couples with a lot of potential. It’s an ill hard to cure. If one of the two persons behaves this way, better jump out of the boat at least to keep a decent friendship.

5) To love is to trust that the beloved’s intuition should discover all your wishes. No way. Apple still didn’t make the magic iCrystalBall and two persons with low communication are doomed to a path of fear and resentments. It has a lot do with friendship and the talk is the fuel to renew and take new starts on the halfway. It is a dynamic that can to avoid those eventual breaks that people take to reconsider and try again.

Talking about the so-called love, instead of describing it with a lot of boresome words, let’s bring some imagery. For instance, the romantic one:

Romantic as heaven on earth.

Nothing against. At least I suppose things end this way, but is annoying the dictatorship of our pop culture that rules the youth mindset, leading to pursue this like a drunken yearns for a hangover. A life in grayscale is monotone, the same way a day-to-day painting with pink tones turn your affective sensibility diabetic.

Even when we make a mature choice, aware that we don’t ran into a stupid infatuation and we weren’t driven by naive passion, we have to cope with a bit costful issues. We know how hard is to protect our personal territory from boring episodes like natural “friends” jealousy, parents diverging over the match, almost constant gossip, former lovers that get desperate doing shameful efforts when they realize the size of their loss and so on. And aware of those realities, we know we have to take some time to adjust our way of think, making concessions and deciding on a reasonable path and a good timing for things to work out. We know, TRUE LOVE TRANSFORMS, contrary to traditional infatuation, that just make us burst in confuse feelings of fear, desperation and uncontrolled jealousy.

Personally, I see love this way:

Love Gears?

Don’t matter the size of the gears. Sometimes the man is greater, other times the woman is and there’s nothing wrong with it. What really matter is a nice fit. Like any mechanical device, some friction on the start can exists, but when a nice choice is done, things goes way smoother with time. I personally see love on a 1 + 1 = 3 fusion, like a fusion of two enterprises. When corporations carry a deal like these, there’s a lot of planning, brief contacts, meetings, evaluations, strategic considerations because is expected the alliance to bring sinergy. On love, what advantage we gather spending stress, personal time, money, sometimes tears and sleepless nights focusing on a commitment if it couldn’t bring more than a ordinary union with it’s expected concessions? We expect a virtuous circle. Of course on the day-to-day of married people hardly all the things goes as planned, but a prepared and well-tuned couple takes the best of the circunstances and makes what a lot of desperate romantics don’t do: recycle themselves over the time.

The magic of true love lies on the creation, on transformation and the new insights we gather from the relationships and inspired by Coldplay’s Lovers In Japan, I really got amazed with this one (credits to http://darunia-art.deviantart.com/). Fantastic, creative, full of life.

Fiery, creative, funky, soulful, lively!

Bye, amici. Hope you get some good lovin’

No words, loved it.

Funny!

Meaning inside.

Credits to Fubiz (www.fubiz.net).

Hold your fire,
Keep it burning bright
Hold the flame ’til the dream ignites
A spirit with a vision is a dream
With a mission

I hear their passionate music
Read the words that touch my heart
I gaze at their feverish pictures
The secrets that set them apart

When I feel the powerful visions
Their fire has made alive
I wish I had that instinct
I wish I had that drive

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire
Focused high on soaring ambitions
Consumed in a single desire

In the grip of a nameless possession
A slave to the drive of obsession
A spirit with a vision is a dream
With a mission.

I watch their images flicker
Bringing light to a lifeless screen
I walk through their beautiful buildings
And I wish I had their dreams
But dreams don’t need to have motion
To keep their spark alive
Obsession has to have action
Pride turns on the drive

It’s cold comfort
To the ones without it
To know how they struggled
How they suffered about it
If their lives were exotic and strange
They would likely have gladly exchanged them
For something a little more plain
Maybe something a little more sane

We each pay a fabulous price
For our visions of paradise
But a spirit with a vision is a dream
With a mission.Hold your fire,
Keep it burning bright
Hold the flame ’til the dream ignites
A spirit with a vision is a dream
With a mission

I hear their passionate music
Read the words that touch my heart
I gaze at their feverish pictures
The secrets that set them apart

When I feel the powerful visions
Their fire has made alive
I wish I had that instinct
I wish I had that drive

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire
Focused high on soaring ambitions
Consumed in a single desire

In the grip of a nameless possession
A slave to the drive of obsession
A spirit with a vision is a dream
With a mission.

I watch their images flicker
Bringing light to a lifeless screen
I walk through their beautiful buildings
And I wish I had their dreams
But dreams don’t need to have motion
To keep their spark alive
Obsession has to have action
Pride turns on the drive

It’s cold comfort
To the ones without it
To know how they struggled
How they suffered about it
If their lives were exotic and strange
They would likely have gladly exchanged them
For something a little more plain
Maybe something a little more sane

We each pay a fabulous price
For our visions of paradise
But a spirit with a vision is a dream
With a mission.

Blue Screen of Death

Bye, amici

A lot of times I were at BMW resellers because of the hype of R1200 GS but the salespersonell, despite their decent knowlegde and amicably treatment, never instigated me to ask for a ride on the GS line and even more, their attitude is typical of an ordinary professional, simply sell and assist the same way people do on garden-variety products. They lacked that charisma, cleverness and long-term relationship building supposed to be found on every premium brand salesman (do some shopping at Zegna, Armani and H.Stern, for instance) and along the last months, I became skeptical about R1200 GS because of their fourth recall in function of potential failures on electronic components. I couldn’t manage to put USD 15000 on a bike that could leave me to my own luck on the middle of nowhere.

It was a extended lunch time. Before the salesman return from his lunch, I was already trying to fit some bikes, like a seminew Duke, smaller motards and I felt intimidated by 990 adventure and it’s huge size. No mediocrity found. Aeroequip brakes, Brembo calipers and there was even a 990 bike tuned for rally competition with Öhlins forks.

But the one taylor made for me was 990 SMT, a big motard. Here on Brazil this kind of bike contains rare specimens. Some time ago, I headed for Suzuki V-Strom and similar tourers like Triumph Tiger or Ducati Multistrada but here the support those brands is rather poor. And I realized the fact that I will spend more time on road that on the dirty. So, a more dirty-oriented bigtrail would be little value. The time when I was infatuated with BMW I held some prejudice against supermotos and I saw them as a transient fashionism, but logic spoke louder.

I waited patiently around 30 minutes while the KTM two salesmen assisted an interested customer and I held attention on their loud talk and realized the traits that I wanted from the professionals. I started a long talk regarding technical aspects of the supermoto with one of them, not about things on the datasheet easily found on web, but details of scheduled maintenance, spare parts costs, desired ways of usage and I took striking conclusions: for multi-purpose use, ANY V-Twin bike with great displacement is prone to premature damage because of the metropolis traffic’s nature with its constant gear switching and the big one is little pratical to fast maneuvers, even with the added agility provided by the supermoto 17 inch wheel configuration and sporty tires. A smaller single cylinder motard is by far a wiser choice to city commuting.

Anyway, after a long talk I went to a short ride. Fortunately, at the store there was a helmet fitting my size and I killed my curiosity. Taking for granted the 990′s power, I tried it with huge care, aware that it’s capable to accelerate as fast as a Lamborghini. It’s a amicable bike, with marvelous ergonomics and killer brakes (thanks to Brembo) and the 190 kg weight simply disappear with the bike moving. With a little faster acceleration on Pinheiros streets, the vision ahead starts to blur and I coped with reality: 990 is a lot of bike for my little experience. On an open road the bike is worthy the potency, but requiring maturity to deal with the curves. On the city, it’s really an unwise choice, prone to accidents at a minimal attention lapse.

I felt glad that after the ride, the salesman instead of insisting to buy the bike sooner, he acknowledged my lack of experience and suggested at least a year praticing on a smaller motard. Maybe one or two year mileage pratice will bring me the necessary maturity to deal with greater twin engines, thus, avoing me putting me on danger on the next months. This was the kind of advice and treatment that I expected on BMW resellers and I did not find. Maybe even with a 800 cc beemer, this time I would be with some fractures and platinum pieces across my body. At least, one thing I’m sure: after 12 months, my big bike will be a KTM.

Naica Caves, Mexico

Naica Caves, Mexico

Extreme conditions, rewarded with extreme beauty.

More information:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070406-giant-crystals.html

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/crystal-giants/shea-text/1

I can wait for long, I’m good at pushing things to the back of my mind
It would nicer if you come fast and don’t leave me in the lurch here
That’s no plea, that’s no command, simply my love-deep love feeling

I am there and want to hold you, lean on me and fall asleep
Let yourself fall, I am with you, I want to share everything with you
I am there and want to hold you, lean on me and fall asleep
Let yourself fall, I am with you, I want to share everything with you

Emphatize with me and find your way out again
Build yourself beautiful rooms and open my soul
That’s no plea, that’s no command, simply my love-deep love feeling
Simply my love-deep love feeling

I am there and want to hold you, lean on me and fall asleep
Let yourself fall, I am with you, I want to share everything with you
I am there and want to hold you, lean on me and fall asleep
Let yourself fall, I am with you, I want to share everything with you

I can’t do it, no, I don’t want to, no
I don’t want to forgive you
Pains come up and this time I stand it
I won’t let you go anymore, I want to look into your eyes