“At this time with culture wars and everything else, we have to be very sure about our biases and the Socratic method can help peel them away so that we can clearly examine what we feel, what we see and what we know, without all the prejudices and the biases and pride and other human things”
Stephen Fry
The Latin and Greek culture in us (min 17:46)
“without us knowing, it’s sleeping inside our buildings, inside our language, inside our pictures and our history and even our way of thinking, deep inside it is a Greek and a Latin, Roman way of thinking and being that we’re build up on. And it’s an energy inside us that is often unreleased.”
Stephen Fry
Guide for indulging
“One of the things I like about Zoroastrianism is that it’s as big a sin to under indulge, as it is to overindulge. And I think that’s rather pleasing, isn’t it? So for them, someone who says no to everything is as embarrassing and foolish as someone who says, yeah, gimme more of that”.
“Love […] is the wine of our emotions, it is completely unnecessary, and yet, is a magical extra ingredient. And these are the things that absolutely allow us to live rather than exist I suppose”
Escapism In the interview, the reason for reading books, to the point you’re not looking at the street light (before phones started doing that). The tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant/dull/un-motivating realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy
“mental diversion from unpleasant or boring aspects of daily life, typically through activities involving imagination or entertainment”
I think I imagined it as a song, while at a music festival a few years ago, when we begun.
Your fingertips are tracing shivers down my spine, bless your mind.
People are sitting quietly in the sun drifting in the song that has just begun, docile and curious of what they’ll find.
The rays keep on reflecting from the sound bouncing up and down on the ground, We’re jumping leaps, skipping beats and making Mary-go-rounds.
The lesser the space – the friendlier the face in which you accidentally bump: a smile, a hello, a bow and maybe a pirouette because it’s wiser like that. And we all know that’s a fact, ready to pledge our oath – pinky promise and kiss a goat.
This comes as an addition to the previous, older post, my fortune non-cookies – from some time 2013
It’s often important, before you dish someone or something, to be patient to “see how things unfold”, but that doesn’t mean being distant and not caring or continuing your part to the unfolding – it doesn’t mean that you’re not part of/ not affecting the unfolding. Though it’s not necessarily mandatory that you’re part of it, if it came to be said – you probably are.
‘You were just babies in the war-like the ones upstairs! ‘
I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood.
‘But you’re not going to write it that way, are you.’ This wasn’t a question. It was an accusation.
‘I-I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Well, I know,’ she said. ‘You’ll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we’ll have a lot more of them. And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs.’
So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn’t want her babies or anybody else’s babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.
So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise ‘Mary,’ I said, ‘I don’t think this book is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won’t be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
‘I tell you what,’ I said, ‘I’ll call it The Children’s Crusade.’
Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five – The children’s crusade
While here, a couple got carried away and wrote the following (playful) verses (Hemingway did some of those too):
A piña-colada donkey
and an absinthe-minded monkey,
were going up on a banana-ladder,
to exchange a black-piano key with a feather.
But then, the silence woke to the whisper of a ding-dong-bell…
and tranquillised all with the Hakuna-Matata song, this time sung by a bear,
and all sorts of animals joined, dancing in a holly way.
The piano key opened the door and the feather wrote the journey back home,
each encountering a touch of a new world –
recycled from the ashes of past ascendings…
PS. The drinks are swift and the whole place plays along.
PPS. An after-read in one go seems to give a reaction of… oooooK, moving on. So I guess it’s worth mentioning that we were slurping the cocktails and going each one verse at a time so, at the time, we really sunk in each verse for a while as we slowly progressed, infatuated by the Hemingway allure.
Hello world! I’ve been offline for some time. That is, for instance: mail account was “unknown in virtual alias table” and such…
So if anyone tried to get in touch with me via personal mail for a few weeks until now, I did not receive it, sorry, please try to get in touch again.
The site / blog was on and off too. But, it seems that everything is back to normal.
Also, I realise I haven’t been around here (on the blog) for a while, I have to check the content, probably cleanse it of some deprecated stuff. Not sure when it’ll be, but I’m also thinking to maybe come back with more posts on this or that.
So maybe see you around here again sometime, don’t be a stranger.
Here’s a sort of anecdote I keep coming back to, don’t remember if I know it from somewhere – don’t remember a source but my brief relationships with cats – I imagine others have realised this too. Anyway, it just sits here in this obscure spot of mine in the cloud.
It is about how cats are so smart that they figured out how to simplify their lives by simplifying communication to one word only: “meow”. It’s so obvious, only geniuses like cats could come up with it – they don’t have to think about what words they have to use to convey better how they feel – to make sure they’re not being misunderstood or accidentally hurting or offending anyone, they can just focus on how they really feel when they so honestly and humbly tell us: “meooooow”.
When they are sad and just need some attention, they look at you with those big eyes and simply say: “meeow” , when they’re bored and they feel like just laying back – they lick to clean their fur and spread their legs on what ever warmer surface they find and just softly say “meow”, when they are hungry they either come to you looking up at you in confusion – sometimes like you’ve ignored them for a half’a century with an almost loss of self-esteem in their eyes – either waking you up by scratching your face as they say: “meeeow?” ; and so many other times like when they want to play and they come lingering around you, tickling you with their tail as they pass rubbing by your feet and go: “meeow”. Oh the simpler life of being a cat, imagine entire books translated in to cat language, from hundreds or thousands of pages reduced to one easily understood word, “meeow”; moments of difficult arguments when one just can’t find the words to say how sorry they are and that it’s not what they wanted to say – how at that moment they could just look the other in the eye and honestly say: “meow” and hope for a warm embrace and that redemptive reply: “meow”.
PS. As I just saw this, 10th of July – 2020, the video below reminded me of this post and it seems to make the case for it.
I’ve been thinking about this again lately and ended up with this, at different points (same period), so i thought i make a note of it so i don’t forget : )
trying your best has momentary thresholds, it’s actually a very elastic capacity – expanding as you exercise it… you’d be surprised
just try to do your best, you’ll be surprised how far that will take you sometimes
I’d rather have an *honest hurtful truth,
Then build upon a so called pleasing lie.
I need – without exception – to be sincere with you,
Else I just can’t look you in the eye.
*in opposition, dishonest truth is something that is not a lie itself, but is an hesitation – another available truth – distracting from the expected truth, which often is as obvious as that saying: “the elephant in the room”. Of-course perception has a great part in all this on many accounts. To name few: some might wrongly think they’re not being told the truth; some might still not agree and see this only in an utilitarian vs absolute perspective; and some might miss-understand it altogether.
Ps. This does not go against focusing on the “filled part of the glass” .. it just says that it’s not ok to deny the gap in the glass.. we grow and empathize by being aware of it. There’s so much more to say about this.
“Life is much better when you get (all?) the references” – this thought was initially very appealig, and still is, I even still kinda’ agree. But how irrational to have that as an expectation from people or as a basis of report – while you’re always learning too.. Share and let others share too, listen, and speak your mind – enjoy the novelty, enjoy the catharsis.
“Catharsis”
I remembered a moment that happened twice actually.
“why i laughed?” … i laughed because of the irony of the mix of the serenity and the bitterness… in the background “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”… i light another cigarette – it seems culturally like an excuse to pause reality and reflect upon it, or just create a shelter of a separate parallel reality, an exclusive, members-only one, but this shelter can be incentivised by anything else (not necessarily smoking) – you can just step out for a breath of “fresh” air, the stars are still there, or the clouds, or anything really – nothing has monopoly or exclusivity over anything really… equanimity at a step (mind-state) away… deep breath, it doesn’t matter what you inhale, it doesn’t really matter if you use pop or non-pop references or none, it’s all there, though nuance brought by references (history) do flavour it, and it’s soothing, it narrows it, but it’s soothing, even more personal and mindful – sometimes.
– – –
soon after, a woman next to me (on the phone) as i wait for the streetlight: “vă mulțumesc, scuze pentru deranj, la revedere” (“thank you, sorry to have disturbed, until next time”), it’s green.
Sometimes i forget how “making the most of it” can be such a simple yet awesome recipe.
It’s an incentive to look at what’s eclipsed by the things that trouble us. Some of these things are mostly punctual / temporary, some last in longer challenges and may be very exhausting. But there’s more there – and it’s too often eclipsed even by petty little things.
But I know, sometimes it’s not as easy as said.
I don’t have a google+ account… I haven’t googled myself for quite some time, there are more people with this name. That means youtube account with this name is not me either. Anywho.
Dear internet cohabitants,
Please watch this talk about how what we view on the web influences and forms it, and try to click / choose your daily consumption on the internet more responsibly.
Below I added, in my view, some alternatives for a smarter / more intelligent content that can also be entertaining – of course these are some of my personal pickings, the web is full of ignorance as it is of awareness and actual useful information / content.
[ted id=2073]
Here are some alternatives, most also have Facebook pages, twitter accounts and some YouTube channels:
TED talks (and TEDx and other satellites)
Some TEDx videos are more local and thus sometimes difficult to appreciate the filtering of relevancy and degree of subjectiveness / specially in the life experience talks, but even those are perspectives worthy of consideration.
The mothership, the “TED talks” , are much as I’ve seen just brilliant people worthy of your attention and consideration. Really Ideas worth spreading.
“TED is a platform for ideas worth spreading. Started in 1984 as a conference where technology, entertainment and design converged, TED today shares ideas from a broad spectrum — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independent TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world.“
Climate town
Latest addition (2021). One of the most relevant in our climate crisis context. Funny too but informative above that, though sometimes focused on US a lot.
…team of climate communicators, creatives and comedians are here to examine climate change in a way that doesn’t make you want to eat a cyanide pill. Get informed about the climate crisis before the weather does it for you.
“The RSA’s mission is to enrich society through ideas and action.
We believe that all human beings have creative capacities that, when understood and supported, can be mobilised to deliver a 21st century enlightenment.”
You surely know at least one of their RSA animate videos, they have lots.
“The RSA Animate series is an innovative way of sharing world-changing ideas. All audio is taken from the RSA’s free events programme, and all animations are created by Cognitive Media.”
New Scientist is a world leading science and technology brand, covering the big ideas and developments from all areas of science and technology through a respected and influential weekly magazine and widely read website. Offering the latest news, ideas and opinions, New Scientist is an authoritative voice on all matters related to science, technology and the ideas improving our knowledge of the universe and those shaping our world and lives.
The School of Life
We don’t have to keep making the same mistakes. Only one note about the views here: sometimes it presents only one view – while that one view is worth considering most of the times, sometimes it’s presented like ‘this is how the world really is’ or how people really are or how it would be best or such. In my view they sometimes forget to specify that it is so for “some” people, or it is that way “sometimes” – or even “most of the times”; that in some cases maybe “something else” all together that they didn’t mention. Mostly the missing fallibility of it, the diverse positive views as well as as the diverse negative ones. Too sure on themselves would be ok, but they’re not like Carl Sagan or Richard Feynman to really reach that unbiased view… at times I disagree with The School of Life’s views, so I guess we’re all cherry-picking. Still, this brings a very rich and well grown garden to pick from.
The School of Life is a place that tries to answer the great questions of life with the help of culture. It’s based here online and in 10 physical hubs around the world, including London, Melbourne, Istanbul and Seoul.
Brain Pickings
See the About page for info. Briefly:
“[…] a subjective lens on what matters in the world and why. Mostly, it’s a record of my own becoming as a person — intellectually, creatively, spiritually — and an inquiry into how to live and what it means to lead a good life.
Founded in 2006 as a weekly email that went out to seven friends and eventually brought online, the site was included in the Library of Congress permanent web archive in 2012.”
They are also making the Crash Course YouTube channel and others, relevant education and just information has never been so accessible much as i see it.
https://youtu.be/hIowxzmCDpw
[Ve]ritasium – YouTube channel
“Veritasium is a science video blog featuring experiments, expert interviews, cool demos, and discussions with the public about everything science.”
“Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users.” (wikipedia descriotion)
This is awesome, you can find answers to any questions from people who had direct experience with what ever you want to know, the most relevant answers are voted up so you’ll know which ones are really worth reading. Want to know what is it like to survive, to fail, to face any kind of challenge, how something works, or validate an hypothesis, or anything really – among the users are scientists, journalists, writers, philosophers, doctors, government folks, experts from any domain really – from all over the world; it’s a virtual Agora and you can set your interest and get an e-mail with what interesting questions had been asked / answered previous week, you can ask your own questions, follow any question, it’s simply brilliant and an unlimited source of insightfulness from the consciousness of the world : )
Sometimes i find more very intriguing perspectives at the time, it’s the world as it should be.
“I’m Emily, the Chief Curiosity Correspondent of The Field Museum in Chicago, former volunteer of the University of Montana Zoological Museum, and I’d like to share some of the amazing things we have in the collection with the Internet!”
Shots of Awe – YouTube chanel
A more experimental and subjective perspective but mostly inspiring and enthusiastic views:
“Ever ponder the miracle of life? Or perhaps wonder about the evolution of intelligence? In Shots of Awe, “Performance Philosopher” Jason Silva chases his inspiration addiction as he explores these topics and more.”
Big Think
They have a YouTube Chanel with many scientists and professors / “experts” invited, some subjective perspectives of philosophers too – but perspectives worth considering. Little 2021 update – I watch them way less, though they’re still as relevant but, feels less holistic and at least some content can create a bubble effect.
About page excerpt:
“In our digital age, we’re drowning in information. The web offers us infinite data points—news stories, tweets, wikis, status updates, etc—but very little to connect the dots or illuminate the larger patterns linking them together. Here at Big Think, we believe that success in the future is about knowing the ideas that allow you to manage and master this universe of information. Therefore, we aim to help you move above and beyond random information, toward real knowledge, offering big ideas from fields outside your own that you can apply toward the questions and challenges in your own life.
Every idea on Big Think comes from our ever-growing network of 2,000 Big Think fellows and guest speakers, who comprise the top thinkers and doers from around the globe.”
Vox
Vox is a more recent update to this post (2017). Initially I related to their content most often, for their orientation towards critical thinking and the effort to align general public view with modern scientific views – so to say: to put things in context. But lately I find their focus on news can create a sided perspective – it’s good but can create the sensation of being in a sided bubble. The non news content is still there and awesome.
Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission is simple: Explain the news. Politics, public policy, world affairs, pop culture, science, business, …
Of-course, there are more, but these are most frequent for me it seems.
Also, in romanian, there’s Iv Cel Naiv, bringing you romanticised / serene views of life in verse. And the even more brilliant part is that the replies are also in verse as it becomes a place for thinking and seeing the world trough a serene – verses-build lens. I’m sure there are such places in English and other languages too, if not – then it means that there’s room for new beginnings.
Initially, when I wrote it, I titled it “We the haunted”, but then after a month realised it sets a stigmata where it doesn’t really belong. And I chose to title it instead for the positive incentive that it deserves.
I’ll leave this shipwreck and join the others,
tiredly as they swim for the shore
to this distant island which we’re pretty sure that is not a mirage.
but we know
that once we get there,
if we make it,
we’ll have to build a new ship and find a new home.
so i jump, off this wreck that, although it keeps me afloat,
will not move anywhere,
and I’m tired already and weak – without nourish,
and have no esteem left as a paddle to push all that weight around.
as I leave the cold wood and hit the freezing water
my chest instantly feels like a stone of ice.
i try to adapt and struggle to keep breathing…
a-last, distracted from everything else all-round,
i start to push the water away from the island.
gradually, i get the hang of it.
i see it, it’s there, i can do this!
finally, confident enough that the island will not disappear,
i turn my head around.
others from other shipwrecks are swimming near by in the same direction.
the warm feeling of a hello makes all the cold feel like a tinkle,
“it’s not just me anymore” i tell myself
and continue pushing the water beneath me away from the island.
we look back at our separate shipwrecks as we swim…
all the familiarity that we had there, that we projected…
the lingering time spend customising reality or illusions…
I’ve disabled my Facebook account a few times by now. And each time I came back, eventually, I got back to re-posting some things that I thought/think are perspectives worth sharing. We seem to share or even re-share things that have some influence on us. This brought me to the realisation of how important it is to ponder on who influenced you, who’s been your so to say, role models. And out of a wide list here are the ones that are worldwide accessible and with the lesser subjectivity embedment.
My favourite: Carl Sagan – bringing about our context in Cosmos, how we’re all made of star-stuff – “a way of the cosmos to know itself” and giving us the Baloney detection kit. Then the bunch of them: Alexander Humboldt, showing us what exploration really is and teaching us that you cannot understand the world from one perspective / through one language – you need to explore multiple perspectives and more then one or two languages; Steve Jobs about how life is not a set of walls which imposes us what to do – and try not to bump into them and that we can change / improve it because there are some pretty messed-up things in the world; Simon Sinek incentivising to focus on the reason we’re doing anything – focusing on the why and becoming aware of what motivates ourselves and those that we work with; there’s Gandhi setting himself as example for non-violence and encouraging us to be the change we want to see in the world – he made me realize a true measure of happiness and genuine-self in the alignment of what one says – thinks and does, there’s Einstein that forever enhances the disinfecting light in our views reminding us how everything is relative – advising the regard for Truth above all no matter if it concerns big or small issues – making it further more easy to realise the more perspectives not just conceptually – imaginary – philosophically but physically – scientifically; there’s also Socrates and Plato which, spite of some deprecated points of view which held us back for quite some time – they also helped us advance until one point – the story of the cave still helps us understand ignorance and ignorant behaviour which unfortunately will always be around; there’s Albert Ellis bringing about how we should realise that things are not necessarily bad but it’s often us that interpret it that way – suggesting, besides that it just might be us that over-blow the interpretation of a situation, to also regard how we react and affect the situation – to become aware of our own cognitive behaviour and of potential irrationality it may be field by; there’s Brené Brown which reminds us of empathy and tells of the importance of embracing vulnerability and of the trials that shame can bring and the armour that we tend to build because of it and how that can make us resort to sympathy rather then empathy and how different these two notions can be; there’s the Buddha which we find in a sutta describing “the middle way as a path of moderation, between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification, this, according to him, was the path of wisdom” suggesting to use this mindset onwards in the eightfold-path towards equanimity and an unbiassed – up-straight and mindful appreciation and relation with everything; there’s David Attenborough that made me feel like I visited and discovered the wondrous and divers nature around the world by strolling alongside him through the jungles and the lands and through the deeps of the waters – seeing how it all exists, some of it stopped existing, how it became and evolved and also how we affect it; there’s Jesus which, although I do not know if he really resurrected or what really is his say or act from the “testaments” as all is written much later by others and it seems it’s a moderated collection – I do believe he lived – and so the incentive of being humble and to not blame before you don’t realize your own blame and do upon others as you’d want them to do upon you – these are wise reminders which I will try to respect as much as I can; there’s Charles Darwin who so patiently brought us the evidence of our evolution and the foundation to which science added so many of the puzzles of how we came to be; there’s also Richard Feynman who reminds us of the beauty that science enhances about the world and not subtracts it and that it’s ok that we don’t know everything yet – that we’ll learn the Truth by being opened in discovering nature and the universe as it is and not by expecting it to be in a certain way or another – that there’s no reason to be afraid of not having a purpose given in the universe; and so many more in different fields like Ellen Lupton reminding of the importance of Typography and realising the rules and braking them in need “from a perspective of knowledge and not ignorance”; Don Tapscott highlights the incentive of collaboration – sharing and transparency in this current era of communication which he so wonderfully encourages us to work together like the birds do in their murmuration phenomenon – calling it the murmuration era; and the piece of resitance: John Lennon who reminds me that I’m not the only dreamer and that it stops being a dream once it’s a shared purpose – so “I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will live as one”; and the list goes on: Charlie Chaplin, Ann Druyan, James Randy, Alan Watts, Sebastião Salgado, Jack Conte, Michio Kaku and more subjective influences like writers / artists and such.
These are people that had done, said or written things that had an influence upon me, that made me consider new points of view or changed existing points of view from the foundation of my belief system.
!Disclaimer Obviously all these people did / said / wrote more then I so briefly mentioned above, I just tried to set a sample of the awesome perspectives they borough and the magic i found in them.
For some there are aspects that belong to them directly or as association, not specified here – but important aspects that I do not subscribe to. For instance Steve Jobs also had his douchebag moments, I don’t appreciate some Apple policies about service for instance, and in general the technology industry how it uses natural and human resources and how it manages (or doesn’t manage) its waste on their production side or on the user side, and others. Still, all these, including Mr. Jobs, are as mentioned worth considering in a very intimate level.
I’ll try to add a sample in video for some of them below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX25PDBb708
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nIomJWLdCc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tijxMHhuwGQ
PS. Here are some more notions that are part of my core way of understanding and relating to the world:
we assume about others then ourselves so much… we assume context, we assume motivations, intentions, personalities, potential / limitations, perspectives, experience, beliefs, importance of a thing or another, self esteem, taste or interest in a thing or another… often due to impressions of a moment or impressions in exceptional situations that were probably not obvious.
One of the things that really stuck to me after the Mary Poppins 1964 movie was “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” , as I’m often socially anxious or better put quite awkward, and the existence of a word that could help me in such situations, with the serene attitude that this word brings – being so “atrocious” as it is : ) seems like a dreamy redemption for me and this incapacity of mine. Truth be told, the one time I should remember to say this word in that kind of circumstance I forget it too, I forget everything, what time it is, what I wanted to say, what happened a minute ago or why I was doing what ever I was doing… teenage dirt-bag crushes can be that way I suppose. You just seem to freeze and not be able so say anything, still can’t quite explain how, why that goes that way. And it seams to me that what creates this kind of reactions is quite rare… and just might be a such a pity that such things are lost quite because you could not say anything… it almost seems unfair… but I suppose it makes sense… i guess…
It’s a moment like that I’d like to turn back the time to and have remembered and said: “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” … perhaps as a gesture that reminds me and makes me now realise and understand even better a verse in one of my own poem attempts:
[…]”Black comes tending to take over
Above all white it starts to make a shadow
That scares my little angel at this hour
Feeling so alone and whit out power
To stab the evil in his heart he’s sent an arrow
With his last breath to save me from upon my shoulder.”
But I hadn’t read the book. So, like with many things in life I imagine, there was a bigger perspective to know and to understand. There’s no supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in the book. Here’s the author P.L. Travers in an interview talking briefly about Mary Poppins, the Hollywood – Walt Disney movie:
-“It’s still being shown all over the world.” P.L.Travers “Yes, So they tell me. I’ve seen it once or twice and I’ve learned to live with it. It’s glamorous and it’s a good film on it’s own, but I don’t think it’s very like my books.”
P.L.Travers about the character Mary Poppins:
“She comes out of a world that is timeless I think and… perhaps that’s all one can say about her.”
The presenter of “The secret Life of Mary Poppins” – BBC documentary, at the end of the documentary, apparently filmed right after she had supposedly seen Walt Disney’s “Saving Mr. Banks” movie:
“Well, they’ve done it again, they’ve done it to her again. They’ve tied it all up, they’ve smoothed off the rough edges, they’ve given it a happy ending, they’ve given it structure and redemption… they’ve completely cleaned-up the messy story of Camillus, he simply doesn’t appear.
But here’s the thing, it really um… it really gets you, that’s what’s ridiculous, that it’s incredibly moving, the way that they sorted everything out and they give everything redemption… is very powerful… and it knows it’s doing it, that’s what’s infuriating, it knows it’s doing it, there’s a moment just near the end where Walt Disney says: “That’s what story-tellers do, they restore order with imagination”.
Life is messy, difficult, dark and complex. Feuds can be made up, but never completely solved. Books can try to reflect this sadness and lack of resolution, as P.L. Travers books did, even for children. But Hollywood films take a different approach.
In a way it’s like Hollywood itself is a Mary Poppins or an aunt Ellie, it’s tiding up the nursery, it’s finding a way trough the chaos. We want to believe as much now as we did in 1964 that redemption is possible, and that is both the lie and the miracle of Hollywood films, that it can all be neat and tidy at the end. At some deep human level, it’s that order we crave.”
I find that documentary ending brilliant. Just one thing about it. I’m not pleading for hollywood movies as I think they can be very diverse in that perspective and in all perspectives actually, but we CAN make the most of our lives and feuds, we can bring redemption and there are hollywood movies that show that truth in my view, that yes it’s going to leave scars, it won’t be all cleaned up – but we can clean up what we can, accept what cannot be changed (at least in this moment) and make the best of what we have. Hardship happens and will happen, mistakes will challenge us – be them made by our selves or by others – but not just that we can learn an grow from those mistakes, but if we only look at our own mistakes we might just realise we’re not so different after all. As diverse and dynamic as we are, we do have common desires and needs at “a deeper human level”, it’s the choices or risks that maybe we hadn’t been so courageous to take, the mistakes that in our case someone was there to tell us that it’s wrong and most specially why it is wrong, the perspectives that we had the influence to find and look upon in books, the crossroad that we might have taken with a compromise wondering now and then “would I have been any different then that” if something in my life wouldn’t have set me on this other path I am now? Was that thing that set me on my path something I had build trough my life? or was it a moment of chance? as if a stranger walking by had whispered as he/she had just passed: “take the left, you’ll be better off!”.
PS. Of-course by the time I wrote this I had bought the book and started reading it. I loved it even more.
Content of this post started from this picture which came about just as I was wondering if I should get back to facebook or not, or not just yet…
Just one late addition: i just found the image funny, please don’t assume if I’m identifying with that or not, if I believe in karma or not or fate or not, destiny, what ever else. You’d be just assuming whatever you’d be assuming and this is just not the time to go into that.
Not sure which one is more jail-like (with or without Facebook).
Seems a bit more isolated without facebook, but then with Facebook it seems a bit more isolated in an virtual ego.
The past will be known as pre-facebook era and we are living in the facebook-era and the post-facebook era is what the mayans are foreseeing as the end of the world (again)… as they have reached the edge of their round stone.
Those who will not adapt will parish, their genes will be forgotten.
That’s ok, some are part of another species that will also survive, the googleolians.
Although their future is uncertain in the facebook era, their karmasutra is also strong.
Now, now, there will always also be the twitterites but they tent to stay close to one of the protecting clans of facebookolials or googleolians.
Other such species like linkedinonites and flickronites are starting to display similar adaptive behaviour.
While other, smaller ones like intstagramalites have been swallowed whole by the facebookolians which went “mnom, mnom”.
There are still very few, what they call, free spirits – that live by the forest and have no knowledge of the changes that came upon their brothers and sisters which to whom they seem very peculiar indeed, as for them the lingering rain and muddy lands are just as pleasant as the last sun-rays that slowly disappear from blue to red, dazzling trough the tree branches and beneath the mountain line before the stars start to light the horizon brighter and brighter.
I’m facing a mighty threshold in my life… i don’t know what lays behind it, i know what i wish there could be but I’ve made it so that it now seems I’m gambling in a game I cannot win… somehow I feel like I’m in a chess-mate and I should surrender and leave the board, but although i feel helpless, unable to do anything, i don’t want to leave, i never wanted to leave. I’d rather hug all the board pieces and together start dancing around the fire that we’d make with their weapons. I know… it sounds “queer”…
It may all be in my head, or it may make sense actually… i don’t know anything anymore, then again it feels like maybe I never really knew anything.
There are no rules, this particular threshold I’m not really suppose to pass on my own, it’s existence may very well imply this actually. Perhaps a bit paradoxically, or ironic, not having to pass it on my own is not up to me (not just up to me), so for now it seams that it’s up to me to pass this threshold on my own (although this might render things so that I haven’t really passed any threshold but just got back to where I was, or maybe not). And I do want to pass it, pass and explore the realms beyond it.
When you realise that meaning is there only because we put it there, you realize how much you actually control it, you can bend it as you realize that it doesn’t exist really, it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t have to exist, it doesn’t have to please anyone, not me, nor you, nor anyone in particular. It exists because we needed it to make some sense of things, of our selfs, the world around us and of our existence in it.
It did help us a lot, took us a long way and we haven’t finished our journey; with science we’ve found a way to filter the foolish and destructive from the rational and the productive – the creative, the good from the bad… more notions we invented to make things more understandable and livable in the context of our limitation to relate to anything only by giving meaning. Also, of-course with science we’ve realized about how (much of) the world and cosmos works, what everything is made of… knowledge that is always added to, improved and corrected where necessary, knowledge which is what took us so far after all. And that’s good.
But it’s also important to realize the unreal-ness of the meanings we sometimes hold so keenly to, specially when, sometimes it can get overwhelming, out of control. Nothing needs meaning in order to exist, not animals, not plants, lands, waters, planets and suns, galaxies or the Universe. It’s brilliant I think how star stuff transforms into meaning, a construct of our restless, pondering minds, a beautiful and ugly at the same time work of our intellect.
Here’s a “cheers” to meaning and the ability to understand it, project it and let go of it at the same time.
PS. Sort of separate note. Some have, some have a lot, some have too much, some have a little, some barely have any, some don’t have at all (what ever is important for anyone, for any ones existence). But there’s another brilliant notion which actually is rather a behaviour which I think other animals have relealized too, that is SHARING. We can balance anything by realising and starting to do this… knowledge, wisdom, love, understanding, time, protection, money, food, ideas, solutions, lessons learned the hard or the easy way.
“You might say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one”. It’s not a dream. It’s up to each of us, an option between which reality we each choose to live in.
Vorbind cu câțiva studenți, ne-participanți la proteste, mi s-a creat impresia că – pentru ei – protestul nu prea are sens sau nu îi privește.
Iată de ce le-aș spune, fără intenții de ultra-evanghelist, totuși de ce are defapt foarte mult sens și motivele mele pentru care cred că acesta privește pe toată lumea, toate generațiile, profesiile.
N-am să mai intru în detaliile proiectului sau protestului chiar, doar motivația mea personală.
Iată un fel de crez pornit de la și amestecat cu un citat:
Împreună putem să ne informăm, să cuprindem mai multe perspective, să ne dăm seama că lumea nu e formată din “niște ziduri și noi suntem acolo doar să trăim – să încercăm să nu ne izbim de ele, să mergem la școală, luăm un job, facem o familie, plătim taxele, vedem lumea și ne distrăm – noi putem să avem un afect asupa lumii, să o schimbăm, să o influențăm – pentru că sunt unele chestii chiar nasoale în lumea asta care chiar au nevoie de îmbunătățiri” (citat tradus în mare).
Lumea e în stradă pentru că e conștientă că astfel de realitate: în care conducerea reprezintă binele și voia poporul, valorie morale și culturale ale acestuia, în care poporul are ceva de spus – poate să spună într-un glas NU; realitatea aceastei posibilități (foarte firească de altfel) este pusă în pericol (sau poate n-a existat niciodată și ne dăm seama că defapt nu mai putem ignora asta).
Suntem în stradă pentru că știm că defapt nu vrem ca deciziile ce ne afectează direct să fie luate împotriva acelor valori – susținute de elita intelectuală de asemenea (Academia Română) și exprimate din nou și din nou, și impotriva voinței noastre comune manifestată din nou și din nou.
Ne-protestând, sau acceptând acea lege, acceptând un târg din care avem mai mult de pierdut din punct de vedere al valorificării resurselor, acceptând hazardul folosirii cianurii (și nu sunt foarte încântat nici de ‘fracking’), acceptând otravă și pustiu în loc de munți (de aceea lumea scandează “vrem natură, nu cianură”), acceptând pierderea minelor romane (deoarece s-a manifestat scepticismul asupra prezervării acestora), dar mai ales acceptând ca așa ceva să fie permis să se repete și altă dată fără ca măcar atunci să mă pot răzgândi – fără să pot să zic ceva, permițând ca o companie (nici măcar statul – de aceea lumea scandează “nu corporația face legislația”) să gonească oamenii din case “pentru interes național” … ne-manifestarea dezacordului implică acceptarea pasivă și permite acțiunea și desăvârșirea acestora. Implică resemnarea și acceptarea că viața e defapt formată din niște ziduri în care noi suntem obligați să trăim – încercând să nu ne izbim în ele și lăsând pe alții să ia decizii care ne afectează – nu doar fără să zicem nimic ci chiar fără să mai avem dreptul să zicem ceva (de aceea lumea scandează că “nu suntem o nație de sclavi”).
Într-adevăr, niște bani în plus ne-ar prinde bine, cui nu, însă cred că ne pasă totuși ce dăm în schimb, și e mult, e prea mult, și nu doar pentru prea puțin în schimb, dar nu merită dat ce dăm și nu merită pierdut ce pierdem – nici un preț, de aceea lumea cântă “lăsați aurul în munți – le șade bine așa”. Prefer această comuniune om natură în loc la stricarea naturii prin extirpare – otrăvirea ei și a oamenilor, scoaterea lor din casă și permisia ca acesta să se repete – în schimb la o pâine mai ieftină, o pâine amară posibil otrăvită. Nu, mulțumesc.
There are some people trough-out life that make some experiences exceptional and thus set high standards for further similar experiences. Something else that feels less is just not the same… It’s not the same.
Don’t get me wrong. This does not mean that same great feeling or even better are not possible anymore.
It’s just that, it seems you tend to have less patience with something that is especially conspicuously less. It’s a shame in a way because most that is less usually tends to become more but apparently people seem to prefer to continue from somewhere about where they left off and I don’t know if that’s very realistic, at least in some things or cases.
So for a year now i keep getting back to my post high-school paradox:
in order to [A] i have to [B],
in order to [B] apparently (very strikingly) i need to [A]
I feel like going into one of those pubs like in the movies and order shots and start talking to the barman out of the blue and spill out all my shit. He’ll probably try to get away as I’ll also get less coherent and repeat my self, but I’d probably go: “get back here I’m not done yet”. By the time I’ll be done he’d wish he never took the job or ever set foot in that place.
And would have a grand finally with a puke all over the bar. Yeah! And then yell: aaw, fuck you all, and try to do a funky dance although the music is in no such beat and trip and wipe half the vomit off the bar on my way down. That would do i think.
