Prayer

I am stopping everything, right now, no matter how late I am or how much I will fail on many things today. And today is a big day.

I want to send a prayer into the ether, for Michelle, to add to all the other prayers send her way to aid her, over the next couple of hours. I am compressing every bit of good intention, every single watt of my own energy to complement hers, that can't be matched because she, is one of the most powerful humans I have ever met. I know very few people that can empower the other so much, and add so much sense and meaning to the mundane.

I want to lunch with you again soon, Michelle, in the corner Chinese joint and laugh over fortune cookie commentaries, so hang on in there. You are such an inspiration and I have learned so much from you.

Patience

忍 (ren) is a Chinese character that means 'patience' ‘tolerance’, ‘endurance’, or even ‘ perseverance’. It is a compound consisting of a heart / mind (心) and a blade / knife (刃). It is a highly regarded virtue in that part of the world – one is only capable of growth, or 'greatness', if passing the test of endurance – and withstanding the pain from the cut.

Senses of Self

William James, Henry James’ brother, and a pioneer American psychologist, teaches us about two basic personality types in his classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience: the once –born vs. twice-born. For the once-borns, adjustments to life are straightforward and their lives are a smooth flow since birth. Twice-borns, however, struggle to attain a sense of meaning and refuse to take things for granted. These personalities have distinctly different world-views. For a once-born, the sense of self is derived from a feeling of being at home with one’s environment. For a twice-born, the sense of self derives from a feeling of profound separateness.

That sense of belonging or separateness has a practical significance for both. The once-borns are conservators and regulators of the existing order. The twice-borns never belong to that order. Their sense of who they are does not depend on roles or social indicators of identity. They are driven by a need to profoundly alter human, economic and political relationships.

Voices

There are two voices I love. Both created a frame of reference in public and private broadcast of voices out there. One I listen to often - Stephen Fry's. Pocoyo. Cheshire Cat. Spoken and written ( till he retrieved to work on his book - less frequent now).

The other voice I miss.

Both have something in common - to quote SF, ' ...there is that thing. That thing'.

Cont.

Music

'What (will happen) if we forget all the words (in a language)?'
'Perhaps we could talk another language?'
'And what if we forget all the words in all the languages?'
'We could use sign language?'
'No I mean ANY language with sounds or without sounds.'
'Don't know. We could stop talking for a while till we figure something out.'
'No, silly goose. You forgot about music.'

This is the most recent conversation with my very own Alice. She is the one asking the question. She never read Claude Levi-Strauss, my little Alice. The father of modern anthropology died at the age of 100 just a couple of months ago. I am in debt to him as he helped shape my own mature relationship to music.

Mastering music does not mean understanding music. Understanding music is impossible from within. I only learned that after having left it.

“Since music is a language with some meaning at least for the immense majority of mankind, although only a tiny minority of people are capable of formulating a meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man, a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress.” Claude Levi-Strauss

The Book Shelf Question

'What is the use of a book, without pictures or conversations?' (Alice)

I heard the 'bookshelf' question the other day during a totally random encounter. 'What do you have on your bookshelf?'. I was thrilled - it's been a while. That used to be my question and the last time I asked was at least two years ago. The only reason I asked at the time was because with all my goodwill and mental capacity I couldn't have guessed what that colorful person could possibly keep on his bookshelf.

I vividly remember that particular conversation - he was swearing by 'Plato not Prozac' by Lou Marinoff. A smooth read, easily digested - a cheerleading version of entire human philosophy for a medicated nation as a possible alternative to common life problems, quite the off-the-shelf category quite typical for this environment. I swallowed it without chewing at the time, most was familiar, it was pleasing, with a 'let's all be holistic' touch, and I was somewhat dismissive. Went for it the other day with a less critical eye and thought: how can any anthology of human thought do justice to contemporary heritage when there is such a fusion of categories and disciplines? It is almost as if there is a glitch somewhere around the mid 20th century and each anthology gets tired as a hotchpotch of interdisciplinary thoughts starts blending and we see disappearance of categories which makes the filing rather difficult ( or a creation of a new, mega category?) I thought of it in the context of an intellectual exchange I had over the past few days on borders and boundaries, in a philosophical context - are they lines of separation, or lines of contact? Are they enduring or redundant? it is one of the most complex and dynamic academic debates of today and truly exciting. And I wanted to do some justice to living brains that are often neglected, and don't make into anthologies from various reasons.

Giorgio Agamben , Italian philosopher, introduced just recently the concept of 'homo sacer' - a sacred / accursed man, an inspiration driven from the ancient Roman law. A somewhat paradoxical idea of an individual who 'exists in the law as an exile'. 'it is only because of the law that society can recognize the individual as homo sacer, and so the law that mandates the exclusion is also what gives the individual an identity.' I found that truly inspiring if taken out of his political context ( he is a Zeitgeist/matrix kinda guy, post Sept 11 /Patriot Act / Guantanamo critic), a very fresh approach to old philosophical discussions on nature / levels of reality, 'bare' vs 'political life - levels of identity and acceptance... necessity of acknowledging and juggling the parallel dimensions we all live.

Visualizing my own bookshelf has always been a challenge! I am not orderly, and there has been so many different book shelfs. Most books are in boxes...and I have zero visual skills!

With eyes closed I currently see multiple books from the following authors in a front row which are pretty constant over the years:
Wilber ( and more Wilber), Jung, HHDL, Rumi, Gladwell, Zukav, Bach, Aristotle, Kolakowski and Chomsky. I need to draw a line!

A close friend said: you are not making any sense and can't possibly be for real with all these contrasts...perhaps a choice of literature that remains a fixture in the front row of any shelf best reflects just that.

'Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!'

"A panoramic mind with no cultural encumbrance." A beautiful soup for the evening. :)

Cont.

Timeless time

'Uncertainty principle has nothing to do with whether God plays dice or not'. Words sadly not my own by Einstein's, on the probability principle.

'This is impossible.' (Alice)
'Only if you believe it is.' ( The Mad Hatter)

In mid / late 20th century the quantum mechanics prompted scientists to re-visit familiar notions of science. The quantum physics world - the laws governing the invisible, the very small and very fast - defy common sense and challenge our minds to the limit. I am certainly not pretending to understand it ( but do thank Kenneth Ford for making it a little easier). I was immersed in 'conventional' physics once and that certainly impaired me.

So I learned that the rules of certainty and probability change when we go down to the invisible level; solid matters are empty space; time is relative; mass is gained or lost in a collision; and no matter how complete the input information, the outcome is uncertain and some experiments are completely unpredictable.

The world beyond the range of our senses behaves in weird and wonderful ways. Can we apply any of that within our vulnerable human world, to see the invisible that circulates in our lives and understand the webs that bind us? To find out why we gravitate towards some sources...and not the others.

Gluon is the subatomic glue particle. It takes much less than a billionth of a billionth of a second between its creation and annihilation. For a particle, a billionth of a second is an eternity.

Neutron has an average lifetime of 15 minuts and it is a Methuselah of the particle world.

It is impossible to even start comprehending the distance between the subatomic and the cosmological time frontier - which is estimated at 13,7 bilion years, or the lifetime of a universe.

If we knew how precious and fragile the invisible is, would we still take it for granted? And how different are our notions of time from that one of a particle? Because, there is a distinct human condition where the frontier disappears and a eternity can happen in a split of second... and time becomes truly timeless.

That's the reason they're called lessons

'And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' (Alice)
'Ten hours the first day, nine the next, and so on.' (The Mock Turtle)
'What a curious plan!' (Alice)
'That's the reason they're called lessons, because they lessen from day to day.' (The Gryphon)

Believing in karma and the boomerang effect is without a doubt a matter of a very private personal choice. Paying attention in the present (progressive) tense and putting the dots together is however a matter of curiosity, coupled with insight.

Once the karmic effect is acknowledged the question remains: how does it actually work - is it quid pro quo? Do we 'get' exactly what we 'earned'? Or is there is a karmic interest rate calculated in a somewhat random fashion... and we often end up paying off much more, or much less than what we thought we had accumulated?

Predictably Irrational

' It's a poor sort of memory that works only backwards ' (the Queen).

My head is now officially the size of the Red Queen's but I just had a thought as I re-read a a piece from a classic book by behavioral economist Dan Ariely who I had a pleasure of hearing live just recently. In his book, Predictably Irrational, he reminds us on predictably irrational motives that drive our decisions.... He takes it from an individual to a macro economic level to challenge the supply & demand theory as a whole... using the very idea of anchoring that I was first introduced to - or re-introduced to via NLP. (Essentially, NLPists believe that any successful behavioral / comms pattern can be replicated and taught; the tactics of anchoring positive experiences is crucial in the process).

Ariely claims that what we do at a micro level - and what possibly drives economy as a whole at a macro level - is 'irrational pricing'... by attaching arbitrary values to objects of our desires based on the previously anchored experiences, and that affects how we perceive values in general, relative to the original anchor!

So how does that wonderful randomness, anchor pricing and arbitrary coherence affect the inter-personal stuff? How do we appoint values to objects of our desire? I always loved the Greek word axiā - value, or worth (how I wish I were able to actually write it in Greek!). There is a whole branch of contemporary axiology trying to attach precise mathematical value - to value. Is it objective, subjective, constant, temporary, intrinsic...or totally random and wonderfully - yet predictably - irrational?

And if the relationship between supply and demand is, after all, based on memory and not actual preferences (!) - do we all need to stick to the anchors or be re-programmed, and if yes, which of the many available options would actually do the trick?

(and on that Carrie Bradshaw note I will drift off)

Blog as a time capsule

`Let the jury consider their verdict.' (the King )
`No, no! Sentence first--verdict afterwards.' (the Queen)
`Stuff and nonsense!' (Alice)
`Hold your tongue!' (the Queen)
`I won't!' (Alice)
`Off with her head!' (the Queen, at the top of her voice. Nobody moved. )
`Who cares for you?' (Alice). You are nothing but a pack of cards!'

I talked to a friend about all the possible reasons people pour thoughts (dreams, fears, desires, and observations) into the blogosphere. The friend does not know about this... petit coin de quelquechose of mine. We tried to map some people and place them on the spectrum between a complete ego trip ( goes with telling the world, and reminding the world to read) to the other end of the scale – not telling a living soul, to protect the private buzz from just firing thoughts into the ether and not knowing where they’d end, and how they’d criss-cross with the myriad of other thoughts bypassing each other.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have the most private sanctuary of thoughts in the blogosphere as a time capsule, to be opened at a date not yet known in time and at an occasion yet to occur? A gift to someone we’d really like to understand us?

The ' muchness' line

I was utterly amused by endless discussion threads that mushroomed following Tim’s Burton most recent take on Alice. There is a hotchpotch of it out there and I particularly like the soccer Mom, the feminist and the Lutheran interpretations, to name a few. The over-the-counter motivational lines on ‘why finding/re-gaining muchness matters’ and ‘why the best ones are mad’ are terrific!

Indeed there were also some actually intelligent thoughts on ‘blurring the fine line between (so uniquely) Carroll’s intellectual nonsense and true madness’, induced with a much exploited father-daughter interaction at the outset, and the famous: ‘You're mad, bonkers, off your head ‘ line.

Just a few months before I had a pleasure of meeting Burton’s Alice I distinctly remember referring to one of my own intense experiences as belonging to two opposite, yet not mutually exclusive levels of experience – non-sense and sense-free. Thank you, Burton, for introducing the mad line regardless of all the possible abuse and misinterpretation, and for reminding me on the difference between the two.

It dawned on me that throughout the journey Alice actually bounces on that very edge between the non-sense and sense-free, till she finds herself on the other side of both. The same experience I just mentioned was described by the other side as ‘on the edge of…don’t-know-what’. And that precisely is what Alice reminded me of: the edge of reason, sense, self and reality, the divider and the connector is actually the possibility line – and the best place to be.

The amount of symbolism condensed in Alice’s interactions with the Mad Hatter is mind -boggling for anyone who hasn’t joined Alice’s Facebook fun club 3 months ago. The Platonic thread of questions on nature of reality ( ‘ I am real as much as you want me to be’ and ‘ THIS is real as much as you want it to be’), and importantly – the notion of muchness. Disappointed with her laissiez-faire approach to the state of affairs in the Wonderland, the Mad Hatter introduces the famous "You were much more muchier (then)...You've lost your muchness" line. And as soon as I heard it, I smiled to myself, and to my companions on each side that were far too busy trying to salvage whatever was left of the melted ice-cream smuggled into the theater, and I though: I can’t wait to read the blogs! And can’t wait to see the numerous interpretations of the tagline, the sound bites, the ‘ finding yourself’ discussion with a new age and especially the feminist twist – how convenient it was to have a corseted Victorian society as a backdrop to the whole thing!

But that exactly is – not – the point in my view. Loosing muchness is not about ‘ loosing the true self’ or whatever loosey goosey umbrella term was coined. 'Muchness' has very little to do with the 'true self' - it is simply about curiosity, and about what we do with it: neglect, smoother, or embrace it. And that brings me back to the fortune cookie commentary on curiosity being the greatest divider of people –as well as the greatest tissue. Which is precisely why Alice can’t appeal to everyone, or even to most, nor could she ever be a symbol of universal human pursuit of ‘self’. If it wasn’t for her actionable curiosity she would have never landed amongst the random and the bizarre dynamics of the wonderwild! You must be able to notice the white rabbit first, and that precisely is the point.

The Companions - Part 1

This post is dedicated to a somewhat random choice of companions that truly touched me along the way with something unique they all have, in no particular order. A dialogue between just a handful of people most of which never met each other but are linked through the web of my life. Their inspiration, curiosity, willingness to jump down the tiniest and the darkest, steepest of holes, and most of all, their nourishment and love fueled much of the journey at different stages. Today, they are each on a different continent, and regardless of frequency, or infrequency of our joint falls nowadays, I look back at our trips to wonderland together with much love. Most are still here though and nourish often, and in their own way, they all make this planet a bearable place. This collage is just starting to come together and will be filled with their creative work - music, paintings, photography, literature, and everything else.

R. She. Europe. Designs beauty. One of the most beautiful people currently residing on this planet. There is a very unique humbleness, goodness that only the most beautiful women have in their maturity. Something Greek, Keats' 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know'. Her unconditional love is humbling, our joint memories of all the worlds we created together, invaluable. Some of them happy some of them very painful, but all cherished immensely. Her gift to me: her unconditional love.

N. He. Middle East. Vagabond, eternal boy. Captures beauty with camera. His gift to me: in-your-face friendship. One birthday present, the best present I ever got: on -20 Celsius he turned up at with full gear, dragged me out to another end of the city to catch the sunset at a particular spot, and give me the best photography lesson, lesson in friendship. His first ever framed photograph. He was the first person that ever told me my curiosity was obsessive and tried to teach me how to moderate it.

M. She. Middle East. Her gift to me: her common sense and care for my wellbeing over many years. Yanking me out of trouble, and preventing some unnecessary and pointless falls. And more giggles than one can giggle in a lifetime. The best of times. One of the few people I can always re-live the best memories with, time and again, no matter what. Our almanac( the typology of beasts) written together over many years. Comfort and safety re-defined.

G. He. America. Designs dreams. One of the most creative people currently residing on this planet. A healer, a challenger. Fiercely loyal. Contagiously happy. His gift to me: healing me. Putting the mirror in front of me when I needed it.

S. She. Asia. Bollywood dame. She was a short visitor but my heart was never captured that fast. How beautiful she was. Her gift to me: a shy statement ' you are the best thing that has ever happened to me' ( she waited till I was just about to take off, to tell me, how humble she was). Indeed, I was blessed to hear that a number of times in my life, but that's the only time I cried.

S. He. Europe. Nourishes the planet. Pure light and smiles. His gift to me: soul nourishment, friendship of a child; the 'little bear and little donkey' story on a 10- hour bus ride through wonderland with my head, heart and body sick to their limits. One of the few people that I was truly ever humbled by.

G. She. Africa. Tames beasts of all sorts. African queen. Soul companion. The sexiest woman on the planet. Her gift to me: opening of hearts beyond and against cliches. Her healing energy.

T. He. Asia. Works for the last remaining deity on the planet. My connection to Holliness. The aura size of his troubled country. His gift to me: purity of his soul. Motorbike trips through heaven and shy poetry reading sessions. The purest soul I have ever known.

S. She. Europe. The charger. One of the most firecely loyal people I have ever known. Best memory: my hair in flames (literally - but no need to describe in detail), and her expression. And her singing half way through Siberia. Her gift to me: the gift of unconditional trust.

S. He. Asia. If I am direct, he is me X 1,000. The master thought provoker, the challenger of the status quo. Quite possibly one of the smartest people currently occuping the planet. His gift to me: challenging me, over and again, and teaching me how to push my own boundaries even further than I thought possible. Teaching me that templates are important, and how to use them. Holding my hand through the process. Gift of true exchange, communication and above all, insight.

The riddle

I confess: I go back to the riddle, time and again, mesmerized. Of course I know there are no answers. But the riddle is necessary. Any seemingly logical explanations are a mere afterthought-- even the puzzle guru Sam Loyd couldn’t help Lewis Carroll explain to his readers, why, after all, is a raven like a writing desk.

It is the unparallel possibilities that the riddle provides. It is what happens in that small space between hardly and almost, that is invaluable. I linger in there, squashed within that tiny space… feeling at home, lulled to a state of concord between my calm and my enchanted self, between the girl and the woman.

The fuel: chiaroscuro in the making

The mixture and the octane levels, as someone put it - seemingly irrelevant and often neglected...but make all the difference between the falls. Here, a tiny little epruveta ( I love the word as is - why abuse in translation) to store just a few elements of the fuel...along with the MBTI and the DNK (shared with Sis, and the perpetuum mobile code).

Indeed, I am a lousy writer but I paint and play well. Here, for Sis, a tiny chiaroscuro that we shared and loved. Happy birthday!

Budim je zbog sunca koje objasnjava sebe biljkama
zbog neba razapetog izmedju prstiju
budim je zbog reci koje peku grlo, volim je usima
treba ici do kraja sveta i naci rosu na travi
budim je zbog dalekih stvari koje lice na ove ovde
zbog ljudi koji bez cela i imena prolaze ulicom
zbog anonimnih reci, trgova
(Branko Miljkovic 1934 - 1961)


昔者莊周夢為蝴蝶，栩栩然蝴蝶也，自喻適志與，不知周也。俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為蝴蝶與，蝴蝶之夢為周與？周與蝴蝶則必有分矣。此之謂物化
(Zhuang Zi 369 BC - 286 BC)

...Rappelle-toi cela Barbara
Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
Je dis tu a tous ceux que j'aime
Meme si je ne les ai vus qu'une seule fois
Je dis tu a tous ceux qui s'aiment
Meme si je ne les connais pas
Rappelle-toi Barbara
N'oublie pas...
(Jacques Prévert 1900 - 1977)


Bot уж вечер. Роса блестит на крапиве.
Я стою у дороги, прислонившись к иве.
От луны свет большой прямо на нашу крышу.
Где-то песнь соловья вдалеке я слышу.
Хорошо и тепло, как зимой у печки.
И берёзы стоят, как большие свечки.
(Сергей Есенин 1895 – 1925)

We sit in this courtyard, two forms,
Shadow outlines with one soul,
Bird sound, leaf moving, early evening star
Fragrant damp, and the sweet
Sickle curve of moon, you and I in a round
Unsolved idling in the garden-beauty detail
The raucous parrots laugh, and we laugh inside laughter
The two of us on a bench in Konya, yet
Amazingly in Khorasan and Iraq as well
Friends abiding this form
Yet also in another frame outside of time,
you and I
(Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi 13th Century)