How I Painted You

Illustration by Sophie Blackall
@http://www.brainpickings.org/ 

On my inner walls, I painted you. I put my palms around your frail cheeks and I painted you. When sad eyes looked down, I rewrote the script and planted a smile instead. When your weary eyes bowed in disbelief, I planted faith and a drop of my smile. When your face twitched in fear, I sowed the seeds of courage and hoped that something inside would water them and help them grow. When you looked sideways longing for a forgotten yesterday I was there to remind that there’s still today left. A twitching eye, a fugitive look, a fidgeting body helped to build space. And then, words started flowing between us; in their conventional flow, your eyes would look down  as if building a protective film around the windows of your soul. It’s alright. I knew it all the way. And when words had no meaning their secret tempo spoke instead. The trembling voice, the nervous “aaaahs”, and the awkward lines filled a gap that reason never could, otherwise. In the midst of a nonsensical conversation, the mystery of the self would surge from the depths of the being. In its genuine nature, that surging self spoke uncensored truths that words could never reveal without leaving on the residue of purposefulness. There, in that humbling awkwardness, truth decided to nestle. Yes, in that poor attempt to put together a couple humble words, some sort of mystery was being transmitted. They were born under the sweat of temples and the calling of the heart, whose impulse is to infuse order through word in that whirly medley it oddly produces. While the mind is churning those unspoken signals, some sort of fellowship between the heart and the mind occurs that blesses the being with an inner harmony. Or maybe it’s the sense of accomplishment the creator feels upon building a new world. In the silent toil that makes that new world alive, raw beauty blossoms.     

“Dude”- The Curious Case of a Fairytale of Words

So, after having a conversation with one of my classmates on fairy tales, I discovered we are both enthusiasts of the mentioned genre. We both agreed on the intrinsic value fairy tales carry with them and that’s practically how this blog post was born. It occurred to me that “fairy tale” is a pretty flexible category and under the “right” molding, it can be used to suit the purpose of the writer/speaker. Thus, I think each word is a fairy tale in itself, and I've probably written a couple encrypted fairy tales up to now. Some call it etymology, cultural background, etc. or other technicalities, but to me each word is a fairy tale. Why? Well, just as simple as that. Because I like words and I believe in their whimsicality. I like to mold them, bend them, make them cry, make them shout out loud, or just make them be. Because each word renders a universe, a frozen instant of thought and it carries an invisible story that gets to be uttered in one breath. That’s all it takes to let it out.

But does anyone ever think of the birth of that word, of how people carved it moment by moment? It’s as if words are witnesses to all the cultural and historical movements. Most of all, words are witnesses of people, of personalities. They can be anything you want. They mimic the human universe to the point of merging with it. And maybe in the making of an universe, we think of words as our own property, a good granted through birth whose importance is less diminished unless it honors ours. But to grant them the importance of their existence is to honor our existence as humans. The conscience of a word is the conscience of a thinker. And what better opportunity to treat words right as being in another country? My love for English kept my enthusiasm alive and maybe where some saw the ordinary, my world painted itself in the whimsicality of the meaning. “Every day a new word” was a pledge I found it hard to keep but it was the one rule animating my fairy tale of words. Those fickle words that eluded me so often, that fooled me with their make-believe attire.

Because sometimes they did. I've grown to know how shifting the sands can be in the informal language. An assumed mask tells the opposite fairy tale or marries two fairy tales of meaning, subject to human creativity. “Dude” spelled out for me the tale of the young male, coming out of the mouth of youngsters. It just exuded pure masculinity to me, assigned in slang-ish contexts. I was extremely puzzled to find out it might as well be applied to the feminine representative of the human species. The fact in itself had a mind-boggling effect on me, but in the process of rationalizing the findings, the view seemed less incongruous. I mean, there wasn't anything that exclusively masculine in the poor word. An amazing return to the “wordy” senses! To make matters worse, a fraction of the same underground issuing power decided that there should be a proper feminine version to the unisex “dude”, namely “dudette”. Now, this does sound like a vindication of words’ rights – a masculine word should naturally have its feminine counterpart. In the process of the word creation, retort to French word formation is naturally inevitable. I guess it just adds some of the romantic mystery of less spoken language in the Anglo-Saxon scenario, or is there another reason that eludes me?

The curios case of “dude” is nothing but a mere example of word mobility in a language displaying severe symptoms of offhanded, but welcome creativity. Word on, dear friends! 

Naah, That’s Not Art!

The Butterfly Effect

You pretty much can’t call art what I do with words. But it’s what I do for now. My words are all I’ve got and arranging them in comprehensible patterns is the job at the time being. My art is my attempt and if you feel differently you probably do because you have the double right to feel that way: well, weren’t we born with the innate right to feel differently and secondly, I grant you the right to dislike all I write because there isn’t much greatness to it. But in the seemingly meaningless meanders of my keyboard, many thoughts churn inside my head whether I like it or not. I guess I chose to do it, but I’m still praying to God to give me the wisdom to know the difference. I’m not sure if that sounds sarcastic or not, but it sure wasn’t intended so. I haven’t come to terms with myself whether I should stop the ramblings or get up and fight the demon with a new shield, encrusted with better, stronger words that coalesce to better form a mirror of the world, and of my world. It’s about acquiring an exquisite technology of the word. The struggle is tough and in the making of a phrase many voices soar and roar and preach: ”You better stop doing this. Naah, this isn’t art!” 

And they might very well be right, I know I walk on a thin layer of ice and who knows what lies beneath in the murky depths of universal reactions. You can hate it if you want to, I promise I won’t take it to the heart. I might stop or I might rise again to the surface; a humbled Venus of the lake, risen from the scum of shame. I wonder if Venus was literate at all and if writing had any draw for her? It would have been pretty awesome, though. In the meanwhile, I’ll pretend she’s my avatar and that in the making of my flash-stories, she’s able to write and if the result isn’t that great, well, I found my scapegoat.

An Abridged Tale of Memories

Photo retrieved @
 http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the-persistence-of-memory

Projected memories have this smooth silky coating that allows them to float around carried away by the wings of a vivid imagination. It’s time to look back on the past and sort through what it truly held and what projected in the previous “past”, as if we are awarded several “pasts”, that we are free to chunk up according to our will. Or wits. But it’s true, we have that ability but we probably ignore it for most instances. I don’t know if I should dare look back on my high school years and try to recall those instances when I indulged myself in the sweet memory of a rosy future, or of a different future.

I might not have had the world my feet, but in my Cinderella clothes I dreamed. I dreamed of other days and somehow that projection carried me away in a depersonalized me, a me that had little to do with the past or present, cause in dreams you simply have the ability to do so. I know such a projection has little value, but in my emotional geography stakes are high. There was an instant of my being that was dedicated to that faraway future and discarding it would mean discarding a part of myself. What kind of future, and what lie ahead of it, is of little importance to the reader, for the treasures of my soul are treasures to myself solely. My riches are your rags.

But from afar lurks the sense that this recollection of memories is a brush up of those forgotten corners of the heart, in which the protruding light of consciousness failed to shine on. But it feels good to dust off those old fragments of thought, like frozen tokens of time, shaded by the passage of time. Just because sometimes you have to give little things a grand time. We've only been assigned a one-chamber life and inside those four walls, time piles memories high, sometimes orderly, other times in a beautiful chaos. And in the sweat of my temples, I seek the forgotten ones; I sift through them hoping to reconstruct a puzzle that has neither a beginning nor an end.  

The Eye of a Stranger

At first it was curiosity and chance. Not the fulfillment of a dream, but the lazy stream of chance. And it was that chance that prepared the ground to turn it into a clean slate. It took a significant amount of liberalism and mindless youthfulness to have that taste for the new. But the novelty of the scenery bore the mark of strangeness and distance and maybe for the first time geographical distances had little to do with that feeling of separation. Not for the first time, that lyrical nature is thrown in the midst of a whirl of functionality, a victory of the working hands over the thinking mind. A time of profound challenge and the subsequent sense that in the midst of that loneliness of the self a self-sufficient hero had to emerge. That hero would wear silent clothes, would dress its braveness in meek words but a steady pace would always go along with it. And then there were mountains to be climbed and demons to be fought. But there's more than meets the eye, and the eye had to confront itself with matters whose inner nature shared few similarities with the obvious, the tangible.

In every move, in every passing street, the eye made a statement of its awkward presence. There were piercing looks, inquiring looks, lashing looks or even friendly looks, all bending under the weight of those silent whys. They'd sometimes abandon their heavy silence and then the eye would bow to confession, a non-cathartic confession for it all repeated itself to unfruitful ends. And even if it didn't repeat itself, that confession wouldn't necessarily equalize the inner world whose core was drenched in a sea of doubt. Like a faithful companion, solitude stopped by, in the close vicinity of the secluding doubt. There was solitude to keep him company and the shouting waves of the ocean, screaming sky-high. And in that tower of solitude, the eye looked upon the world. Myriads of judgments could be cast, but the eye knew, it'd be to no avail and unfair as well. Other eyes would look upon him with love, that wall-shattering inquiry, and many other eyes too, that would one day break the shells they lived into. But the eye had so much more to do other than breaking his own shell; others had their own shells as well. And in front of that revealing vulnerability, voices waver, looks go down in diffidence. But words, words flew, back and forth and where looks couldn't speak, words did. And their power humbled the heart and awakened it from it numbed indifference. And in the midst of shells and other outer coverings, the eye saw the veil drop and truth and fabricated genuineness coming apart. Blessed by a jarring silence.

Rupt din vis

Iată-ne amândoi ajunşi la un stop
C-am început să scriu e pur noroc
Iar când alb si negru din nou se unesc
Voi ştii să te găsesc acolo, în livresc

'Teachers! Leave them kids alone!'

The The War on Kids is a 2009 documentary taking a radical stand against education policies. After watching it, school spells out prison and control in my opinion. The first part of the documentary depicts the virulent “zero tolerance” policy for drugs and weapons which is basically divided in two sections in the documentary: one dedicated to weapons and one that obviously deals with usage of drugs in public schools. Driven by an almost irrational need to provide security, school authorities increase school clearance and cameras are monitoring every aspect of the student life, from classroom, hallway, recess areas, all in the name of increasing security for the student and the parents. But what it actually did and continues to do is to ruin any sense of normality to students who are slowly given the convict treatment. 

Photo retrieved @ theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com

After comparing the security policy in a couple of high school with the one offered in a prison, the differences were slim; which makes one wonder to what extent is a school any different from a prison and if this unhealthy environment prepares the next generation to function normally in a democratic society? And what kind of understanding of democracy will this generation have after experiencing a genuinely oppressive environment?  Children are practically devoid of real legal rights; given how school conflicts are delt with: the principal questions the trespassing student and takes notes on his testimony, the student thinking that the situation will be taken care of at a school level. The next step is the student’s testimony being handed over to the police, who in their turn hand it over to court of law and then a warrant is issued.

Take the “no weapon tolerance” policy, for instance: a nail file suddenly becomes an assault weapon and children are being prosecuted and charged with a felony record before they are even aware of what that legal situation entails. Then there’s the “no drug tolerance” policy that adds to the equation. Technically, it all makes sense, and keeping a drug-free school environment is a reasonable ideal; but not the measures that are taken in this sense.  The extreme security measures that schools choose to take away the individual freedom and the opportunity for a healthy mental development. A lot of schools choose to assume that there is drug activity and students are randomly checked through violent police raids. Teachers and school counselors support this anti-drug policy which is beneficial at its core. But on the flipside, the same staff makes sure that young children who challenge the authority of a teacher in the most minor ways ends up with a psychiatric diagnosis that eventually results in a medicated treatment. Is ADHD a real disorder or is it just a concept coined to benefit both the pharmaceutical companies and teachers and parents unwilling to educate children whose behavior is seemingly “unruly”? Can medicating them really make a significant change in their behavior? The documentary reports that 90% of the Adderall usage in the world is taken by the US, which makes one wonder indeed. The DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) mentions ADHD symptoms among which: the inability of a child to focus constantly, sit still, stay in his chair, play with other objects during class, etc. all pretty much normal drives a regular child has. So what does medication do? It floods the brain with dopamine, the neurotransmitter of pleasure, calming down the brown activity; and in doing so, the personality of the child vanishes away, neither happiness nor sadness is expressed – it literally transforms the child into a zombie. 

On the long run effects worsen and studies showed that children that were administered medication for their childhood disorders ended up having underdeveloped brains, hormonal dysfunctions and once medication stopped suicidal attempts or even murder attempts were recorded. Ironically, it all happened in the same environment that promoted “zero tolerance to drugs”. Hopefully the extreme state of things will call for more fortunate choices somewhere in the future when there will be enough people empowered to say “no” to abnormal unhealthy education environments.

On How I Became Stupid

Photo retrieved @  http://www.linternaute.com  

It’s the French novel I’ve just finished reading. Heard about it from a good friend of mine and postponed reading it until fate made it that I did. And I certainly had a grand time doing so. First of all, the book oozes with sarcasm through every paragraph. This isn't necessarily a book review, but it could be. Events are narrated from the perspective of Antoine, a middle class university professor whose mind wouldn’t apparently make a stop from thinking or macerating ideas. Things get so extreme that he loses his peace of mind and every aspect of the daily life becomes a painful remembrance of his overthinking; and in this case, overthinking means seeing too much of the big picture that the world offers which occasionally results in tragic events/or is the result of a “tragic” event, metaphysically speaking. In this view, Antoine refuses any advancement that technology, fashion, and non-organic industries offer, under the guard of tight moral values. His sense of duty to society but of all to his morals is heightened to such extent that he starts to feel enslaved. What to do next? In a clearly innocent intent to cure his “disease”, Antoine decides he needs to become… stupid, an idea that doesn’t appeal much to his friends or any normal person having a sparkle of sense left. He pursues his treatment with unflinching perseverance. He quits his job, cleans up his little studio of any objects reminding him of previous life or simply anything that’s thought-inducing. The empty space is quickly supplied with the latest technology gadgets and anything that a man his age would normally acquire, in order to attain that much desired normality. But in doing so you might he’s creating a monster, which he did compared to his original self, but in fact the character and the book criticize the commonness of conventional that modern times cast upon society. It’s the created need, and all the stereotypes that go well with the worldy ways. 

The metamorphosed character portrays a defaced man, whose appreciation for any kind of morality or beauty vanishes in the blatancy that society dictates.  The creating self, the loving self is slowly effaced to meet the requirements of a mold. Yes, a mold, that’s what most of us become when we allow society to completely engulf us. The centennial dream of individuality, that the western civilization proudly praises would therefore be nothing but a faint ghost of what man once used to be. But even in his self-induced transformation, Antoine doesn’t entirely discard his old self, there are moments when his hidden morals surge and that’s when substantial statement are made through the novel; for example, when he visits the matrimonial agency and the woman helping him asks him for nothing but physical aspects of the ideal woman he has a crushing revelation of the nullity of his endeavor. And this thin thread of substance is what eventually brings him back to his true self, as in a classic novel, despite its tremendous postmodern print.

Random Summer Thoughts

It’s late in the summer and as the hot season draws to a close, it’s time to tidy up the corners of the mind before a new season begins. Call it seasonal thinking, but my summer shelf is ready to welcome all the events that populated these past few months. It’s been a steady-paced time, with sluggish days, rainy days, moody days, happy days, just ok days. I’ve been no more no less than myself and under this constancy I lent myself to living the days, but most of the time I just let the day live through to me, that is when I didn’t feel the day; it’s a strange the thing that happens, when one doesn’t live the day, that’s when the day grows wings and traps one in a whirl and one’s left with no other choice than drifting away through the daily draft. Those were the noisy, but lonesome days. I personally give little appreciation to huge meaningless gatherings that most of the time lack authenticity, because attendants tend to become slaves of convention. And when convention prevails, that type of basic honesty slowly fades, conversations become awfully predictable – one could picture them prior to the event itself – so that the actual event feels like an enactment of overused lines in endless rehearsals that history keeps such incredible accurate unwritten records of. And it’s the unwritten script that survives the best, despite the opposite common belief held true by Romans –Verba volent scripta manent. I really think it survives best, because proof is in right there, in front of our eyes. Why say the grass is still green on the other side when brown shades gently find their way in as if an invisible painter cast his magic over nature at night.  But it’s almost fall and it’s all I tend to digress a lot, as you can see, but it’s alright the chaos in my mind is nothing but an indicator of my spontaneity, I might start with something that I think it interests me, but then again how do I know what it really does until I actually start? There you go, I could even find the perfect excuse for a perfectly rambling post.    

Lines. Fine Lines

by Sorin Oprisor

We need lines. We really do. Whether it's for crossing the street or to drive in the right lane. Those are the visible lines. Then there is another category of lines that stems from human relationships. Those qualify as invisible lines, or to avoid the temptation of opposites, less visible lines. The good vs. evil dichotomy might be the first situation crossing your mind but I've grown to learn that the world out there comes in more than just black and white. It comes in shades too. And as soon as you reach that area you come to realize that the afore mentioned opposition kind of falls to pieces. There will be the ones claiming to have that marvelous quality of discerning right from wrong and then there's others like me, that feel at a loss in front of matters of the kind. Call it caution, call it indecision, but I'm not here to be the one crossing a line. 

As soon as one crosses a line, things are sort of forever settled and I'm unsure if a growing patterning confidence is deeply seated in reality. Or maybe in the personal reality of the person we've already "framed". Humans are flawed beings and it is in this state of things that lies the desire to ardently set boundaries, put a seal on a "case", which ultimately situates the "framed" in an extreme. But what the "framee" fails to record is that in-between state of the person from the initial moment of their evaluation to the last one.

We fail to see the humanity laying so nakedly in the other; when it's our own nakedness speaking about wavering, tribulating feelings of infinite maybes whose temporary existence never did we managed to perceive. Any attitude, behavior comes as the result of a lengthy process, an evolution entailing an innumerous number of changes that we are most certainly blind to. So instead of wrenching your soul over apparently disturbing realities that others bring upon us, give that reality the benefit of the doubt for that inaccessible shady area before deciding to swiftly categorize. The unknown shading of that segment holds the truth and keeps it to itself in a disdainfully undisclosing manner. But it's the privacy of the being that it protects and I can't find a fine line to put my finger on.  And I probably shouldn't anyway.    

Oh, Innocence...

Now I really don't know how to start this. The moment you see the darkside of innocence. If such a thing exists. Innocence as a concept, not a as a personal experience. I'm far from claiming it, I feel I've lost it inside some time ago. But self-perception and outer perception are two notions that sometimes find it hard to overlap. And this case is no exception to the rule. I'm a self-declared non-innocent, but voices around speak differently. No, I can't claim innocence after all the knowledge I've let slip through the corners of my mind, all the words I've heard and uttered but most of all judging by emotional history. But then again how do you successfully marry the inside with the outside?If the outside is supposedly a faithful reflection of the inner core of the being, all I can do is notice a graceful failure. People don't perceive me this way. To them, I'm still "innocent"; but I know better, I keep my quiet composure and keep on moving. Me and my voiceless truth. That I cannot utter, because their voices cover my faint argument or any frail denial. But there comes a time when such an attitude isn't flattering, in fact it sets me apart in a painful fortress of loneliness. But then again it may be what I display on the outside: a dreamy, lost gaze at times and silence; loads of it. I might still carry Milton's paradise in my eyes, but don't forget it's a lost one. Now back to silences. Since when silence pairs with innocence? Right when that silence carries a full load of thoughts, ruminations and anything in this world that can be put into words. I'm here today to award innocence a fail. The ultimate one. And it's not the voice of denial speaking here, but a voice that wants to be heard and can't otherwise.

The Unbearable Lightness of Whys

I'm here because I want to bring to life to those instances of the obvious, of the now, of that then and of the human feeling whose past present or future are nothing but another side of the same coin. I'm not here in the quest of something nonexistent, of that something I'd like to project to get away from the real world. I want to render that crude, realistic almost naturalist feel that gravitates around humankind. I want that truthful reflection in the mirror, I take a peek and can almost catch a glimpse of it. But my words are always late, they carry the heavy load of that obvious, whose heaviness is inherently there, by virtue of some natural accident or law. Funny how law and accident are almost synonyms, they come together without even colliding. 

Now that I've somehow spoken my mind, I'd like to move to a certain "instance", one that just exists independent from our uttering. I want to talk about recognition and any means that might bring it. Where does it stem from? Most surely, I won't be able to cover or exhaust a matter of this kind but I'll just throw in a few errand thoughts. Sometimes it's loneliness. Other times it's pure vanity. Or even just the need to see others raise an eyebrow at the thought of one's accomplishments. But does that need for recognition really add value and eventually a sense of fulfillment to the self?Yes, if you consider a short-term view. On the long run, I'd go for a negative answer. After all, we're the most honest when we're with ourselves solely and when you watch the man in the mirror all the perks of praise and eyebrow raising will drop like dry fruit. At that point, you can't evade yourself anymore, and any social web you tried to build around your soul will vanish like dark runs before sunrise. 

And I hope that sight suits your soul and brings serenity to you. It's a time or revealing the inner true self, of letting go of that social, physical peel that surrounds the true self. Because after all, what really matters is that when you take a look at the core of your being you still find room for love, sincerity and goodness. Any other veils built to serve the self bear little significance. And it's that very littleness that trouble me. Under the noise of social gatherings, things get amplified, praises raise in the air but only to be short-lived. So if recognition finds it hard to stand the test of time, then it surely won't stand the test of my heart. For reasons already stated and other unstated it would be foolish to let your heart rest upon it, for you can't truly rest anything on a pipe dream.  

Tell Me About Yourself Award

I got to this point due to the kindness of my fellow blogger at Virtual Masks that tagged me in her Tell Me About Yourself Award blog post.Thank you loads! It's a post meant to draw attention on the blogs you like and then pass it on with a "catch": add some personal disclosures to the post and show some blogging "skin". 

Sometimes it's not easy to put yourself out there and fire away like no one's reading. But I'm glad they did and that we pass each other something from within that makes us better and throws in a sun ray to the everyday gloom.

Ok. Now the rules:

1. Thank the one who nominated you and post a link back to that person.

2. Write 7 different things about yourself, it can be anything.

3. Give the award to 15 fellow bloggers.

Traditionally, the list of funny facts under the sacred number 7:

1. Romanian, living in America and secretly wishing to have been born English.

2. Fool enough to believe that the Prince Charming myth can actually meet reality. Someday.

3. Underneath my shy crust, I'm painfully sarcastic. If you think otherwise you need to reconsider knowing me.

4. I still giggle watching a romantic comedy.

5. Bear gummies. My one weakness. Harribo, if faith allows it. Also, don't forget about Nuttella or anything blessed enough to be hazelnutty. Yum!

6. Ok, I'm clumsy. Really clumsy. If I get nervous.

7. Occasionally, I like to get crafty and..sew.

Last but not least, I got to the part where I nominate the blogs that caught my eye. And the nominees are:

Virtual Masks

The Last of the Idealists

Arta ca formă de cunoaştere

You know I'm gonna be happy this year

Daniel Dăian

Dont meet my gaze

The Flipside of You

Oh, it's all about that you you used to be, it's all about a dusty you in the back drawers of a history that once was the now. As dear as it may be, you have to afford the luxury of looking back on the present whose label suddenly changed to history. It's always been there, laying within, the present that is. A content waiting to be revealed, once the pretty bow of the present is broken. How can I put it this?I long for a you whose echo no longer resounds, whose presence no longer mirrors mine.  Perhaps I should chase away the ghost of that memory and let time wash away the shore of my soul with its timely waves.Oh, but my feet will still thread the same sand, my hands will reach out for the same foamy waves and my eyes will have the same thin horizon line to rest upon. It's strangely odd one never changes and the other does; must be some strange twist of faith that allows such difformities and incongruity; I finally found it: incongruous you!but, hey, incongruous me as well. I resent change as much as the desert resents drought. I think of that you as if it were an instance frozen in time, an independent unaltered structure that I'm trying to transfer to reality - well, from my conceptual world. Ugh, I feel like this rambling is nonsense and that it doesn't lead me anywhere except for that trotted trail where I could potentially find you. 

I don't want the you you've become, I want that historical you, that fretting vibrating you whose song spoke of life, poetry, exaltation, dedication for the other and well, yes, love. I know the trail, whose ground my feet fearfully touch but I can't go there anymore; for the trail is deserted now and invisible walls climb up to the sky and back creating an unbreakable seal. But I'm a daughter of light and I wish the light of my you shines through the light of your you "because between skin and skin, there is only light". (John Fowles)

You Tell Me

Well, it’s been a while but music has come to life one more time. Dim room, flashy lights flood the stage before the show begins. People everywhere, chatting, greeting – some more formal than others, some more sober than others. But the evening is still young and spirits are still tamed. Funny how they get untamed when the clock is close to a later strike. At a boom of minute, speakers begin to blare and the crowd gets all warmed up. It’s a flocking movement towards the stage and suddenly the crowd is there. So effortlessly do people get together on such occasions and at a really slow pace do they repeat the action under different circumstances. But it’s a night of letting go, of getting out (of yourself as well) and  giving in to the music. That togetherness has to me nothing different than the togetherness a sports stadium shares. It must be the inciting thought that a mass of people are there for the same purpose. A sort of walking together feeling.  And that equality of purpose serves as a pretty good identity fader. 

You’re no longer yourself in the crowd, you don’t stand out like you used to, but the mere participation to the crowd makes you a tiny limb of the gigantic body, a steadily changing organism whose flow and go is the only constancy. Some come in, other get out. But wait, individuality comes to the surface to the beat of music. One chord here, one chord there, one goes up, one goes down and mysteriously a harmonious sound forms, floats through the air, molds the crowd and regulates irregular motions crossing the crowd like a uniformly spread wave. But there are voices that want to be heard and drinks that want to be spilt. And there is hardly any air to breathe. Let alone the space in-between. Or a lot of reason; the thin strand of consciousness linking the dimness of the evening to the light of the mind. But it’s still a crowd and you’re so close but a thousand miles away. And there are thousands of reasons that keep you drenched in a swamp of awkwardness, beneath the crust of friendliness; for the most part, it’s reasons I don’t rhyme with, but I resume to swallow as if an invisible fire is being consumed. Whichever the reasons, they remain coated in a cold crust of diffidence and mistrust. For a crust will always be a crust. Unless you crush it.

  

The Inbetweener

From my little corner of the world, I think of you. I think of your stubborness to persist inside my mind. I know my little world is no different than somebody else's, but you somehow managed to subscribe to "my everything", that is, when I wasn't watching. For I would have had some trouble letting you in. You found your way in. And now I wish you found your way in the opposite direction. Oh, and it's summer and honeysuckle smells painfully a lot like you. Yes, I love how that honeysuckle fragrance wraps around me like you did around my heart. Gosh, how I despise myself right now for allowing you in. And then you left, my heart in your hands. Right now I'm not afraid of seeming pathetic because I know whatever I go through now is a piece of emotion and I've learned to accept the humanity behind emotions. I' m not going to rant and rave on emotions endlessly, but they deserve an individual treatment, don't they? While you might think reason lags behind, I have given reason its fair share. For now, I resume to those feelings that came to life through words.

You'd call on me with your mellifluous words, casting a net of deceipt upon my heart; then let me hang on to a sea of paper promises. But it's all right. I never truly believed you. My guess is that it must have been that inner voice, going beyond conscience that whispered "don't". And now I'm in an odd place. Did I half-fall for you? I'm not sure if I can paint the canvas of my fickle heart in the right colors. Finding the right mix of words for this old heart of mine is never easy. But my heart has learned the tough lesson of caution. And after all the rambling past, my heart could only half-fall for you. That in-between state. If only I had that teenage heart, than I'd know how to fall full-heartedly. But now I only fall half-way and it's tormenting in the sense that you never hit a bottom rock. It's as if my ability to love is a rock thrown in the pond, whose fall is at some point frozen in time. It just floats there in the semi-dark depths of the rippling pond. Somewhere in-between the kind, warm sunrays of your enthralling words and the murky depths of disappointment. It just lays there, in a stale stay. Helpless. For now.

A Taste of History

http://www.myneonhaven.com/neon_detail.php?ID=3552

Americans have a very sharp sense of history. And that bleeds out on the street, in the street plates and even on beer cans. I've recently made that connection after my U.S. History 1 class. Especially in   Pittsburgh. You get to walk on history, breathe history, you cross rivers soaked in history.You even drink history. Every drop of that Sam Adams is dripping with revolutionary thoughts. Or not anymore. Depending on your nationalism coefficient. But one thing is for sure: history is history and French, Indians and early settlers did a pretty good job writing it in the Duquesne Fort. So all of you drving through Duquesne Boulevard or throwing the cap in the air at Duquesne University carry with you an immortal scent of those times. Whether you are aware of it or not. 

Comfort Zone(s)

It's when you put yourself out there. Or when you just realize that you are not even disappointed when the supposedly fairytale scenario crashes. Well, I'm not disappointed which kind of means I didn't fall for my own dream, it doesn't really matter which one, a dream is a dream. I feel like I'm fooling myself, but sometimes that's exactly what you need to get through the day. I can't shake this feeling of disruption. On the one side, the dream, and the other side, the acknowledegement that a dream has few roots in reality and that in reality there's no regret for the non-dreamy reality for I didn't go all the way with the dreaming. Blame me and blimey for that!

But the dream pattern calls for some emotional state that I'll resume to call "emotional inertia", as if "dream", disappointment" stick together through some sort of mandatory glue called "emotion". How ridiculous to feel this way. Especially that I'm at an age where you're supposed to be detached from any dreamy states, which makes me assess it as less true. For now, I'll just stick to transition. It must be about some age-inflicted emotional transition, under the reign of my cruel conscience. My acuity is almost painful, I'm fully aware of the changes occurring within and by means of some odd fascination, I accurately record them. There!

For the Likes of Sea

At first it comes in rocky shapes. Then the ground gnaws it and the wind blows it. Then it's grainy seeds. 

The sea. I always loved its coarse saltiness, how it seemed to lay down and on the ground and thrust its waves sometimes in anger sometimes in a light caress on the guilty shores. Oh, how the sea spreads its arms at a perfect angle to embrace the sky in a perfect union. And that perfection has something soothing in it, almost like a silent, implicit lullaby. I always knew I loved the sea before I ever caught a glimpse of it. I would dream of its white, foamy waves surrounding my feet, then revealing the nakedness of my toes, then covering them again in a cyclic motion whose universal rhythm spoke to the soul. I would dream of the sea day and night until I got to see it. Maybe it was just a natural urge to set yourself free and set on an adventure or maybe it was something more. I've yet to find out. But when the magical encounter happened I gazed into the distant horizons and watched the golden star slowly take a dive into the mystical embrace between the sea and the skies. I let the waves approach me and I was suddenly part of that ritual. My feet were soaked by the same waters that drowned the sun for a whole night. Oh, the lacy foam laying on my toes, in a suave apology for the coarse sand under my feet. But I loved them both. A perfect harmony.

I looked down and the under the pressure of my feet tiny bits would engulf my toes. Covered up like never to be seen again. A raw touch, older than the sea. It's the sand and the secret way my feet slide in a slow dance. Grain over grain, the sand climbed over my feet and related them to some invisible creature. I looked up. The sea was relentlessly calling. Mad waves shouting a call I cannot understand. They come in semicolons, some bigger others smaller, but they come. And then they reach out for the shore, in a sissific endeavour to engulf it. Then a foamy defeat follows and a shameful retreat at sea. The relentlessness of the sea. Others and others follow to perform the maddening ritual. A faithful, perpetual thrusting of the waves older than me, older than you.

The sea, through the eyes of an old man:

He could not see the green of the shore now but only the tops of the blue hills that showed white as though they were snow-capped and the clouds that looked like high snow mountains above them. The sea was very dark and the light made prisms in the water. The myriad flecks of the plankton were annulled now by the high sun and it was only the great deep prisms in the blue water that the old man saw now with his lines going straight down into the water that was a mile deep.

The tuna, the fishermen called all the fish of that species tuna and only distinguished among them by their proper names when they came to sell them or to trade them for baits, were down again. The sun was hot now and the old man felt it on the back of his neck and felt the sweat trickle down his back as he rowed. I could just drift, he thought, and sleep and put a bight of line around my toe to wake me. But today is eighty-five days and I should fish the day well. (The Old Man and the Sea)

A World of Mine

http://www.rszyszka.com/InnerSelf.jpg

The diversity floating around me. In language, culture, behavior and skin tones. The amazing culture diversity that blends in the background of the same room. People start talking, glasses clinking and under the umbrella of the English language they all make a commonly understandable wish.

The amazing getting-out of their own worlds and the inclusion in the new, mixed world. More than a wow moment. It's a regular scene, but if you decide your look will be just "regular" upon it, then you might be missing out on the miracle of the moment. I see it all, I feel it all. It's in the air, everywhere I look around. An identity of its own, that sheds the cultural barriers and lets everyone join in.

It's Easter dinner and English, Americans, French and Romanian are gathered under the same roof. Good food, tasty wine and a sense of common sense. Lively conversation begins and a Romanian, a French woman and an English guy join in. I listen to their words flying to and fro, filling the air. But it's more than just words uttered in English. It's a whole universe, because behind every produced sentence I can sense the native subtext. It's the expression of one's culture, of one's way of saying things. And a series of  untold stories that I am aware of and that touch me to the core of my being. 

Forgive my intrusion into the discourse of these kindhearted people but I'm fascinated with language and the expression of it. And I feel that each and every single word is a universe, and they've already said before me. I'm just a humble observer of that universe. Oh, but the beauty of it! 

Pondering People

Pondering people. Where do we get the feeling that people ponder? Or is it that when they sit still and seem to have a focused look on their face we try to get into the grooves of their minds but we can’t because we’re no mind readers. But a shadow of doubt remains. I find it fascinating that we resolve this conflict between reason and instinct through doubt. In that keen fixated look, you see a stubborn constancy, a cadenced pace that’s swirling in a blind pattern. It’s as if you’re trying to “see” sunlight through a blindfold. All the other senses point towards it except for the most conclusive: direct sight. And at this point we fail. We fail to see that there is more than one way of “seeing” things and we ignore our other capabilities. And I’m not sure if this is a mere infirmity of the mind or of the culture we grew up. We fail to listen to the voice that comes from within, that speaks truths I do not daresay. But I resolve to go on my blindfold, search with all my senses for that elusive truth I cannot see with my bare eyes. Or maybe it’s my bare eyes that might get hurt.  

Abridged Diary of a Foreign Student - On Success and Other Abstractions

To be successful at something you need to spend at least 10.000 hours at it. I have to confess I had no idea that success hangs by a set number but so they say. Ok. Who are “they”? And should we believe “them”? “They” are Malcolm Gladwell, one my favorite writers. And Outliers is the proud bearer of this enlightening idea. And the story starts in class, in my psychology class, where I’m getting my latest source of wisdom. Ugh, it’s cold outside, even worse, cloudy and I need something positive to focus on to boost my good mood. Now I’m back to today’s topic and this is an absolute wow moment. Not necessarily because I’d think you can take the easy way to success, but because I never envisioned success under a number. 

Like most relative things in this world, success is combination of factors (or so I thought) not the number of hours you dedicate yourself to the activity that will bring it. Operant conditioning at its finest. You commit to an activity that’ll bring you a late benefit. A sort of abstract application of the Pavlovian basic reflex. However, we, humans, still hover in the realm of conditioning. I like to refer to the operant conditioning as ‘abstract’ as opposed to the ‘basic’ one that Pavlov’s dog displays. It’s basically still conditioning but at a human level. I’m not implying humans cannot be classically conditioned because they are, on a daily basis, but what it’s that very ‘abstract' one that prevails . 

I might use a term in psychology now and then but I’m no scientist, I simply try to connect the dots I see on the larger canvass, ignored most of the times because we’re so engrossed in our routine. Fair enough. I have no idea WHY I keep digressing from the main topic but yes success still is to my mind that perfect mix of incredible talent invested in unimaginable amounts of time. The day has just begun so better start working! 

Photo retrieved @ 

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/cga/lowres/cgan1236l.jpg

Abridged Diary of a Foreign Student - St Patrick's Day

I feel that I need to go back in time the last weekend, St Patrick Day, also known in the States as St Paddy’s Day or St Patty’s Day. It’s Saturday morning, bright and early and I have to be up and running by 7 o’clock because by some wise twist of the faith I had signed up for a fast-track class. Not the most fortunate choice. Too late to change it when I realized. Let’s go back to the morning part. So I wake up with a numb head after an obviously sleep-deprived night for a glorious test was awaiting me after an intense session of cramming. On American history. You wish you weren't in my shoes. There’s absolutely nothing exciting about compressing historic events and matching them with their timing. I love history, but I’m not particularly fascinated about the memorizing process. This accounts for a fairly description of my fore-mentioned numbness. Fair enough.

I leave my house at a brisk pace – it’s always a brisk pace or else I’m looking up the word “gone” on Webster dictionary (the freedictionary is considered unreliable by authoritative figures though I like it best ) and then I take a deep breath before I’m be filled with frustration.

Well, here I am up on the platform waiting for the trolley-train or vice versa when something hits my eyes: the platform is packed with people. Green people. No, it’s not an alien invasion, it’s an Irish invasion, best case scenario. Everyone’s wearing green outfits, clover shaped accessories or clover-shaped green tattoos. Or golden ones. Depending on the taste. Today’s celebrations caught me completely off guard, otherwise I wouldn't have probably attempted to join the green madness. Or maybe not. It’s a fairly jolly crowd, with excitement teeming on their faces at the thought of the very near future alcohol boost awaiting them downtown. Now I just got into conditioning. I can’t help myself. My psychology professor is simply amazing and due to her greatness I got to identify the phenomenon. Seems like school might actually have some benefits. 

I eventually get on the trolley, spot a seat and head decidedly for it because it’s going to be a long ride and I’m still not fully prepared for my upcoming test. Yikes! I’m already stresses out, but it’s ok, stress happens. While engrossed in my reading material, an elderly gentleman sits next to me, his wife and his seemingly granddaughter in front of me. The spouses start talking.  And it’s not English but crystal clear Italian. I’m fascinated. I have a growing sympathy for all the foreigners I meet, especially if they are European. And I think the feeling is mutual. We strike up a conversation – half Italian half English – and yes!I love sharing some thoughts with welcoming strangers. It just reminds the there’s still hope for goodness in this tainted world.

So I had my moment early morning now I have to look around, for you see, you can’t ignore an overwhelming crowd, crammed on an obviously too small of a trolley. Which made me late for class. And that’s ok. This is one of the things I love about Americans: they can say “that’s ok” and they really mean it. Well, it wasn't really ok in my case because I have just missed the beginning of test, but I was more than welcome to sit down and take the whole test.

To be continued. It’s a promise.

Photo retrieved @ http://www.doverlibrary.org/sites/default/files/St_%20Patrick's%20day.jpg

Abridged Diary of a Foreign Student - Day X

It's a diary, but chronological order doesn't work for me. So today is Tuesday, March 27. The same old morning routine. Ah, the city buzz in downtown. A huge crowd of people getting off the trolley and heading for work. There’s something fascinating about seeing a great amount of people heading in similar directions. It’s something close to seeing a stadium crowd, but no excitement. They may all be strangers to one another, but so are stadium people to one another.

The warm glow of the morning seems to be only shattered by the crisp coolness of this morning. The sun is up and running but ouch the air sure knows how to pinch my face. But there’s some sort of irresistible freshness about this morning or how sunlight pierces unstopped through the window pane of the bus and then does its spotty dance on the chairs, floor or anywhere it can get on. The bus swiftly crosses the highway this morning, it may be because there are less passengers or I  have an unusually keen perception of my surroundings. Oh, I think the sentiment has found me today. Does that make me sentimental? And if the case is different, should it be that I’m asentimental? I won’t delve too much on that, I just need to do some mental processing of my own states before I put myself out there.

“Alone on its back. In a crib” – the bus proudly announces a tip for putting babies to bed. Outside the bus, the world is in motion. Fleeting tall buildings, occasionally throwing a look full of contempt, or humble homes that beg for someone to take care of them, a museum promising an oasis for civilization. And the neatness of correctly installed traffic signs. Wow, how they stand there every day doing the same thing. It must be strangely tedious at a certain point, but there we go. I’m in the student district now, kind of getting a jittery feeling at the thought of the last bomb threats in one of the universities. I was there one of the days when a whole building could have beautifully been wiped out from the face of earth. What are the odds of that happening and I being in the place? Pretty high, if we think of the general unsafety that we witness today. 

Just a morning brush-up whilst on the bus. Have a sunny day!

Photo retrieved @http://mattrothphoto.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/090828BusRide207.jpg

Endurance

Today’s reflection pretty much wraps around what’s “real”, “truthful” or any other adjective gravitating around the same area. I think I’m starting to dimly see an answer shaping on the horizon of my tired mind. Endurance. Such a simple answer to a riveting question yet it encapsulates an elusive essence: the slippery slope of “reality”; my own experience has just proven what logos have been shouting out loud on ignorable banners: see it in the test of time. I see myself in a terrible race trying to stand the test of time in every instance of the fleeting day. I sometimes struggle to wake up, but I do, so I’m enduring. I struggle getting on the bus on a cold morning, but I do, so I’m enduring. I struggle going to school every day, but I do, so I’m enduring. I struggle to hold my breath every time the sun comes up, but I do, so I’m enduring. I struggle to harness my heart but I don’t cut loose unwanted feelings, so I’m enduring; up until the moment I’ll stop swimming against the tide that I fight so fiercely every day and my endurance will come to a halt. I’m human and I don’t endure in endurance. 

Hard to Spell it Out

I haven't been on here for a long time and I needed a fresh of breath air and so did my blog. I was waiting in line one day at the grocery when I suddenly realized: you're really free when you release yourself from the burden of expectation. Whether we like it or not, we do let ourselves be eaten up by unrealistic expectations, tight deadlines or other imagined or real boundaries. Oh, if we could only let go for an instant?Is it that hard to do it?Not if you think about it and put it right there in front of you - the monster seems less scary and you finally realize what you're confronting with. Now, I'm not going to plead for carelessness and irresponsibility but just that from once in a while everyone dare take a look at yourselves and point out that your holding on to waaaay too much pressure, which most of the times comes from within. So what if you fail?So what if you fall?So what if you get your heart broken?So what if your plans don't see the next day? I'd say let go of that expectation at least once in a while and accept the unacceptable. Yes, I hate myself for doing it and I do it quite a lot but this is where I am right now. Oh, and all the subsequent negative energy...well, all I'm doing is to put down in front of me firstly, and then in front of you. A shameful nakedness of the soul. But I no longer get embarrassed because for a fraction of the second I took an honest look at myself and released myself from the burden of not watching myself. Your order is ready: a tiny bit of myself served on a silver or less silvery platter. Oh, well!

It's the first time I'm posting a song over here and I feel ready to publicly declare my love for Ingrid. She needs no further introduction, it's just an amazing song, hope it blends in well with your day! Enjoy the sweet let-go feeling that music can occasionally exude when well performed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUxLK1misbw

In the shell of a nut

I might as well cast a stone and watch the rippling waves tremble in response, just like I can chase pipe dreams on a dream string. If I daresay something substantial, I might run too deep and hit a bottom rock. Metaphysical injuries have no ER or so they say.