I have reached a point where, although I may deduct there are more layers in my personality and spirit than I have had the opportunity to see so far, I estimate, out of fixed factors such as mathematics, probabilistic ans sociology, that those other layers, yet undeveloped and unsolicited (and I am talking here about positive may-have-beens) will probably remain dormant forever.
We are complex beings, yet we have after all a fixed (once it belongs to the past), one way path through this life. Whatever our dreams might be, the reality we have chosen (aware or not of our choices) pins us down year after year and offers no possibility of ever drawing a line and judging for ourselves how far have we strayed from what we could have been. We can never see our alternative paths followed, for comparison and we can never see ourselves and our ripples in the greater picture, made of the people we have met and affected in one way or another.
It is nostalgic and pensive though to get even a vague glimpse of what there is unawakened in us, of what echoes some other circumstances of life can produce inside the big human temple each of us is. it is like feeling in the dark a bouquet of possibilities, but without... strength (?) ... luck (?) we can never make be what it might be... we cannot feel on the real, authentic track with our life.
The limitations make sure of that, of the "not"-s in one's life. There are many: outer limitations (first the thoughts of them made me create this new post), and inner limitations - the trickiest. For if we may shake ourselves of the false ideas surrounding us socially, we have layer upon layer of delusion on the inside, and many breakthroughs and shedding of a layer prove to be just another new crust, as unsatisfactory as the other.
Even this feeling of unaccomplished, of wasting the time with struggling to grow up, defend oneself from tough situations, with the many mundane activities that seem to go nowhere can be ambiguous: is it a spiritual or mental exhaustion or is it for real a grasp of the difference between what it is and what it could or should be somebody's life?
I will choose the second option, at least for the purpose of this post, based on the same ambivalence I used to have with how things taste. Nothing from the foods I ate as a grown-up tasted objectively great (meaning that here I am not taking into consideration how food tasted after a long time of not eating), and discussing this with others who felt the same I met the theory that the phenomena is due to the changes that distinguish an adult taste buds from a child's. I kind of resigned myself to believe this, until, one day, I traveled in an area new to me and I found the good old tastes in some of the foods there (mind you, moderately expensive foods). My taste buds were OK, yet the food had gradually changed over the years and it basically became slop. Yet the generally accepted belief was that the grownups loose their capacity of enjoying such a basic element of life because ... they became adults. It is easier this way, presenting the fact as a truism would generate no consequences, only limited nostalgia. No panic about where is this world heading, and why generation after generation we feel like we are loosing something instead of gaining...
To get to my initial meaning of layers that I had in mind - it was that of social layers. These, regardless of politics and regime, are pretty well sedimented, and usually those who treat societies as machineries need to be able to count on their sedimentation. Meaning that a person born middle class (if this still exists, although in some countries is considered almost extinguished), it will most likely remain middle class, even if the benefits of this statute will vary over the span of its lifetime. Because it is brought up to think middle class, and the only elevator upwards would be the educational system, which stopped being free long time ago. There are always exceptions, but the way we respond to the medium while being children is so deeply in the core of our personality that we may choose to be different, yet underneath that is the emergency way of thinking and being - the one we developed in.
There are times in history when the societal layers open up "for ventilation", and for a brief period of time people can go up or down, and create a change of life for them (on the outer side) and for their offspring (this time also on the inside). I have seen such "successful" people, unhappy at the core, because they were transplanted in a completely strange medium to the one they have grown up in, yet forcing themselves to look adapted and natural, in order to support this leap for their children. The jump, I think, can be easier when it is a group jump, and those who were once in similar conditions now share the new place in society and also their feeling of eternally being disparaged. Probably that is why some of the simplest types tend to gather their extended family around in such situations, sometimes with negative effects, like for example creating groups of influence, and isles of friends and family that clog the circulation in the new area of work or living they are in. Many of the unpleasant ordinary people that have found themselves thrown into money and functions after living a simple childhood are not mean people to start with - they just don't cope with changing the "layers". Some adapt better their exterior appearance and habits, by copying what they perceive around them in the new surroundings. Some not. Usually when large groups change layers by a twist of history the effects are disastrous, like in the communism experiment. Yet I would rather consider that the communism was a conducted experiment, based on some ideas applied in a very debatable manner, yet ideas, shifted around in order to offer decoys from the feeling of panic generated by the ordinary people who had changed the societal layer.
Take a couple of these historical moments, and one can see how the world is like a huge selector of people. random or not, these changes, these "mix and spread" type moments, leave their marks for the future. What were my many ancestors doing during the world wars? Were they peasants, merchants, soldiers, were they migrating from a land to another? How was their layering, inside and out?
I am not inclined towards genetic determinism, not even social determinism, though it might seem so. I am merely considering what chance does an individual have during its own lifetime of becoming "himself", provided he has first to overcome a disadvantageous role in life? I think there exist waisted spirits or souls just because society is not curious about the "newcomers", but rather obstinately occupied with preserving a pretty inequitable status quo. When some have too much and they got it all figured out for their offspring, for generations, others have nothing and others waist their lives struggling in between, and the bridges between the societal layers have been blown off or reduced to the abilities of being slick and pretense in order to make believe, clearly we are over the top going downhill as mankind, or someone is foolish enough to play God here on Earth.
Those who have should not be obsessed with how dangerous it is to relinquish some of their money and power in order to ensure a common ground of well being for the entire bottom layer, and in order to open up some permanent channels in between all the classes. History will repeat itself otherwise, and with unpleasant hiccups would mix and spread again. Or maybe this is being prevented by false pressure valves - that is also possible. But even so, gradually we will be out of great minds and great souls. Already many who are at the top smell like "plastic", are fake and boring. Many of the remaining thinkers are bored and dry, or tend to resemble walking computers. Keeping the lid tightly closed produces this infusion of non-quality and boredom. Fear is the base of this status quo enforced on society, the fear of those who are not happy being where they shouldn't be, yet they would rather feel lavishly secure than try to discover their real place in life and leave their post to maybe another, whose destiny is to be there.
Of course I am biased. I think with my personal brain, therefore subjective. I witnessed a societal upheaval during my life, real or apparent, i tend to say both, in different percentages, but I could not change my layer... not the right age. I was just a spectator, and then the valve closed, and maybe I did not wanted to accept how stuck I am for years and years. Stuck in my way of thinking, in my limited schooling which waisted years of my life during which the best results were redundant, because nobody followed through; stuck in my ideas, in my impressions about myself, in my hopes. then later in my dreams who faded away and became poorer and poorer. I can't help functioning in a certain way with my mind and soul, but this way is of very little use in the layer I am in.
Or maybe I geographically kid myself, once more, and I am just lonely, in a niche somewhere, where the only advantage was that look towards some things, rather than being immersed in the same things with no time to look or think too much.
Oh well, it is spring once again, and the sun is still free, and the vast and useless information on the Internet creates the empty sensation of community with the world - like a fool's gold...
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Monday, 20 May 2013
Monday, 15 April 2013
Spring - question mark
The spring is late this year. But nature has no clocks ticking - just the inner mechanisms reacting to the right temperature and humidity. It has started its blooming and sprouting and flowering regardless of the delay. Sometimes one can't even feel the smell of flowers because of the air pressure or some other factor, yet the flowers are here and they go by their rules... they do not analyze or wait for permission, they are not hip or trend or whatever. Nature tries to keep the flows of life as they should be...
Some put animals higher than people, and find comfort in nature while rejecting the humans. Not the most balanced option, as both parties have their place on Earth. Both can be constructive and destructive, both suffer or thrive and both meet on the same grounds. One might say that only the perpetual dynamic matters, the movement forward, creating energy, like in a battery system... others might say that it is not the end that count, but the journey. Maybe it is both: the way the journey looks determines how will the result look like. The entire nature, humans included, start by being in a way and end up by transforming throughout the journey... the future is creating itself every moment.
Where is the thread that must be followed in this ambiguous travel, then? It does not come from the outside, rather from the inside, answering an outside call. Like the flowers blooming according to the weather, not to the calendar, people feel the mysterious movements of the world around them.
Yet the ambiance is noisy and noisier: all the different types of "should" and "shouldn't" - s, all the recipes for moral, ethics, success and feeling well, all the voices through all the means of communication are outsiders pushing into the special relationship each and every person should have with its own surroundings.
I find it hard to listen to the inner sounds and movements of all events, in fact harder and harder, since the thoughts that arise from such perceptions are blocked by the clichés rooted in the mind of an adult. You think of well being and bang! - a sum of recipes are provided by the memory that in fact have no real meaning since they are not self-produced. There is such thing as too much information, taking away the chance of discovering by yourself a way, a thought, a mystery of life. And in the huge amount of information available on almost every question of life - slippery are the slopes of deceiving the human psyche.
Being original is almost impossible - connected to the Internet of not. One can come with a new idea in isolation and yet find out later that it has already been produced elsewhere in the world. Some say that it is no wonder since all the humans are connected through an invisible field and so on. But if all has already been discovered, why do so many problems linger in the world? And the conspiracy theory might be a prompted answer, yet we are not living at the bottom of a bucket and I would rather think that all cannot be suppressed, controlled and planned. life must be greater that this.
The only logical answer that I choose to believe is that not all have been discovered, that there is still need and place for originality, by this meaning more than just a new mix of all that has already been: information, data, symbols, legends, etc. This vicious circle of encoding a view over the world that humans have been practicing in order to keep some dry info has grown far out of proportions and is shadowing the reality. We are mistaking some notes on the Universe passed on from generation to generation for the truth and even though the things are not working well, some are stubborn to keep this illusion.
People structured in this way are dogmatics, regardless of them being religious or scientific. They forget, or choose to forget, that the more one "reads", accumulates info fed to him, the less he really knows, and having worked so hard at accumulating and encoding, they want to keep the stakes high and not allow others who haven't followed this path to have a say. As history is longer and longer, soon the average human life won't be enough for such a person to go through all the study needed... it seems a pointless way. Of course, to help on this approach on knowledge, probably such scholars would have someday (if they don't already) computer chips in their heads to speed up the accumulating process, or pass the task to the quantic computer.
If spring would have to take the time of going through all the information related to all the other springs, maybe we would not even have any spring at all.
Nature does not keep museums or databases as such, it transforms and passes on only the viable and compressed things that are useful for life. No use crying over spilled milk - nostalgia is rather human. This does not praise destruction or nihilism - yet the dinosaurs are gone and the humans did not campaign for their rights, continents have disappeared a no "Save the continents" association has made any waves. The preoccupation for lost things is ultimately egocentric, and it motivates itself through the guilt of humans for singlehandedly destroying nature for profit. For the humans go over the necessary limits, this is right. Yet, they keep on doing the same mistakes while putting up the protest mechanism for what has been lost and for what is still being destroyed. How could we call this duplicity? Good and evil? Destroyers and saviors? Well, not really. We can see what the destroyers are destroying, but what ARE the so called saviors saving? They say that the aim is a change in the way we are thinking, yet the solutions proposed are self-sabotaging: the world need a compromise in the question of how humans affect the environment. Yet, all it gets is a bunch of new clichés and actions plans and portfolios, like a theatrical play with a very intricate script that covers a lack of real solutions. So, the human nature pushes forward and transforms its surroundings in a similar way to nature, the only difference being the produce. What are we striving to produce? the nature is adapting and tends to produce a permanent basis for itself to exist. Volcanoes erupt, lava cools down and is fertile, and then a new vegetation appears...
Societies grow, thrive, then disappear, humans expand and collapse their existence, then it all starts again. Are we talking cycles?
A positive answer generates at least sadness in humans, with their quest for immortality. Who would peacefully accept the idea of cycle, of life turning into dust all the progress for the humans to start over again? A more humble human society that the one walking on this earth now... People who have lived happier lives and could accept the idea of such a big change. But we are taught to make sacrifices over sacrifices, or accept that happiness is an unattainable goal in the view of a future bliss. Some even had the clever idea of moving this bliss beyond the earthly existence. And this creates a thirst, an immense expectation, written in the minds and souls of millions of people. Nobody thinking like this would embrace the idea of cycles.
Maybe it is a hoax. Some have more and some have less, and to validate this lack of balance, those who have more complain and look busy and those who have less are taught to believe in all kinds of unverifiable ideas. Yet no one can have an equal and identical life. Each should find happiness in discovering its particular place and goal. Like in nature, some plants are made for heights, some for waters, some for sunny spots and some for shade. or rather have adapted themselves for these conditions long time ago, and they require over ages the same conditions. Well, they also keep on adapting... Maybe it is cycles, and after the lava cools the plants whose seeds have resisted will start all over again.
Yet, humans are more than plants. Some have discovered that if their will is strong enough it can push ideas into reality and change all around them. Good and bad. I wonder if one could estimate which prevails...
And here the natural rules are sped up and superseded. If, for the base set of rules, nature could be seen as a guide, for the new set of rules where should we look to? Have humans gone too far in unmapped territory? or the maps exist and known only by some?
Don't know. At eye level, we (still) have nature and seasons. We have a delayed Spring, and a limited span of years in an average human lifetime. I would say modern humans are rather unhappy or moderately content with their lives. Like long forgotten memories we dream unclear dreams of better times, of friendlier and easier lives. There is no going back, yet there should be a reunion of modern science and society with old fashioned simpler happiness. honest, not pretend.
We have the ability to forget what is not useful, to create and be original if our minds are not hackled and stressed all the time. Each of us stands completely alone in his pains and thoughts and destiny, yet we are connected to the others through the outside manifestations of out presence and through the energy of our mind. We affect the others through ripple-like effects, but we need to decide in our solitude and honesty how to navigate this world of circles. And when we are stuck... I would like to thing that it is part of the natural ways and not the effect of the will of others who have Godlike delusions.
Some put animals higher than people, and find comfort in nature while rejecting the humans. Not the most balanced option, as both parties have their place on Earth. Both can be constructive and destructive, both suffer or thrive and both meet on the same grounds. One might say that only the perpetual dynamic matters, the movement forward, creating energy, like in a battery system... others might say that it is not the end that count, but the journey. Maybe it is both: the way the journey looks determines how will the result look like. The entire nature, humans included, start by being in a way and end up by transforming throughout the journey... the future is creating itself every moment.
Where is the thread that must be followed in this ambiguous travel, then? It does not come from the outside, rather from the inside, answering an outside call. Like the flowers blooming according to the weather, not to the calendar, people feel the mysterious movements of the world around them.
Yet the ambiance is noisy and noisier: all the different types of "should" and "shouldn't" - s, all the recipes for moral, ethics, success and feeling well, all the voices through all the means of communication are outsiders pushing into the special relationship each and every person should have with its own surroundings.
I find it hard to listen to the inner sounds and movements of all events, in fact harder and harder, since the thoughts that arise from such perceptions are blocked by the clichés rooted in the mind of an adult. You think of well being and bang! - a sum of recipes are provided by the memory that in fact have no real meaning since they are not self-produced. There is such thing as too much information, taking away the chance of discovering by yourself a way, a thought, a mystery of life. And in the huge amount of information available on almost every question of life - slippery are the slopes of deceiving the human psyche.
Being original is almost impossible - connected to the Internet of not. One can come with a new idea in isolation and yet find out later that it has already been produced elsewhere in the world. Some say that it is no wonder since all the humans are connected through an invisible field and so on. But if all has already been discovered, why do so many problems linger in the world? And the conspiracy theory might be a prompted answer, yet we are not living at the bottom of a bucket and I would rather think that all cannot be suppressed, controlled and planned. life must be greater that this.
The only logical answer that I choose to believe is that not all have been discovered, that there is still need and place for originality, by this meaning more than just a new mix of all that has already been: information, data, symbols, legends, etc. This vicious circle of encoding a view over the world that humans have been practicing in order to keep some dry info has grown far out of proportions and is shadowing the reality. We are mistaking some notes on the Universe passed on from generation to generation for the truth and even though the things are not working well, some are stubborn to keep this illusion.
People structured in this way are dogmatics, regardless of them being religious or scientific. They forget, or choose to forget, that the more one "reads", accumulates info fed to him, the less he really knows, and having worked so hard at accumulating and encoding, they want to keep the stakes high and not allow others who haven't followed this path to have a say. As history is longer and longer, soon the average human life won't be enough for such a person to go through all the study needed... it seems a pointless way. Of course, to help on this approach on knowledge, probably such scholars would have someday (if they don't already) computer chips in their heads to speed up the accumulating process, or pass the task to the quantic computer.
If spring would have to take the time of going through all the information related to all the other springs, maybe we would not even have any spring at all.
Nature does not keep museums or databases as such, it transforms and passes on only the viable and compressed things that are useful for life. No use crying over spilled milk - nostalgia is rather human. This does not praise destruction or nihilism - yet the dinosaurs are gone and the humans did not campaign for their rights, continents have disappeared a no "Save the continents" association has made any waves. The preoccupation for lost things is ultimately egocentric, and it motivates itself through the guilt of humans for singlehandedly destroying nature for profit. For the humans go over the necessary limits, this is right. Yet, they keep on doing the same mistakes while putting up the protest mechanism for what has been lost and for what is still being destroyed. How could we call this duplicity? Good and evil? Destroyers and saviors? Well, not really. We can see what the destroyers are destroying, but what ARE the so called saviors saving? They say that the aim is a change in the way we are thinking, yet the solutions proposed are self-sabotaging: the world need a compromise in the question of how humans affect the environment. Yet, all it gets is a bunch of new clichés and actions plans and portfolios, like a theatrical play with a very intricate script that covers a lack of real solutions. So, the human nature pushes forward and transforms its surroundings in a similar way to nature, the only difference being the produce. What are we striving to produce? the nature is adapting and tends to produce a permanent basis for itself to exist. Volcanoes erupt, lava cools down and is fertile, and then a new vegetation appears...
Societies grow, thrive, then disappear, humans expand and collapse their existence, then it all starts again. Are we talking cycles?
A positive answer generates at least sadness in humans, with their quest for immortality. Who would peacefully accept the idea of cycle, of life turning into dust all the progress for the humans to start over again? A more humble human society that the one walking on this earth now... People who have lived happier lives and could accept the idea of such a big change. But we are taught to make sacrifices over sacrifices, or accept that happiness is an unattainable goal in the view of a future bliss. Some even had the clever idea of moving this bliss beyond the earthly existence. And this creates a thirst, an immense expectation, written in the minds and souls of millions of people. Nobody thinking like this would embrace the idea of cycles.
Maybe it is a hoax. Some have more and some have less, and to validate this lack of balance, those who have more complain and look busy and those who have less are taught to believe in all kinds of unverifiable ideas. Yet no one can have an equal and identical life. Each should find happiness in discovering its particular place and goal. Like in nature, some plants are made for heights, some for waters, some for sunny spots and some for shade. or rather have adapted themselves for these conditions long time ago, and they require over ages the same conditions. Well, they also keep on adapting... Maybe it is cycles, and after the lava cools the plants whose seeds have resisted will start all over again.
Yet, humans are more than plants. Some have discovered that if their will is strong enough it can push ideas into reality and change all around them. Good and bad. I wonder if one could estimate which prevails...
And here the natural rules are sped up and superseded. If, for the base set of rules, nature could be seen as a guide, for the new set of rules where should we look to? Have humans gone too far in unmapped territory? or the maps exist and known only by some?
Don't know. At eye level, we (still) have nature and seasons. We have a delayed Spring, and a limited span of years in an average human lifetime. I would say modern humans are rather unhappy or moderately content with their lives. Like long forgotten memories we dream unclear dreams of better times, of friendlier and easier lives. There is no going back, yet there should be a reunion of modern science and society with old fashioned simpler happiness. honest, not pretend.
We have the ability to forget what is not useful, to create and be original if our minds are not hackled and stressed all the time. Each of us stands completely alone in his pains and thoughts and destiny, yet we are connected to the others through the outside manifestations of out presence and through the energy of our mind. We affect the others through ripple-like effects, but we need to decide in our solitude and honesty how to navigate this world of circles. And when we are stuck... I would like to thing that it is part of the natural ways and not the effect of the will of others who have Godlike delusions.
Friday, 8 March 2013
A day from the 80s - naive essay
The spring brought a lot of excitement, a kind of flutter in the air. Less clothes to carry around, new shoes, the flowers...
The first urban flowers I remember were the Forsythias
http://www.wunderground.com/wximage/viewsingleimage.html?mode=singleimage&handle=NodWag&number=27
Not the most spectacular, but when in out park the bushes turned yellow, it was spring for sure. We always brought back three small flowered branches- and always talked about how it was not allowed to take flowers from the park... yet the flowered branches lighted up the room and the winter had to leave the house.
Spring cleaning meant that is warm enough to take the carpets out and wash the thick window drapes - they would dry and catch the fresh air of the outside in between their fibers. March was tricky and it could always turn a bit colder, so we hunted down the best day for spring cleaning and changed the atmosphere in the house.
The parks were the main attraction. From one day to another the leaves would push through their buds and the flowers would fill the trees. They competed with one another to flower, yet they lasted longer that today, once blossomed...
The sky was clear, and the next destination was the farmers' market. Green onions, red radishes, lettuce and spinach... the market was wet and noisy and brought the smells of the earth into the city. I did not particularly like some of the edible spring signs, but there could be no discussion about it... Even more exotic salads like the ones made from baby daffodil leaves were on the table. Then the new spring potatoes, boiled, salted, prepared with butter and dill. Then the new tomatoes, heavenly with the salted shepherds' cheese, if there was any left from the winter.
The fruits were more like the beginning of the summer.
The sweet smell of linden flowers was the month of May.
The long walks in the warm sun, the feeling of being new altogether, like the entire nature.
The afternoons were not so happy, they reminded us of the winter, still a bit too close. In the house, the rooms were almost in the dark, yet it was light enough for eating... it was a bit cold too, compared with getting out in the sun during the day. the room had an echo.
The ladybugs and another red and black bugs invaded the paths in the park.
It was spring and no one was in a hurry - not even nature.
The first urban flowers I remember were the Forsythias
http://www.wunderground.com/wximage/viewsingleimage.html?mode=singleimage&handle=NodWag&number=27
Not the most spectacular, but when in out park the bushes turned yellow, it was spring for sure. We always brought back three small flowered branches- and always talked about how it was not allowed to take flowers from the park... yet the flowered branches lighted up the room and the winter had to leave the house.
Spring cleaning meant that is warm enough to take the carpets out and wash the thick window drapes - they would dry and catch the fresh air of the outside in between their fibers. March was tricky and it could always turn a bit colder, so we hunted down the best day for spring cleaning and changed the atmosphere in the house.
The parks were the main attraction. From one day to another the leaves would push through their buds and the flowers would fill the trees. They competed with one another to flower, yet they lasted longer that today, once blossomed...
The sky was clear, and the next destination was the farmers' market. Green onions, red radishes, lettuce and spinach... the market was wet and noisy and brought the smells of the earth into the city. I did not particularly like some of the edible spring signs, but there could be no discussion about it... Even more exotic salads like the ones made from baby daffodil leaves were on the table. Then the new spring potatoes, boiled, salted, prepared with butter and dill. Then the new tomatoes, heavenly with the salted shepherds' cheese, if there was any left from the winter.
The fruits were more like the beginning of the summer.
The sweet smell of linden flowers was the month of May.
The long walks in the warm sun, the feeling of being new altogether, like the entire nature.
The afternoons were not so happy, they reminded us of the winter, still a bit too close. In the house, the rooms were almost in the dark, yet it was light enough for eating... it was a bit cold too, compared with getting out in the sun during the day. the room had an echo.
The ladybugs and another red and black bugs invaded the paths in the park.
It was spring and no one was in a hurry - not even nature.
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