Melancholia

The morning dawned on a clear, crisp start-of winter day. The white horse by the river (I affectionately call it my unicorn) was cold so it was wearing one layer of some kind of horse coat around its back and belly. It wasn't looking particularly white today, its legs and neck were covered in slight yellow. Its companion the black horse, which would usually graze on the same ground, was nowhere to be seen. There are a few patches of lawn fenced off for these two horses at the point where my bus rides down to the river, as a backdrop a narrow bend in the river, and on the other side a hill with a little castle ruin perched on it. Sometimes a ship carrying construction materials glides around the bend up the river smoothly, causing the water to ripple beautifully. Wolfgang Krieger and similar names are written on the bow.

The snow yesterday had left its powder on the coniferous trees on the hills and as I took the train to town I realized what a beautiful morning it was, with icy hills and golden light shining on the tree tops that were not completely bare yet. The passengers' faces, flushed with the cold, revealed that a new season was beginning. Features shone out clearly on the pale skin, with blushes on the cheeks and a freshness in the air that only winter can bring. I found myself wondering why the same is not true of February. Lighting conditions had to be similar, I concluded after a moment's thought, first wondering why I did not have the later months of winter in my mind as equally beautiful. Probably the leaves make up a lot of the effect.

The change of seasons is an ever-current topic in the temperate zones. My mind is full of the glow of the previous season and as I move into the day looking forward to the new season I realize with a pang of pain that the old one must end first. Movement means leaving things behind, with memories trickling and fading away like arpeggio chords on a piano.

Fearless

My last few posts have been so limited in their language and content. I always think I need to produce beautiful sentences inside this text box. Then finally I end up crippling what I am saying by form instead of writing whatever comes to my mind.

How do so many blog authors and journalists write countless articles on "Self improvement" and then publish those things? If I write something like that my first thought on re-reading it tends to be "Ugggh. What a pile of disgusting crap. Hang on, let me go and throw up, then I will be back again." 

Some real stuff happens, but it is too unspectacular to be writing about. For instance: "Today I was sitting on the floor in my room, working on an assignment. I was feeling cold all the while even though I had already had a bath and put on warm clothes. Then I realized winter was closer than I thought, and decided to put on a pair of leggings in addition to my jeans. As soon as I had done that, I started feeling a lot warmer and comfortable."

Who will read this kind of crap?

How to fool astrology

About two years have been spent by me in believing that the signs of the zodiac have some meaning in our lives. It started out with personality first. Meeting a new person was OK, but I would feel that I had actually met them only once I knew when their birthday was according to the Roman calendar. Once I came to know of it, either by chance or by deliberation, my mind would go "Oh... so that is who they are and that is why they are the way they are". One of the advantages is that remembering birthdays became extremely easy for me. But I think that more often than not, the knowledge of their zodiac sign has tampered with my acquaintance with this person and biased me. Sorry folks, I hope you are not upset.

Not always, though. Sometimes I had more interaction with the people than I could infer from their sun sign. That was lucky; I actually got to know them. But a person who was elusive or who did not seem keen on interacting with me was usually "explained away"- "She's an Aries"- or "Oh, Capricorns are bound to be vain", or whatever.

At some point the urge to defeat this habit arose in my mind. I have stopped asking people for their birth dates- but even then ended up knowing some (time does pass after all and peoples' birthdays keep happening). But now I think I have caught hold of the ultimate weapon against astrology. When you see a horoscope for the coming week (or for the week that just passed, doesn't really matter), in case your eyes jump to your own star sign the first thing, follow your eyes and read your "forecast". Then compare it to what actually happened last week. Quite accurate, isn't it? Now move to another star sign that you "sympathize with" and read that as well. Hmm... actually much the same, isn't it? It happens often enough that every star sign's forecast roughly matches what happened to me last week. I am then able to dismiss the horoscope as "nonsense" and forget about star signs for a couple of minutes. I lose interest in the horoscope.

This new habit is helpful. Every time I am sitting in the bus, my mind occupied less than it would like to be, drifting away into comparisons of people's behaviour, I am able to tell myself : "This is bullshit. Stop now." Amazingly my mind actually listens.

Escapism

This week the Ylvis brothers have been on my mind. Their videos "The Fox", "Stonehenge", "Jan Egeland" and "Pressure" are captivating. All of them are absolutely absurd and random and the songs have the most catchy tunes and if I don't watch out I'm going to be stuck with an earworm for weeks to come... Been showing the videos to anybody who will listen. But why, actually? I can't explain it. While some are absolutely gaga about the videos, others can't seem to see the joke. 

I have this theory that the people who like the videos tend to be escapist and not firmly rooted in their lives. Maybe if you feel you are not reaching your potential you have a greater appreciation for nonsense?

Love

I do not have words to express my love for you but I do have a few composers who have expressed themselves on this matter already. Could Mozart have composed his 25th Symphony if he had not loved?

Staying happy

Maybe you too have felt that the people who are the mainstay of your life don't really care that much about your little whims and fancies, and about your feelings on day-to-day matters. They can be impatient with you and show double standards in the little things if you live together. If they are your friends, they can be totally non-apologetic when they fail to realize you have been upset the other evening. If they are your classmates they might just fail to warn you about the quiz coming up in the course you were serious about. If you are the type to feel a temporary surge of anger, sadness or indignation, but then eventually forgive them and behave in an accommodating manner, then you might ask yourself, "Why can't I have others do as I please? I am sure there are people who are always pleased by those around them." You might even tell yourself "Why the hell am I so kind and forgiving? I want to be really bitchy once in a while". Yet you don't tend to change your behaviour in the long run, because... let's face it. That is just how you are made and you can't change your nature just in order to feel more successful or in control. In important matters you guard your territory well but in these little issues you leave it alone.

What is really lovely is that for every ten or twenty people who pay you less attention than you would like, there will be one who does really understand what you might be feeling. You have friends who show you who you are without intending to. They are able to make you see yourself the way you would like to. They see maybe not even you but some kind of rugged cuteness hidden beneath your flaky exterior, and they care enough to share it with you. Maybe they just want a laugh. In such moments you don't feel the need to change.

Lounge playlist

This one is for the evenings when you want to wind down from the day, ponder on your existence, recover from disappointment, set the mood for a friendly chat, enjoy a drink together, have a silent candlelit dinner with little or no conversation, gaze at your partner or spouse, gain mental heights and generally feel infinity. Not suited for "boring" waiting rooms, elevators and cafes.

1. Porcupine Tree: Synesthesia
2. Led Zeppelin: No Quarter
3. Led Zeppelin: Ten Years Gone
4. John Lennon: My Mummy's Dead
5. Guy: Let's Chill
6. Lynyrd Skynyrd: Tuesday's Gone
7. Creedence Clearwater Revival: Proud Mary
8. Metallica: The Unforgiven III
9. Led Zeppelin: When The Levee Breaks
10. Dire Straits: Sultan of Swing
11. Linkin Park: New Divide
12. Dire Straits: Calling Elvis

Koyal sound

Just heard the sound of the koyal bird on the phone. It touched me so much.

Bloated

So many people love and adore you to pieces. Start believing them.

Move from aspiring to striving- how not to act

Time and again I realize that I am a mere beginner when it comes to understanding the way I act. In the ideal case, a human being is composed of several layers and knows this too.

Here are some definitions from the Oxford dictionary:

ASPIRE: verb

To direct one's hopes or ambitions towards achieving something

STRIVE: verb

To make great efforts to achieve or obtain something

From this what do I conclude? The difference between aspiring and striving lies in action. Actions can arise from various sources. For me personally when I am aware that an action will lead me to achieve something that I aspire towards, I know that I should perform it. But this means I need to first know what I aspire towards. Then I need to know which actions lead to this goal. All this is on a cognitive level. What about the more subconscious levels that lead to action? For now I will go into the details about when not to take action.

Take for instance the situation of buying a gift for somebody out of obligation. Somebody has called me to their home and I know them slightly but have not really got comfortable with them. However I assume that several benefits are going to ensue from getting comfortable with this person, though I have no clue as to my personal motivation. My mind does not associate any emotional reaction with this person. I am indifferent to this person. Now I hate to say this but such people do exist in my life. Then I decide to buy them their generic impersonal gift. I enter a shop, two hours before I have to go meet them. My attention is focused on what I will wear this evening or on why my friend said that inconsiderate sentence to me yesterday. Or, on another note, it might be focused on how fantastic the question was that I asked in class today morning. In any case the purchase of this present is a mechanical act that has nothing whatsoever to do with things going on in my mind.

At the same time, I want to be the most awesome person around this evening. I want to garner this host's attention and fool them into thinking that I am the visitor who cares most about them. Flattery is essential in order to gain their approval. Therefore my gift has to be something really specific and pertinent to the host's interests. It has to be the perfect "eierlegende Wollmilchsau" as you would put it in German, a creature which provides milk, meat, eggs and wool, all at once. So I start searching for this fantastic thing that has nothing to do with my current thoughts. There it goes. My bowels suddenly develop a life of their own and begin to wriggle inside as if they wanted to emphasize the autonomy of the nervous system governing them. Hey, my dear bowels, sometimes you know more about what I want than my brain does. When this occurs, sometimes I am fortunate enough to realize that I don't give a damn about the person I am visiting, and then I go empty-handed and take a smile instead and sometimes I might actually relax.

So much for not acting. This new bowel strategy has saved many an evening.

Paris and the need for a sheet of white paper

It certainly is an interesting thing to stand somewhere underground in a dark place that smells of petrol and to wait for a train whose arrival is scheduled exact to the minute. Several thousand people do this thing every day in Paris. Given that these tunnels stink and are a fantastic source of infections it is remarkable that they do it so reliably so regularly. It made me wonder after getting back home why Heidelberg does not have any underground transport systems, or even that many underground constructions. It cannot be because of the Neckar river running through, it must rather have something to do with the hills surrounding the city. Maybe it is harder to dig those tunnels under the city. Perhaps it is something much simpler such as "not enough people". But then, a public railway transport system like the one that Heidelberg does have is a fantastic thing. It is like this silk route of the region you stay in, people are busy sitting in the train with their seperate thoughts of what they are going to do today. Professional and social diversity abounds. You can write stories sitting in the suburban trains. The red caterpillars roll noisily along these metal railway tracks and I have always wondered how do they manage to bend the tracks!

Being a breakfast-seeker in Paris is an olfactory trauma. The air smells of butter wherever you go. Croissants drip with butter, cakes are so soft and soggy that you are full before taking your first bite. Then tell me, how come the Parisians are not fat? The salt-and-rye-with-sour-dough-style of bread has not caught on here. The same attitude is applied to facial expressions. People smile at each other rather than autistic-ally staring at the screens of their mobile phones. I had been here ten years ago and felt that this was a city where you could smell the history in every street you turned into. I don't know how I missed the smell of butter back then. Butter and honey are everywhere you go, on people's faces, in the bakeries.

Is Paris the capital of a welfare state? Does this reflect in the average person's activities and expressions?

Paris seemed far away but it was easy to get there. It was almost too easy, like a computer game that offers no proper challenge. All it took was to book a ticket, and be ascertained of accommodation for the duration of my stay. It is so easy to travel and see places, but still out of habit I just stay put. My perceived freedom of movement is great and as of now there are no responsibilities to keep me rooted to the spot. Couple of thousands might be necessary to travel many places. With a bicycle the cost of travel would go down enormously. It would just take somebody to go along, perhaps? Or can I go alone? Where do I want to go? Do I need to train up my body before I start, so that tiredness does not pose a problem?

People smoke weed or ingest or otherwise consume substances hoping to escape from the rut of their routine. This travel fancy might be just one of those things, as it occurs to me. Maybe going on an expedition of a geographical or ecological nature would be more fulfilling, as I would not be traveling aimlessly and therefore I'd be less likely to meander from known modes of consciousness. Purpose is an interesting thing and can be motivating but unless the aim is clear and seems within reach, a human by default does not have the tendency to cling on. You can read anywhere that in order to become better at achieving abstract aims, it is useful to break the aim into bite-sized pieces, each of which seems within reach. It seems more interesting to me however to increase the size of the bites or simply to improve stamina.

I cannot find a satisfactory end to this post to fulfill what Gertrude Stein says in the movie "Midnight in Paris": The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence. In order to do this, I need: An empty existence. Despair. And finally, an antidote. If I were an artist, I would not despair,  for I would have an identity. The emptiness in life is due to the lack of identity, and searching for this identity, be it through traveling or whatever else, is the antidote. Do not give up.

Clouds- an inventory

I have many objects in my custody. My room contains about 700 000 objects of which I use perhaps one tenth on a regular basis. How would life change if I just threw out the rest? Far too much of my time is spent carrying, arranging, looking at, intending to use, preserving, cleaning and feeling frustrated at, OBJECTS. They cloud my perspective and induce a paucity of thought. Over a period of 24 hours I typically think lovely thoughts and then when I sit down to write most of them have evaporated and only the negative, useless burdening thoughts cloud my mind. I ascribe this to the load of things that I allow to co-exist in my life without making sure I really use them.

I've decided that this is an experiment worth trying. Below is the list of objects that I use regularly, which I'd like to share with you for help and better insight. Putting things down is supposed to be useful.

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Category A: 

Pink umbrella, walking boots, trenchcoat, winter jacket, backpack, suitcase

Category B:

Laptop, mobile phone, MP3 player, wallet, keybunch

Category C: 

Pressure cooker, water boiler, pan, lunch box, knife, peeler, mug, plate

Category D: 

Comb, towels, clothes, toothbrush, soap, shampoo, moisturizer, any other makeup items

Category E:

Books, documents that need to be kept

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Ok, after making the list I suspect that even now the number of objects I need is pretty low.

Do give me your suggestions.

Cell Perspective

Yesterday I heard that my body is a mass of about ten trillion cells, and my gut contains ten times ten trillion bacterial cells. My insides literally squirm at that thought. But what is more surprising is that I am not sick all the time. Not all of these weird bacteria are virulent. My body has not only reached a perfect diplomatic arrangement with all the bacterial colonies stating that they are not supposed to hurt. It has even appointed a task force of I don't know how many other cells to ward off non-negotiable virus cells.

As it turned out I was not feeling well this morning. How many of the ten trillion living cells need to get damaged or destroyed for a human body to feel sick?  How much stress to subject a body to in order for the facial skin to erupt in unusual untypical acne boils? What to do when the whole world thinks you can do it all, and you seem to radiate just this message, when in reality what you really long for is the lovely eight or nine hours of sleep? You say so but because you seem to be bursting with energy, the people call you out for more of it all.

Skin speaks volumes. I've been given a fantastic experiment box, which is me. I exert influences of potato chips, excess exercise, too much work, warm water, dehydration, eating too less, anger, laughter, total relaxation or whatever else, and the outcome can be felt immediately afterwards. The sensitivity of this experiment kit is amazing and just as I was thinking the other morning that my kit seems particularly hard to calibrate against colds I learnt of a disease in which the digestive tract is very prone to inflammations. There are autoimmune diseases in which the immune task force of the body attack each other or other cells. A kind of civil war. I laughed at myself for my self-pity at my minor skin boils and cold symptoms.

Autoimmune diseases exist, but so does self-abuse. While this immune system is trying to keep the body in working order, pushing yourself to the limit all the time is a surefire way of damaging yourself. What if whatever you are working towards with all that extra vehemence is just within your reach and you just haven't stretched out your hand to grab hold of it yet?

P.S. If anybody knows of a great remedy to get rid of a particularly large nodule under the skin, do share it with me. :-P

Food

My name is curd rice. My rice was cooked today at lunchtime and placed aside with a lid on top because there was so much of it. It became properly mushy and stuck together in one piece. Then in the evening more rice was made, when the cook suddenly realized there was some left. Some fresh joghurt was added to the old rise, with a pinch of salt. Then everything was mixed and mashed together with enough water and that was it. 

Easy to make and combines with almost anything you have. Good with any spice, vegetable, gravy and I suppose it even tastes good with meat. Leaves you feeling absolutely satisfied and refreshed at the end of the meal. Aids digestion and makes your body produce serotonin. Feels good.

Rain

As the sky turns grey and the drops travel their distance the steadily warmer soil brings forth lush greenery within hours. My mind is like a slate wiped clean of all the debris of past events, family histories and worries. Freshness is all around and the fragrance of the wet soil lingers in the evening. The rain drops cool me down, every single cell in my body. It is time to grow.
Rain is not all romantic. What happens when it rains down on the slopes that have been rid of their vegetation? What happens when the plans you make are broken by forces you did not reckon with? What happens when the earth shows you, yet again, how foolish you are? Run for it. If you have grown stiff with time you will not withstand the rain. You must be a triangular leaf, nested in the corner of the valley, oriented in the direction of the slope, soft to bend, smooth to touch, yet hard to break and difficult to unearth. Then you will survive the rain. Loose soil will be washed down. Jagged rocks get smoothed out. Pebbles grow round in the river. There is a fight going on with every passing drop of water. Just because it cools the ground and the air do not assume the rain is free of violence. 

The Mighty Arms of Atlas

A gentleman named Robert Plant traveled to Marocco in 1975, and then on to Greece, and broke his ankle there. From there he went to  Malibu, California, and wrote a song. He was scared he would never be able to walk again. Were his dreams perforated with visions of having to stand still, like the Atlas mountains in Marocco, like the titan Atlas, and having to hoist immense burdens on his shoulders?

"Wandering and Wandering, What place to rest the search
The mighty arms of Atlas hold the heavens from the Earth"
(Led Zeppelin, Achilles' Last Stand)

Immense plains stretching their way to the horizon. Dear Mr. Plant, let me tell you that your journey has had consequences for me sitting in an old railway wagon factory on another plain, far away from Malibu, far from the Sahara. Take me there with you, where can I meet you? The year is 2013. You have dreamt of war the way I can only dream of dreaming. You guys from Albion have got the point. Hats off.

Pre-emptive versus perceptive

Camera, Lights, Sound. I'm starring in a movie, and guess what? The director of the movie seems to have complete confidence in my acting, scripting and costume design abilities, and my job is to just invent the script as I go on. He has given me no detailed instruction and I find myself rather overwhelmed with this new kind of freedom. The air is fresh and I am relaxed. The buds are blossoming and so is my imagination. I have a vocabulary of the order of 10,000 and I can speak every single flowery word I have ever wanted to. Imagine how many more sentences I can compose using them.

But I am a human being. I have not grown up without experiencing fear. Limitations of logic prevent the best combinations of words and actions. Aesthetics is traded for likeability and spontaneity is forsaken for wit's sake. Silences are used pointedly in order to stay in control. Human attention spans limit the length of the dialogues, the duration of the riotous fests and the depth of my practice. My patience is at an end very soon because I want results to show the rest of the world. Every little doubt that enters my mind is addressed. Did I say there was no script, that I was free to improvise? There is no way to move forwards without seeing where this is going. There has to be an aim, and my cravings describe for me an unattainable goal which lies just beyond my reach. First I deprive myself of the freedom that I have been given by searching for snapshots in my memory, and develop them. There are negatives and then I try to prevent them, to get past them, and I try to make the images happen. They overshadow my horizon and I have given myself a task that it seems impossible to complete without staggering. A world in black and white, complementary colours, what I want is an imprint of what I do not want. I struggle towards this goal and with every step I take, the farther away it moves. My senses deceive me. I smell sweat and the rotting wood.

Tiredness enters my limbs and I begin to slow down. Cannot I move? Resistance is strenuous. I am afraid of losing, so I do not allow myself to stop. 

I do not even have a choice anymore because I have already stopped. The minute I stop, the script ceases to exist. Attached to my shoulders are two arms, and to my hips, two legs. In my field of vision there is a cow. It has spots that seem to have furry edges. I walk towards it, it has very shiny horns. It is sitting in the grass re-chewing its meal while its jaws move slowly, swinging their contents left to right, to and fro. It is not in the least in a hurry and the sun shines on its back, while it lazily flicks its tail toward its hip bones and swishes away a fly or two. Mooo.

I am wearing a straw hat and the sun is shining on my arms and shoulders. I am wearing my favourite pink bell-bottomed trousers with my shirt. I clamber onto the cow's back and pet its neck. The cow runs out of the frame with heavy steps waddling its backside the way only cows can do; it runs out of the camera's perspective, carrying me on its back. 

Hey Diddle Diddle

The cat and the fiddle

The cow jumped over the moon

The little dog laughed 

To see such fun

And the dish ran away

With the spoon.

This new script is much more pleasing to me. But who's writing it? I certainly haven't written it before it happens. It is happening and I am a part of it. It is being written down as it happens. And at every turn there is a new surprise.

Scissors

When the present presents whatever presents it has for you in unseeming wrappers, holding yourself back from beholding their content is letting the past hold you back while the present flies past.
Longed for the past for long enough.
If the past lets you fly now, then I'll pass you a pair of scissors so you can cut and unfold the wrappers holding your present.

Song

Singing is simple. It is done by opening one's mouth and producing sounds as one would do to speak, only with a different tune. Some songs have lines whose syllables need to be emphasised at other points than the ones at which the tune permits. These lines of lyrics can be irritating.
It is possible to sing sounds in a foreign language without knowing what they mean. Humans come with a tune memory in the default version and all it takes to activate this tune memory is a good amount of listening experience, preferably at an early age. If humans come without this tune memory they may not mind it because they cannot sense when they are singing off key. However, other humans around them are likely to know.
Singing is an expression of uninhibitedness. Humans who do not feel comfortable in their bodies usually do not feel free to sing and dance in front of others,either.

Slumber

The sun's rays are dancing on the wall outside the window. They trace lines along the bricks in the wall and cast gentle shadows along the edges of the creeper vine. Birds twitter and beckon the sleeping souls out onto the street. Soon the light is drenching the road, bathing the landscape in colours it has not seen for weeks.

A girl lies on her bed in this street, awake. Her skin has breathed the air of the dawn. She does not have a mirror but she knows that today something is unusual. She has to go out and meet them. They are out there waiting for her and they are armed. All she has are her two feet and her conversation, and with these she supposes she will accompany them. She is not coming back. She rises from her bed and splashes water on her face. Her white gown ripples down to her knees and her hair flows down her shoulders. There is a beat of music as she leaves her doorstep to depart. There is no lock on her front door and she leaves it open.

The dark tar under her slippers feels like rubber and her feet are like springs as she skips down to the kissing-gate leading to the sidewalk. Nobody is there yet. She can look around once more and her eyes drink the blue sky. The air is thick with the fragrance of grass and flowers. There is water flowing nearby in the river. Sudenly sleep is overcoming her again. There is soft shade under the clump of trees across. Green grass welcomes her to lie down and enjoy her slumber.

While she slumbers, the years pass. The grass grows warmer and warmer, then colder and colder and freezes over. Snow covers her face while she sleeps. Little children play on the gentle slopes of the lawn and ducks and other birds waddle along the river bank.