Friday, May 31, 2013

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.


Thursday, May 30, 2013

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.





Monday, May 27, 2013

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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
---------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Do give me your suggestions.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

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

Friday, May 10, 2013

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.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

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.