I read the news today, oh boy...

Nothing here. Just a reminder of how trivial our life can be in comparison to everything else in the world.

Something here though. A good friend of mine has given me the opportunity, freedom and responsibility to express myself freely on whatever I want in his excellent (and quite esoteric) blog. This allows me to go over the restrictions I've placed on myself in terms of what goes into my blog.

See, think and judge for yourself. Always.


A Day in Life

I read the news today oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They'd seen his face before
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords.

I saw a film today oh boy
The English Army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
but I just had to look
Having read the book.
I'd love to turn you on

Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late.
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke,
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream

I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
I'd love to turn you on

Maybe

"Fresh place for the evening to gather your thoughts"...
Is this what I really need? Quite possibly. You see, things occurring around us cn have a dramatic effect on the processes of thought and feeling. I'm not referring to the obvious ones (i.e. "I'm stressed, I can't think"), but for something quite a bit more longlasting. Intellectual pollution.
It's kind of like your mind (or soul, or whatever, will not go into details now) is a house on the side of a road. It starts being all nice and clean and empty, and then you move in and start filling it up with stuff, memories, people, emotions, chairs (I often feel as I have the need to go into my mind's living room, light up the fireplace and sit on a nice leather armchair I keep close by and either have my eyes wander around there, reflecting on souvenirs from places and people long gone, or just looking out the window into the surrounding world, feeling safe and calm). However, no mind can be unaffected by their surroundings. Some environments can be nice and calm, kind of like having a house in the country, where the passing of time brings with it other creatures to nest in the cracks of the walls and on the roof, and ivy that wraps the house around and transforms it into a mystical place. Other houses seem to be built on busy streets, where the pollution of passers-by dulls the colour of the house, etches away the plaster and, eventually, finds its way inside, into your sanctuary and makes you feel uncomfortable in your own mind.
I shall not say which of the two different environments is the best, as they are just different. And we all know that, living on a busy street may be stressfull and tiring and harmful, but it is also an exciting and self-renewing experience. Also, the ivy might look nice, but it will eventually eat its way through the walls, plus there's no one around you in your little quiet place to interact with. Both places have pros and cons and, luckily, some people's minds best resemble motorhomes, which can be moved around at will (though not always at their owner's will).
The thing is, sometimes you just need to stop working for a while, and deal with your house a bit. You need to. You go out on a morning or an afternoon, and you inspect your house on all sides. You look for cracks, dirt, plaster peeling off, damp patches, and then go about refreshing your house, in which you can then feel more content living. You refresh your house, you refresh yourself, You refresh your mind, you refresh your life.

A fresh place for the evening to gather your thoughts...
I wonder.

Interesting

I find it very interesting that Life has its own little way of producing practical problems to obstruct the deep processes of thought and contemplation. It always seems to happen that way, and you find that the path of creativity, imagination and intellectual quest is suddenly missing a bridge somewhere along the way, and you plunge bak into the depths of triviality, where you have to wait for an unknown length of time in order to build back your strength and your motivation to ascend again where you know you belong. And all this journey you have done, all this struggle to reach halfway between the stars and the gutter, suddenly seems like a pointless and futile attempt, doomed to fail from the very beggining, like Daedalus trying to fly with clipped wings. It's like, in a metaphysical way, we are always bound by intellectual gravity, a force that constantly pulls us down into the lowest levels of a human state of mind. It is a torment, a pre-determined battle between everyday life and higher states of mind, with an outcome determined by the shear strength, persistence and repetition of common events which detract our attention, which stop our ascend and inhibit our climb towards something higher.

I was evicted from my flat yesterday.

Interlude

Quiet. In my head. Music is on, but there is silence in my head. There is calmness in my soul.
I am pleased with my evening. Wishing you the same.

Salvation, Part I

Today, I shall be discussing salvation. Not in the religious context, mind you, but rather in the spiritual, day-to-day-soul-anxiety way. And if this sounds a bit ambituous, and you are filled with doubt and repulsion by my attempt, keep in mind that I don't really care what you think, and we'll all be ok.
So what am I talking about? What, according to my own definitions, is salvation?
I think that, by and large, we are all discontent with certain aspects of our life. Things don't always go our way, people around us affect us with their emotions and actions, and we find ourselves responding to that with mixed feelings. It rarely seems clear what will come out of anything, and if it does, it's usually just wishful thinking. I think it's plain to understand that, if everything turned out to be how we wanted, everyone would be happy and I wouldn't even be talking about salvation. In reality, there's always a multitude of things happening around us that will cause us discomfort, concern, grief, anger etc. Wondering where this is going?
So far, there are two (and a half) approaches to releasing ourselves from this. The first one is to try and change some things around us (to whatever extent we can), and try hard to create a better world for us. The second approach is to try and change ourselves in order not to mind the negative things, or at least so that we are able to let the positive aspects of life dominate our souls, thus feeling bliss. The half approach is, quite simply, not to give a damn about anything. That's all very nice, but does it work? Does any of these theories actually work? Have people really ever achieved happiness through any single (or any combinations) of these approaches.
You guessed it. The answer is "We don't know".
There's a good reason for that, and that is that people really want to achieve happiness, they want to be liberated from their problems, they really, really do. With all their hearts, and all their souls, they do. And this means that they are willing to believe that someone has actually achieved happiness, that someone, somewhere has really been happy, content, care-free, you name it. To accept that no one has done it is to accept defeat and a life of (potential) misery, where the lack of satisfaction will be an ever reoccurring theme comin g back to haunt and hunt them. Us. Whatever.
Is there no answer then? Is there no hope? Is there no end to this?
To put it simply, no. It is hard to compress such a huge issue into one sentence (let alone one word), but not as hard as you think. See, from my point of view, there is a fundamental flaw in this thought process. There is a very basic aspect of nature, mind, spirit, religion, anything, that has been left out. It's like trying to feed your hunger without knowing that it is the lack of food that's causing it.
I think "hunger" is a very good word for what I am trying to describe here. Hunger, yes, but in a spiritual way. It is the need to feel complete, to finally have what makes you happy, to achieve what you want, but...
Since I'm running out of time here, I'll wrap this up by saying this. To me, salvation is not happiness, it's not something that you eventually reach. Salvation is the realisation that we are ever changing beings, with ever changing souls, always moving, evolving, changing, progressing, growing, learning and forgetting, loving and hating, suffering and being happy. It is the ability to experience all this, it is the experience itself that fullfills our souls and gets us going. It is the journey to Ithaki that counts.
But if you think that there is a hole in the column of the truth I am presenting, you are absolutely right.

This is not over yet.

Summer thoughts

There are some beaches where the waves are very infrequent, but when they do come, they are huge and overwhelming, and the only thing you can do is just look at them in awe and get swept away.
There are other beaches, however, that have waves breaking onto them all the time, only these waves are smaller, constant, and when they go they are replaced byt he next ones. These beaches are quieter, nicer, more relaxing, and you can have a really good time on them.
All my life, I've been walking on beaches of the first kind, where the waves would just leave me breathless, where the sights were amazing, where the roar of the sea was too deafening to notice anything else. And I loved it. But you cannot swim in such sea, it's too overpowering. And you cannot pay attention to what's happening around you, because everything else is too small by comparison.
I am on a different beach now. I can swim in the sea. I can enjoy the sunshine. I can pay attention to my surroundings. It's calmer. It's relaxing.

But God, I so miss the roar of the waves!
Please forgive me.

Funny. But not "ha, ha" funny.

Life's a funny thing, isn't it?
It seems to go on regardless of what you want, need, care for, dislike, ignore etc. It's just life, and it controls itself, not bothering to pause for explanations, breaks, time off or anything. And all we ever do is try hard to catch up with it.
I'm not talking about life in general (the usual "oh, life is so complicated, why can't people just get along" etc). I'm talking about our own personal life. My life your life. Their life. Our own little Master and Commander, holding the controls of what we do and what we can have. It's like we're just passengers, enjoying a ride with the driver called "My Life".
Now, before you start saying about how finally, I have been revealed before you for the pseudo-romantic that I am, please keep this in mind: I'm right.
Ha! You never saw that one coming, did you?
Here's the thing. You can try doing a lot of things in your life, and they might or might not work out how you expected. You want one thing, you need another, and you end up getting something else. And then you keep on complaining how your life is out of control, you wish you could change it, blah, blah...
I am providing an alternative to that. Your Life is not out of control. Your Life is in control. You also cannot change Your Life. Your Life has a mind of its own. You can try to influence its decisions and actions, but at the end of the day, it makes its own decisions.
So, instead of trying to inforce things onto Your Life, struggle to make it work the way you want it to, try a different approach. Consider yourself to be in a relationship with Your Life. This means that a) you cannot always get what you want and b) you can get some things, but only if you put your thoughts through in such a way that will make you both happy.
Try to learn what Your Life wants, needs, and is happy with. Then, try to find a compromise that suits you both. In that way, perhaps things can be a bit easier on both of you. And maybe, just maybe, you can learn to enjoy living with it.

Good luck!