nadaism

Eat Pray Love and a request

2010-10-31T22:17:00.007+01:00

Went to see the movie; they say, as usual, that the book is by far better than the film (I trust them, not going to read it), that it has an 'emotional and spiritual depth' that has been lost in the screen. Anyway, the book is a best-seller and the movie is reasonably successful, that's the point.

While watching it, I was surprised that the story is about a western woman who is looking for enlightenment and says it quite plainly, other characters advice her in an equally blunt way, and the story behind all that is actually romantic. I would more or less understand with all the propositions that those characters make (and not necessarily agree with them), but just amazed with the way they would put it in an unimportant way.

Two possibilities (at least):

- the story is courageous in the way it deals with the subject (a personal quest for peace & balance, call it enlightenment if you like)

- the subject (above) and the words (i.e. the alien words for westerns, e.g. enlightenment) are actually not alien but completely up-to-date, likely to be even an elevator conversation

Is the second more probable?

I have this friend who wrote a novel and tried to be so careful with the subject, not putting into any of his characters mouths anything that sounded too categorical. What a prick!

However he's a good friend, he's starting up a web page (www.laobsesionporlacalma.es) for the still unpublished novel, and asks me for help (he thinks I have readers). Please, could anybody send any photo of a medicine for depression/anxiety/whatever, in which you can read not the commercial name but the compound? (E.g. 'tranquimazin' instead of 'alprazolam'). I know my audience is not necessarily under treatment, small as it is. He wants to use it in a photomontage, to put together in a photo the OM sign and some pills -the obsession for calm, that's his tittle. Ok, it's not very original, actually similar to 'Plato not Prozac' -that's why he wants to use a different medicine name, I guess. Thanks.

Obsession for calm

2010-06-13T16:23:00.004+02:00

That's the tittle of my new novel, "La obesión por la calma".

("of my new novel", sounds as if I had published already a couple of them and this new one was on its way... but I'm sure you don't get me wrong)

After 2 years and a half, I'm happy about the results, even if I see problems and I would be quite different if I started it over now.

The three posts "Other way" were actually a kind of synopsis (some of you might have guessed it), were a trial I was making, since these days I'm figuring out how to approach the editors. And then, I've realised there's a few people at the other side of this blog, who somehow were waiting for me to post something -awesome! I'm not going to say that I feel guilty (I do!) but I do tell myself I should never stop writing in this place.

My dream: my dream is to get the novel published, and then somebody I don't know goes to the bookshops, buys it, reads it, enjoys, and of course I don't get to know...

However, now I realize that dream becomes true with the blog! Maybe my dream is not so allegoric as it seems, and the "buying" part is important to me. Well, it's true I'd like to make a living out of it, since in my dreams I've figured I'll enjoy more when I spend my days writing, compared to going to the office.

Please everybody please don't wake me up!

Other way (cont'd 2)

2010-06-08T22:18:00.003+02:00

... the words of a sage, yes, but he was in South India, very closed to some tropical beaches, and felt like visiting.

He stays in Mysore for 10 days, doing nothing, not visiting even any of the touristic attractions of the city. He meets the recepcionist of his hotel, a humble and consistent Muslim who had studied with some sufi guru in the past, and recommends him to go to visit his master in a village in the middle of nowhere. The place is old and miserable, there's quite a few people waiting, most of them must be neibourghs, but he is not patient enough and leaves.

In a train trip to Bangalore, he meets a PhD on Economics who invites him to his place for lunch; his mum is nosy and offers herself to find a wife for him, also she encourages him to visit her guru. My friend is quite reluctant, but at the end he decides to give it a try; the doctor goes with him and shows him an ashram that glows with devotion and goodness, however the guru is not at the place.

On his way back to Europe, staying at a friend's appartment in London, he shares the couch with a masseur from Australia, who somewhat convinces him to visit his guru. He finally puts his question, he's not very convinced with the answer, anyhow heconcludes he has to find his own way.

A while afterwards, he goes back to his native Switzerland, takes a proper job, and pushes himself to figure out what his direction should be...

Other way (cont'd)

2010-06-02T22:06:00.002+02:00

My friend found this guy while he was getting drunk in a picnic area for a farewell party, in India.

"Do you believe in astronomy?" the guy asked.

"Do you mean astrology, or astronomy?" my friend wondered.

"I mean astronomy, of course!" the guy said. "You know, planets, stars, the Milky Way... Our world is nothing, you and me we mean nothing, we could disappear at any moment! And it would not matter at all! Let's get drunk!"

...

"I like you European!" the guy kept shouting. "I don't know why you come to India, what are you exactly looking for, but you're alright. Except Germans, Germans and Jews, I would kill them all!"As my friend started complaining, he added "remember, it would not mean anything, life and death mean nothing, your life and my life worth nothing!"

And later, "What are you looking for? You must be looking for something. What's your objective? Mine is to kill myself! Rock and roll!"

This guy brought my friend to one of the biggest pilgrimage centers in India, it took them I don't know how many days to reach that place, after 2 days in a train they climbed I don't know many steps to the top of a mountain, followed a queue for 5 hours to reach the image of the god for a few seconds, and then, my friend realised he had not understood or felt anything.

And then, he decided he would look for the wise words of a sage...

Other way

2010-05-30T22:39:00.002+02:00

Today I'd like to talk about a certain guy, but first...

I also write this post to show that I'm not dead, neither the blog -and maybe this way the spam at my last post stops as well. It's funny to see how they are wasting their time in a blog with no posts in the last 6 months and hardly any reader. Although spam does not know, of course, about such a thing as "time wasted".

second...

Funny that I start the post with the statement "Today I'd like to..." if I haven't written for 6 months. And I don't remove the word "Today" but I add this last stament, which is pointless, and instead of removing it, I add this new statement.

Enough.

This guy I know went to an intensive yoga class (3 hours a day starting at sunrise) for six months with an awesome teacher, one of the best in the scene, and he found the classes were very difficult, the teacher a kind of a sage, and yoga somewhat useful.

At the start, he was trying to seduce one of the students: yoga girls are usually so beatiful. He's clumsy with her, and then he turns around to the city and the touristic vibe, full of women he's actually not interested about, as he realises.

Then he joins a Vedanta (hindu scriptures) class. He finds it unintelligible, on one hand, those abstact concepts which are meant to be sensible, and on the other hand, astrology and superstition. He does not find any one-handed teacher, and decides to study on his own; but then any excuse is good to get out and go for a walk.

Finally he stops going to class altogether and meets an indian who takes him to one of the most sacred pilgrimage centers in the country. He's quite amazed with everything he sees, but does not feel there's much spirituality about it.

... I'll carry on tomorrow, about this guy and his "other way"... and don't know when tomorrow is going to be, but I promise it won't be anything closed to six months.

pain, pain, pain

2009-11-04T22:38:00.002+01:00

It's been one month since I came back from Rishikesh. People keep connecting to the blog, which is something that I don't quite understand, anyway if I have just one reader I have a debt, and I must keep on writing. Really, just one reader means you are responsible.

I could have written in India, there's Internet over there. Not afterwards, since I've been so busy. Seems I'm not so responsible.

What happenned in my yoga course? I felt pain. Pain, pain pain. Some people get surprised, they expect yoga to be very different, they expect that I would enjoy it and feel calm. But it depends on your body, for some people the streching is enjoyable, for the stiff bodies it's mostly about pain. Why sould I keep on doing it, then? After 80-something posts during more than 3 years in this blog, did I manage to explain it yet? I hate that saying which goes something like "no pain no gain", anyway.

I stayed in Rishikesh the complete month of my trip to India, even if the yoga pain was growing. I was attending the classes and writing, and meeting very nice students at the course. Just for a couple of days I went to the mountains with the teacher (he goes once a month to relax, and invites a few people to go with him): knowing him was interesting and at the same surprising.

When he practices on his own he is perfection. He may go to a posture for 20 min with no effort, while for anybody normal it would very difficult to keep the same position for a few minutes and keep calm at the same time. He knows controls his body in an amazing way.

But...

Maybe it's me, I'm very naive many times, but I was expecting he would be a very different kind of person, very humble and with no ego. I was surprised to see he is so arrogant, and fussy, and he always goes around with a servant. I guess it is indian mentality also, the locals were treating him as a god.

And he talked so much, sooo much. Sometimes plesant, like a grandfather. But other times I got a headache; pain, once again, everything is around pain.

back to Rishikesh

2009-09-04T08:24:00.004+02:00

In one week I'm having holidays and I'll go to India for one month; my plan is to go back to Rishikesh to a certain yoga teacher, wake up at sunrise and go to class and then for a swim at the Ganges, and spend the rest of the day writing.

Somebody told me yesterday: "ah, very well! you're back to sacred land and sacred water".

Just to be mean I told her that India is also the land of religious conflict, hindus and muslims don't live quite at ease. I started talking about a muslim friend and she showed her annoyance, until I mentioned by chance that my friend had been studying once with a sufi master, then she was delighted. Why? Just because sufi are meant to be mystics? Is it because they tend to speak about understandable matters, e.g. the essence of being?

For a lot of people here in the West, it seems that the more unbelievable it is, the more trustworthy it becomes. It happens with therapies for example, let's take Reiki distance healing: it's enough to appeal for a certain vague energetic concept. (A reasoning more of less like this, "if there is everything in the universe is energy, why is is you cannot believe that somebody may channel that energy at a distance??").

She was taking me in the car and we were looking for a parking place and then she said: "if we desire it humbly and sincerely, we will find one very quickly". And then around the corner there was a free place. She didn't say anything, didn't mention any energetic implications, neither did I.

Why, again? The more unexplainable, the best proven.

Assuming that most those writers claiming they have had mystics experiences really have had them, they are talking about something completely subjective we should not understand at all. Why is it we swallow it so easily and start talking about it? Why is it movies like "Star Wars" or "The Matrix" are not only deep and philosophical but also so "energetic"?

I'm sorry for my bad mood this morning. It must be I urgently need my holidays. One week to go!

(pd- By the way, I honestly believe there is a lot you do in the way to face up to life that changes reality, however I've never weighted if it had any effects on free parking places.)

some writers should not write

2009-07-02T21:59:00.004+02:00

There's Internet and everybody may write in here and say whatever they feel like, no need to apologize afterwards. That's me, for example. For these, for us, it's not so important if there's anything really to say, and if there is, it does not quite matter if it is understood. It's better when it is, of course, but not mandatory.

Now imagine there's a writer who has something to say, whose knowledge could be essential for somebody else. This writer could be a philosopher, for example, who has been thinking about a subject for so long (for his whole life he's been a thinker), who writes a book and publishes it, and gets it translated, since abroad they've also figured he's saying something crucial... but then, who buys it?, and whomever does buy it and tries to read it, finds out it's so dense and difficult that it is quite impossible to understand. And the message gets lost, even if the writer was a sage.

For example I'm thinking about Sloterdijk, (whom I've quoted here sometimes). Would it be better if the good man, instead of writing the book himself, gets in touch with a novelist, let's say with three of them, and the four spend a month together talking, so that the thinker makes sure the others have understood, and only then the others write the book. Maybe the few scholars that used to read the original would be displeased, but what about the rest.

The other day I went to a lecture called "happiness and philosophy". It was great, however while I was listening I said to myself, why do I have the feeling they're explaining the usual, only with different words? And on my way back at the tube I kept wondering and wondering and finally this is the best conclusion I've got: it is me, who is actually hearing always the same. I only hear what I know already.

Probably that's my problem with Sloterdijk: there's no way to put his words into ideas I already know. I can only guess he's saying basically the same as the others, but I cannot be certain. And it is so distressing not to know.

first communion

2009-05-30T17:59:00.004+02:00

Back to my hometown for the first holy communion of my nephew. Yesterday I went to my sisters' place to say hi, he asked me I had any present for him, I reminded him I had already sent some money which was used I was told as a contribution to buy a laptop, and he remembered, he actually knew the exact amount I had given, and showed me in. While the computer was starting up, he made a demonstration of a new karate stroke he had learned, shouting "that's the way christians defend ourselves!"

It took me quite some time to understand who was he referring to; christians of course are we. I did not answer with the retort that came to my mind, nor I tried to provoke him; he had just been to confession and he's supposed to stay clean of bad deeds until tomorrow, so that he may take the host. His mum showed me a photo album they had made, the images of the dressed-up child in such contrived postures that will surely make him blunt when he is grownup. I told my sister she could even consider using them as a blackmailing, "if you don't do as I say I will show around the pictures of your first communion!"

When I did it, myself I was not very happy. I had managed to skip the whole catechesis and only the very last day I went to the priest; he was quite upset with me but at least I was there for the rehearsal, in which we practiced how to go from the corridor to behind the altar and back, all the time forming nice queues ordered by our heights. Height ordering was very important for some reason. The day after, the big day of the performance, I made a mistake and broke the height line, and the priest was so angry. Anyway, I never saw him again.

I asked my sister; height arrangement seems to be still important nowadays. The priest of my nephew had apologized in advance, since he had started the rehearsals one month before and it could be that in the meantime some of the kids had shot up and the height order would not be respected anymore.

For the rest, there are differences as well: they've prepared quite a party after the event, like small scale wedding, including lunch for the family and the friends of the nephew, around 15; even worse, explains my sister, the nephew has been invited to around 15 communions of his friends, and has to bring up a present at each of them, besides everything happens in around one month and thus there are some he cannot assist to because of overlapping.

My mum has been this morning in the garden pickup up some rose petals, and since there were not enough rosebushes, some other flowers as well. Tomorrow first thing is to lay them at the outside of the house for my nephew so that he steps on them when he comes out to join a kind of procession which goes from the town hall to a chapel at the outskirts of the village, and then back to the big church. This is a sort of tradition at the place where my sister lives. Also, a band follows and plays grandiose music.

I don't know if I have to carry on, I hope I have made my point already.

(By the way, I'm relieved: it's been around two months from my last post and the weekly number of visits is slowly going to zero. Very slowly, though, still makes me wonder about the way Internet works.)

people and numbers

2009-03-28T21:31:00.006+01:00

It's been about a month I haven't posted anything. It seems, according to a meter I included in the blog, during this time I've received around 10 visits a week, from quite different countries: Norway, Spain, USA, France, Malasya, India and Indonesia in the last 20 visits. I guess I don't know most of these readers, since I haven't even been in half of the countries of the list. On the other hand, I know there's a few people (2 or 3) who read itquite regularly. So I wonder.

I wonder why, assuming those visits happen "at random", from people just surfing around, why it is 10 visits a week, on quite a repetitive average, and not 2, or 350. Why not 1 this week and 20 next week.

And it's been 10 a week for months. It got to maybe 15 a week if I added posts more often: 10 seems to be the bottom even if I don't write (even if the blog was empty?)

I've put similar questions to myself about sports, in the past. Take for instance the 100m race: why the top runners are so closed, say from 9.7 to 10 seconds for the 8 people who take part in the final? Why only 8 people in the world go below 10? And those 8, how is it they are so regular? If one of them runs at 9.8, they usually do it at 9.8, not one month at 10.2 and the other in record time and the next at 10.5.

It's not the same in longer races, but there's strategy in these, it is not just "do it as fast as you can". Even so, it's possible to find regular patterns. For sure is quite similar in ski and swimming for instance. And I wonder why.

There's democracy also. In Spain, the biggest two parties get around 38% of the votes every election. One of them wins for there are small differences for reasons which are not easy to guess (at least most of the times). And it is like that in many other countries. In the US there are only two parties and their support is amazingly closed to 50%. This year Obama won "overwhelmingly" by a global difference of 3%. Democracy in the US is a very mature one, the Spanish one at its side looks like a babyboy. Besides, in most countries, the turnaround is just above 50%.

I guess in a perfect decision system half of the people decide to participate, and if there are 2 valid options, half of them go for each. I'm able to understand that (not that I necessarily think it's good).

Anyway, in this world, with so many people, there seems to be a big rule: probability. Call it luck. That's the reason why anything happens? That's why I don't get fired, or somebody else does, that's why I didn't get married and somebody else did???

And, what are we doing (and we call ourselves seekers) when we look for an explanation? Is there a chance we will understand? I wonder.

the victim under control

2009-02-24T23:03:00.004+01:00

An old friend of mine was the victim of an impressive accident when he was riding a moped bike: he was overtaking a big trunk on the right, the trunk did a weird move and my friend fell and got caught by the back wheel of the trunk, and both the moped and himself were dragged on the road for around 15 meters.

On the floor, he was so stuck he could not get out by himself, even if the bike was not so heavy. People around were in doubt to move him because he had lost his helmet; he wanted to should at them to take him out, but he was in bad pain and he could hardly speak. Eventually they released him and while the ambulance was coming he was looking at his leg and wildly wondering if he would be able to move it again.

He would have killed the lorrydriver at that moment, "it was such a big trunk in a not so wide street!, what was he doing there?, and what was the effing manouver he did?"; some days later, the driver went to the hospital to visit and they made peace, although my friend did not like the guy, "not somebody I would get drunk with!". Actually the driver was a member of his club, he had joined that same year, when they had promoted to the spanish 'second B' category. But the diver had not had the chance to watch my friend playing. And he would not anymore.

The recovery was long and painful, the full thing took around a year, and my friend was 17 years old. He wanted to brake the plaster into pieces and start exercising the leg, and afterwards wanted to start walking, then running, and climbing mountains. However there were many things he would not be able to do anymore. "What if the accident had not happened?", he would say, "how far would I have gone in playing football?"

He didnt like studying, or arts; however nobody was going to stop him from getting whatever he wanted to.

And now, so many years later, he puts the icing on the cake of his life with his appointment as the president of his football club, the one he used to play for.

Propositions:
- my friend was overtaking a big trunk on the right in a street which was "not so wide"
- the lorrydriver was "somebody he would not get drunk with"
- when he was 16 years old, he was playing for a 3rd category football team
- the team promoted to "2nd B" and he would not play so often anymore
- ...

My friend is a prick, and the story is silly. Does the victim take control? Does he get anything he wants? And does it mean he is under control? What is "under control"? Is it a feeling, an opinion?

do it now!

2009-02-08T21:42:00.007+01:00

There's many people seeking. Some of them struggle to learn how to stand on their heads, or to sit straight and crossed-legged. Others just put on fancy clothes and talk a lot, but most are genuine, why would they not be? And not all of them base themselves on eastern philosophies.

Anyhow, probably all of them would agree in one thing: they are in the process of learning, of improving, of making themselves better so that someday they will obtain what they are looking for. But, why does it have to be in the future, why not now?

As an example, I'll take something completelly unrelated: world hunger. Everybody is more or less concerned about that huge problem. Myself, I give away some money every year to some organizations which are supposed to do something about the subject. Little money it is. And I think about it from time to time, although is not the first thought that crosses my mind every morning.

I guess some people are less concerned, donate no money, they woud think it is not fair that people are starving, but realisticly they've figured there's not much to do about it.

On the other hand, there's a few who devote themselves and their lifes to the problem; what about those? Do those think the solution is at their reach? Probably not, more the contrary. But they don't get depressed, they just try to do everything they can to make a small contribution, to help the people of the area wherever it is they've travelled to. And it is awesome.

It is not only they are morally superior (they are, to me); also they look at a huge problem with no visible solution and they decide they want to do everything they can and they do it now.

From J Krishnamurti:
"Do you actually need time to be free of greed? I am taking that as an example [...] You are used to think you do. When I say I will get over it, that will is time [...] So the mind has become accostumed to the idea of psychological time -tomorrow, or many tomorrows."

And many many paragraphs later, after he brilliantly dismantles the idea of psychological time,
"So where we are? Where are you with regard to what you have heard, what you have learned, what you have seen for yourself? It is just mere words for you to carry? Or is there a deep fundamental change so that you are free of all your problems, free of fear? [...]"
Which applies not only to his lecture, but to everything you have heard, you have learned, you have seen for yourself.

Let's forget for a moment about world hunger and about a world free of greed -no matter I have not done anything about those. Am I just carrying words? Have I done anything?

endarkenment

2009-01-24T17:20:00.002+01:00

I was 20 when it happenned, and it was sudden: I got endarkened and I ceased to believe.

It was sudden, but it was the conclusion of a slow process as well. My endarkement came out of the blue one morning when I realised I was living in a big contradiction: none of the stories I had been told about god made sense to me anymore, and at the same time I was relying on them at least to lay the foundations of my answers to some old big questions. But it was also slow, since it started even before my first holy communion; I managed to skip all the catechesis sessions and I went to the priest just one week before the event -he was very upset with me, however he explained me the details on the staging with the rest of the guys (how we should go in a queue to the altar and back, doing as if we were praying).

At the same time I was really a devotee: whenever I got a host into my mouth I used to talk to Jesus as a sincere believer, honestly. My problem came with the church itself, quite deceitful, and my catholic school and teachers, the boring religious studyings, and so on.

There were clear signs of the dark coming:
- Questioning the people who brought up the story to me (the teachers and the priests), not relying on their coherence, integrity or even their common sense
- Calling into doubt the aspects that sound unbelievable or unacceptable (weird explanations on the origin of life, old-fashioned moral doctrines)

Afterwards, getting old and assuming that the dark was not the place to be, I resumed my quest. Very carefully, however: careful with the words themselves (e.g. enlightenment as explained in previous posts), and trying to avoid to get dazzled instead.

But then, wherever I looked for alternative belief systems, I found there were mainly two options:
- or you choose one system that seems the best and accept it as a full pack; (in consequence you don't question their people and you assume the unbelievable part of it)
- or you study very closely every system available and take the small good pieces of each of them; (but those pieces don't necessarily make sense when are taken stand-alone, and the pieces from different origins don't match together either, and there's the huge risk you get puzzled)

Should I had stayed in the dark then? I didn't, and on the road I've met quite some people following the second (including myself, I'm afraid), which is a sure path from endarkenment to endazzlement.

maya

2009-01-14T23:32:00.004+01:00

In a hindu myth, a student asks to his master about the meaning of maya; the master says
- Ufff
and asks the student to go to a village nearby to get a glass of water for him; there the guy goes and knocks the door of the first house he finds, he's really in a hurry to know about the maya thing. A beautiful girl opens it and takes him in, she's captivating, her smile and her humble eyes not daring to look up. The family was about to have lunch and the father invites the student to sit down and eat with them; afterwards there's lots of work to do, the young guy cannot refuse and makes a big effort to help them. He stays for dinner, and then he's so tired...

A few days after the father proposes his daughter to marry him (that's usually the way it works in India) and he's already so enchanted and pleased by her that he immediately accepts. The marriage is fast, simple and full of bliss, and for the following years the guy keeps on working very hard in the farm, has three children, takes care of them and the rest of the family, and he feels happier than ever in his life.

In the month of the tenth birthday of his oldest son the monsoon starts, it's early for the rains, which are terrible, the river overflows and there's a terrible flood in which he looses everything: his wife and children die; the house, the animals, crops and all his possessions are swept away. He feels a deep grief and aimlessly he walks into the forest; sitting under a tree he finds his old master and he hardly recognizes him,
- where have you been? I only asked you to fetch some water for me -asks the master
and laughs (somewhat bitterly) and explains the student that over these years he has just experienced what maya is.

Sometimes, when I've talked with some Indians friends about Descartes' method of doubt (not that I mention this so often, but I've always enjoyed this view of the world being run by dwarfs that had constructed my room and everything in it to deceive me, since nothing really exists, and they would quickly build up my kitchen before I notice it wasn't there if I decided to go and get a glass of water, etc) in response my Indian colleagues would relate it to the image to maya. When I have finally read a hindu myth on the subject, instead of philosophical it sounds to me like one of those parables of a fussy and changeable god. And it's silly but I cannot help feeling a bit disillusioned.

what?

2008-12-07T22:40:00.006+01:00

C. S. Lewis, a writer and british gentleman, pointed out that a number of the questions we figure out are just nonsense, however we don't notice since we don't know enough; these questions would sound like "how many hours there is in a mile?"

I find the idea very suggestive; maybe half of the questions we ask are nonsense, contradictory in terms? It is well-known that a very clever question usually denotes you reckon half of the answer already. It's not only that "intellectual honesty" is an oxymoron (as in the previous post): "intelligent question" is another.

OK, I'm taking it out of context since Lewis' book is actually a sort of journal he called "a grief observed", which he wrote after his wife's death, while he was seriously in pain, suffering. He blames god for the loss, building up a rational framework to face the anguish, blames the absence, the nonsense, the nature.

Thus, he uses the fundamental questions to escape from his agony, realizing at the same time that most metaphysical questions may sound like "how many hours there is in a mile"; later, I guess, after some months, or years, he recovers, reads again the journal, finds it interesting and hands it out to the editor.

If a fundamental question were so fundamental (e.g. about the meaning of life), once I asked it to myself there would be nothing more important in my mind; I should devote myself to finding the answer. Since it is never the case, nothing seems to be so crucial until the moment, a reasonable alternative is that the question was, indeed, something not too different to how many hours there is in a mile.

oxymorons and dreams

2008-11-30T21:09:00.005+01:00

There's a very nice novel by Alessandro Baricco, called "City", in which it is shown that intellectual honesty is an oxymoron. I remember I was reading it many years ago on a bus on my way to the office, and I felt it was something important, even if when I arrived I had to look up the word oxymoron in the dictionary.

The "essay on intellectual honesty" is proposed by one of the characters of the novel. He's a High School teacher. After 15 years of thinking about it, he finally writes it down on a flyer of a sex shop, while he's in the peep-show. It goes in six arguments more or less as follows:
- People have ideas
- People express those ideas. That's the beginning of the problem. Since it is very complex thoughts, when it's time to put them in words it is difficult to explain them clearly
- While expressing their ideas, people end up getting distance with them. The simplification of explanations of the mental process which brought to the conclusion, during the arguing, defending their truth, little by little makes that the real origin of the idea gets lost
- While defending the ideas, and in particular if it is in public, the arguments became weapons
- While using ideas as weapons, the relation with the original thought is completely lost
- Intellectual honesty is an oxymoron

When I read it, I found it funny, witty and indisputable. My colleagues at the office, however, just laughed lightly and did not seem to agree.

Anyway, recently I've realised I don't have a dream. I mean: there's something I would like so much, which implies becoming something different to what I am today (yes, at my age). But if you ask me to describe how exactly will I be when I achieve that new state, I cannot tell you a word - that's why I say I don't have the dream. What is it? I don't believe I can make it? I don't really want to make it? Should I build up my dream, that's all? The answers to those questions are only important for me, but it is amazing how much I've been talking about my no-dream.

Baricco's character goes on saying: "in another life we will be honest; we will be silent". Auurrrg!!

dogs are all clowns

2008-11-16T23:13:00.003+01:00

I've just seen one, I was walking back home, the dog was big, black and strong and had a ball or something in its snout, head and neck looking up, moving the tail, challenging its master. They all enjoy playing so much, all the time, and jump and behave like clowns. I really love dogs.

(Well, not so much, probably, since I dont have one at home.)

At my parents' there was always one or two dogs when I was a child. It was painful when they got lost for ever or died, however I was growing up and after I had to miss a few animals I realised there was always another one to come which was essentially the same, and I found at least a sort of comfort on that idea.

Some people have criticised me a lot when I dared to explain, told me I'm a monster and I dont really like dogs at all. One friend suggested with irony I should maybe apply the same concept to people.

Completely unrelated, a question follows: if our life expectancy was let's say five thousand years, would be behave differently? Yes, for sure, but in which way? Difficult one, ah. I'd like to think we would get wiser (after one thousand years or so?) And I guess a lot more people closed to us would die. I mean, nowadays in the west you hardly see people dying, besides unfortunate accidents, serious illness, and your parents, who necessarily will die sooner than you; death is not in our day-by-day worries.

Then, imagine the situation: my life expectancy is five thousand years and I fall in love with somebody five hundred years younger (not so much). I die a natural death and she has five hundred years ahead without me, and she's still ok, she's only four thousand five hundred years old. What is she expected to do? After a ten years mourning, surely she'll find a better clown.

covered by bandages

2008-10-06T22:08:00.004+02:00

In political philosophy, there's a very big discusion subject: what's the perfect political system? (the issue is purely theoretical, it's philosophy rather than politics).

One of the possible approaches in order to give an answer sounds like a sort of game: imagine yourself in a hospital bed, you are covered by bandages and you don't remember who you are, you don't recall anything at all, but you do remember enough about the world and society and people. Then they ask you the question, and you are the perfect one to give an answer: you are going to be fair with everybody since in a few days you're going to be outside struggling being whomever you are in the system you've figured out.

I was interested in political philosophy when I was in my twenties, I read a lot and there were many subjects which I found appealing; existentialism in particular, and it was not only about the philophers and writers in the mid XXth century. There's many novels in a similar line, some older than that and others quite new, even pop songs e.g. "there has to be more than this" (Soulwax). Could be a rationalistic expression of the feeling of being in a cage, of a complain which may be expressed like this: "why it had to be me that happenned to be myself".

But then, one could apply the same technique: back at the hospital bed under all the bandages, the existential question does not make sense anymore because you've forgotten who you are; even though you still have no idea if there is more than this, anyway what is that "this"?, is there anything outside?

I guess the point is to realise these two questions (amongst many) are quite difficult ones, but purely theoretical.

Good working day

2008-09-09T22:22:00.006+02:00

... although it was actually a local holiday. Funny?

Woke up slowly, without and alarm clock, did some streching, had breakfast, switched on the computer and started working at home. I went out for lunch (I was lazy and wanted to save a bit of time), back I had a tea and then I resumed. I finally stopped around 7pm, prepared a nice dinner, had it, wrote for a while, washed up the dishes (I hardly ever do that during the week lately; well, I hardly ever cook), and here I am, 10:30pm, the remaining of the evening is just leisure! -the same amount of leisure I get in a normal working day. Huge difference: today I'm feeling good, don't have the usual contradiction, on the one hand craving to go to bed, on the other rather doing something nice before the day is over (e.g. writing).

I've remembered those days I was a convinced nadaist... if I could at least work somewhat less. Probably I won't be able to do many more things, I would be still frustrated I don't have enough time, but I would feel better, not so tired all around. (In the weekends, when I have all the time in the day at my disposal, I also feel frustrated, but I get some of the stuff done and it's alright.)

Last Saturday I was complaining to a friend precisely about the long working hours. He warned me to be careful, my ideas being irresponsible (he's possibly right on that); he told me about many people no as lucky as me by far. He put the example of the inmigrants. I said he could have chosen something worse: children in South East Asia working 16 hours a day in a garbage dump.

You can always find somebody doing much worse. One uses that argument and immediatelly stops complaining. What else to do? Not much. Doing anything to improve the situation for those doing so bad? No, that would be too difficult, unrealistic. Doing anything to improve your own situation? Well, no, you just said it, you've stopped complaining. The conversation is over.

It would be ok, if it was actually over, if the fact that lots of people are doing worse really convinced me deeply inside. It doesn't. If it was the case, I would probably had understood what's the meaning of life, I would be happy forever; what else, if there's no reason to complain? Sudden enlightenment.

There's rational arguments (no reason to complain) and there's all the rest in your mind (and the complains amongst it). There's people telling you what to do, criticising you, there's your stomach and your needs, and there's employers, and finally there's good working days, not very often, only sometimes.

Maybe the guy had a point after all

2008-08-31T16:40:00.002+02:00

I'm slowly very slowly reading the short book on history of philosophy I was taking about. And although I havent reached Kant yet (already in the XVIIth century, a hundred years and fifty pages to go), I've figured maybe the guy had a point after all.

Let's see, in this little book there's the ancient Greek, the theistic of the Middle Ages, and lots of modern thinkers: Hobbes, Decartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz where I am today. All of them were asking themselves metaphysical questions, were trying to rationalize the real essence of the nature and the world and god if they were believers. And they were giving complete new systems of knowledge, rational explanations backed by hard work of studying and developing. But then, even if it is difficult to criticise any aspect of their sound and so-well-based theories, and there has been long debates about some of their arguments, the truth is that their explanations about the world and everything are pretty different.

Maybe the guy had a point and there's no way to give a rationalistic answer to such questions. At least, for sure there's no way to agree with the answers.

However the questions remain; maybe they just make no sense, and it's better to answer them with myths or parables, or fables or even short stories. If you don't like them you will have to make your own. (Will you reach anywhere if you make up the stories on your own? Well, it's one of the few ways to get there, only try not to go too fast.)

As for others' stories, don't take them too literally, don't make a fuss about every single word in them. Either you understand it or not. You probably will, if they tell you something you already know.

(By the way, maybe I am going too fast; I haven't finished reading the book yet.)

Books nobody has read

2008-08-13T16:17:00.005+02:00

There's one of those in a lot of languages: Cervantes' "Don Quijote" in Spanish, Joyce's "Ulyses" in English, Proust's "A la recherche..." in French; in their countries, everybody would claim they are the best books ever written in their long literary traditions, but if you ask who has actually read them, I'd bet there are very few people.

"Don Quijote" is not very difficult, it's quite amusing, clever and funny, but it is long very long, gigantic. So long it is not mandatory at school. Besides it's in movies, at TV, even cartoons, some of the chapters are well-known. Who feels in need of reading it?

"Ulyses" is very hard to read, it's written in a kind of own English with a mixture of French, German and Dutch. Not mandatory at school, how could it be, since it is so demanding and arduous. However, lots of British people have the book at home.

"A la recherche..." is probably marvellous and well written, but somehow pedantic, arrogant and pompous. Also very long, but 100 pages are enough to bore you to death. Who has read it in France, I don't know.

Similarly, there's philosophers hardly anybody has read. Kant has been such an influential thinker in the modern West, after him nobody dares to discuss about metaphisics anymore (that is, from a phylosophical point of view). Wittgenstein wrote his Tractatus, which nobody understands, and nowadays it is mentioned even in a recent movie, a thriller.

Maybe common people like me, more or less educated, are simply not able to grasp such a complex stuff. It would be as if somebody with no technical background wanted to understand let's say how a nuclear bomb is build. And the bomb has changed the world also, the way people think.

Another possibility is that some good ideas overwhelm us, the arguments backing them being so sound and clever, and we can only repeat them and repeat them again. And I guess it's ok. I feel so lost I'm reading a book on history of philosophy these days, as if I was going to find somebody telling me Kant was not right. As if I was going to find somebody say "El Quijote" is not such a good book.

How (not) to take a decision

2008-07-22T23:21:00.000+02:00

For example you decide to quit smoking. In my case it was because my throat was hurting every morning when I woke up. I had made up my mind, I had no doubt it was the thing to do, but still, I was not so worried about my throat every minute of the day, and suddenly there were exceptions, there were good reasons to forget the resolution and light the cigarette. The problem was not the big decision about quiting, which was obviously right, but the small decisions which had to be faced one after the other, all the time.

Sometimes it is opposite, when you decide you are going start up something difficult which is going to take a long time, and you are quite sure you want to do it. For example, when I decided I would write a novel. I was not sure about the script, nor about myself as a writer, nor about the point of it. It was not easy to think I was getting anywhere, but it was really easy to sit down every day and write. (It was hard to sit down for many hours, anyhow it was a much simpler problem than figuring out if it was worth it.)

So, there is that inner thing which apparently knows always what to do, although it is not always right. It was wrong about the smoking, and it was only when I convinced it, whatever it inner thing is or could be, that I did quite. It was nice about the writing, had good intentions, but I still don't know whether it is right or wrong or just wishful.

That's how (not) to take a decision: you listen to it.

Sorry I write so little lately... I should be listening. I think I am. I'll ask.

nadaism for real

2008-06-24T23:27:00.003+02:00

The big problem can be explained in a quite simple way, no need to be a phylosopher: there's the man in nature who gets born and feels hungry and goes to the bathroom, and there's the human being who is conscious of his/her existance and reads essays and builds white porcelain toilets. That's the contradiction; the man subject to nature, versus the intellectual, the one seeking for a place and for a meaning.

I agree (this is the answer I owed you for such a long time): devotion, redemption and liberation are essentially the same concept, since each of them is just the promise that everything makes sense. My intelligence feels confortable if I target a far-away-objective and I decide I'll make everything possibe to reach it; however I'll necessarily go slowly, such a long path to follow, and in the meantime I while try to ensure I'm happy, that I'm enjoying myself while my rational desires get distracted.

Does it worth it? The answer does not depend, obviously on the fact you reach anywhere or not.

That's actually the point of nadaism: doing nothing while getting your mind distracted. There's a guy who made more than 20 thousand euros in a month from donations, he was in front of a webcam in his room doing nothing. People paid for watching him laying on his bed. I was so amazed when hearing from him. That's nadaism for real.

Apologies

2008-05-24T16:18:00.000+02:00

I have not written for two months, and I sincerely apologize. For somebody who enjoys writting it is so rewarding to have a few readers, even if it is just two or three people who enjoy the reading and check out the blog regularly. I feels so nice. Thank you.

These couple of months I have not written at all, hardly emails to friends. I've been working a lot, had so little free time that I've spent it in an amazing adventure (I'm so much in love, so happy).

There's a few answers that I owe you; I will find the time to think about them. This one is just to tell you I'm still here, that the blog is up and running, and that I really appreciate.

2nd language: Devotion

2008-03-26T21:44:00.004+01:00

How to talk about devotion not referring to anything religious?

Some people (e.g. yoga teachers) use the word "surrender" instead. Surrender to the self, they advice; however, what do they mean by the self, exactly? Some of them would say, if you asked them: just surrender to your breath, to the expiration. Sounds like a very simple way to put it, but still; what is it you surrender to?

(Probably one stops trying to explain it with words only when one has understood it -not the case for me.)

Anyway, talking about human nature, Fromm explains one should not be neither completely rational nor driven by emotions; one's centre is somewhere in the middle, i.e. the middle point between rationality and emotions -and that's the self.

(By the way, some might say in the middle, some others would rather say "beyond".)

Using this definition of the self, surrender looks like a easier concept (well, supposing it is what they mean, and it makes sense at all). And the point of surrender would be: recognizing the "self" itself, the inner power of it, the calm, the "I know where I am and where I'm heading to". That is, being sure of something. Is that "devotion"?.

Looks ok to me, since I have not understood, and unfortunately I haven't found any comforting definition by any reliable author.

(Thanks for your reading. Last month has been really intense and good for my personal life, and I haven't written so much, sorry for that. More coming soon.)

2nd language: Liberation

2008-02-15T17:19:00.002+01:00

This concept is a bit more difficult to me to translate.

Sloterdijk compares it to artistic liberation: it's the path to freedom for the inner self. It's the deep layers of one's mind talking aloud. Maybe that's a reason why some many people have a desire to develop themselves in some artistic aspect (any).

Others have a passion for order. They enjoy intellectual challenges, or even mathematical riddles; they feel good when they solve them. I'd dare to say it is a different kind of liberation: it's a sort of freedom for the rational side of the mind.

However, what would be the connection to the traditional meaning of the concept? Liberation sounds like a power of the gods to give freedom to humans. That freedom could mean feeling good with oneself, thus partially as enligtenment (in the second language), partially as freedom for the mind (as above).

It is related to redemption as well; just look at liberation in the context of the wheel of the soul transmigrations.

Anyhow, it is like a release of the weight on your shoulders, which makes you feel better and more focused. It's understanding you are small, you are nearly nothing, so that you can focus on your own life.

There's a new way to put the concept of liberation which I've heard from some friends and I find really courious. In the context of the theory of the "selfish gene" (R Dawkins, 1976), we humans are just vehicles for the duplication of our DNA chains. Thus we are small, we are nothing, we are only vehicles; our life has no sense, thus we can focus on the tiny everyday's problems.

2nd language: Redemption

2008-02-05T16:59:00.000+01:00

Nietzsche (yes, I'm sorry, the guy is not easy to understand and I don't mean to say I'm the one who got it right); Nietzsche puts is in two different ways, through the "Will to Power" and the "Eternal Return".

Zarathustra makes a full speech "on redemption", using his precise definition: when looking at anything that hapenned in the past, if one is able to say "that's just the way I wanted it to be", or simply "it was my will", and one feels it deeply (whatever it was) then there is redemption -it is impossible to feel hatred or despair, you don't want to forget or to get revenge anymore. That's a consequence of the concept of will of power. A person who truly believes it, lives in the present in an absolute manner.

There's another approach to understand the same attitude for living in the present: the eternal return. If time has no beginning and no end but is a cycle which repeats itself again and again, then every second of one's existence is going to happen in the future an infinite number of times, and it has happened already an infinite number of times. Thus the present second is the only important moment, has all the weight: the past has happened so many times anyway, and it's going to be repeated, and similarly for the future.

Those are metaphors but the meaning is clear: when you live in the present there is redemption and no action in the past is important anymore.

Catholics use redemption also, but they make it a kind of blackmailing. You are supposed to go to church regularly to confess your sins, and if you are sorry about it you get redeem and you may carry on with your life nearly as if nothing wrong had been done. However it is also a game based on the sense of guilt, on threatening you will go to hell, creating a dependency.

There's redemption in Hindu karma as well. Your situation now, your caste, your social status, your body, is a consequence of your past lifes, i.e. it is something given to you, something you cannot control. Your past is then explained to the detail; it's up to you to focus on the present moment.

There's many other materializations to the same concept, some of them religious, superstitious, esoteric, mystical. I have a very good friend who says "everything happens always for a reason".

I don't mind which one you use. Just make your choice and live in the present, it's the only thing that matters.

More about the second language

2008-01-22T16:37:00.000+01:00

There are of course some objections to the definition of enlightenment on the previous post. Peter Sloterdijk, whom I took the expression "second language" from (how could I have made it up myself?) relates enlightenment to asceticism, to detachment and mysticism, all in a very old language.

In Buddhist terms, for example, it would be the quest for nirvana, i.e. breaking up the wheel of births and deaths and soul transmigrations (all of which looks like a process for getting out-of-this-world, when translated into the second language). First sight, in consequence, you take a mystic and remove his/her spirituality and what's left?: a kind of self-torturer who is nowhere and has renounced to pretty much everything.

Maybe that kind of definition (enlightenment is simply the asceticism to get out-of-this-world) makes sense, more or less, when you stick to the old tranditions. For example even if people talk about something apparently so innofensive as "the quest of the self", it could actually be referring to the "Self" meaning the divine inside the individual -thus mystic and ascetic. My point is, when westerns look at enlightment and use the second language not as carefully as Sloterdijk, they (or I) might understand "self" without the devine; I might regard "dettachment" as an exercise to improve awareness (and the last one is again a confusing word, by the way).

Sloterdijk's proposal for the second language is so interesting: to try to translate more acuratelly some of these important words in a way everybody (religious or not) could agree with -since there is a source of misunderstanding when two people think about the same word in different ways, obviously.

But honestly (and very humbly) I don't like his definitions; there are a few words for which I would like to find a writter or a phylosopher or a thinker that could have made an alternative interpretation. Enlightenment according E. Fromm is one of them; others to come are redemption, liberation and devotion.

enlightenment in the second language

2008-01-15T18:51:00.000+01:00

It's a copy-paste from a book by Erich Fromm and T. Suzuki, "Psychoanalisis and Zen", (bad translations in fact).

The routine, a destructive or idolizing attitude, greed for property of fame, a quest, admiration; those compensate with the inherent and potential depression in any person. When these compensations break off, mental health is threaten.

The awareness of oneself creates a problem, a question: how to overcome the suffering, the feeling of being in a trap, the experience created by experiencing the rupture; how to find the union inside ourselves, towards other human beings and nature?

The ball rolling on the floor and a baby throwing it again and again with surprise and joy; however the adult recognizes the ball-object and the floor-object and the propierty of round things rolling on the floor and sighs with relief at the confirmation that everything keeps working as expected.

In Fromm words: the quest for balance in oneself, with others and nature (maybe with his help, or the help of a therapist) goes into the same direction as the buddhist quest for enlightenment; he puts it in a way that a buddhist would probably agree with and hardly any western would be surprised about: that's the second language.

The second language (it's still about the hippies, more boring somehow)

2008-01-06T18:57:00.000+01:00

Fist of all I must say I have never understood how the ideas of philosophers, writers, scientists and even poets end up being part of everybody's way of thinking. I have no idea how it happens, since some of those thinkers are so difficult to understand, and it is nearly impossible to read their books (e.g. Kant's, who is meant to be the one who "killed" metaphysics).

Anyway let's assume it just happens: it is obvious that in the West in modern times people are rationalistic. Some of them might believe in god but clearly there's a split: religion is not anymore a way to explain how is it the world keeps turning, nor how are people supposed to behave; it is just about god and the soul and that kind of grey subject that science can hardly say anything about.

Since metaphysics were killed, whenever it was, a "second language" developed: it belongs to psychology and psychoanalysis, and anthropology, and sometimes to philosophy, and it is useful to talk about certain deep aspects of the human being. There are concepts that before belonged to religion, e.g. "redemption" or "enlightenment", which are now explained in a rationalistic way through that second language. (I'll put the example for enlightenment in another post soon.)

Then: there is a second language managing some concepts which used to be addressed by religion, and that second language somehow is now in everybody's mind.

At the same time, western religions are in a low, and some people look around for alternatives to fulfil their "spiritual needs". Some of them find it in the East, and become the hippies, and some others become "the more serious seekers". And the point is: they search in the ancient eastern religions and they read everything using the second language (and that language has a strong influence in their understanding).

As a result: a big mess (good or bad who knows). Mystics are not hardliners anymore -they are indulgent. Hippies and particularly "the more serious seekers" practice half an hour of meditation (detachment) before going to the office.

Looking at it from the outside, it is a mess: what are those new mystics?

Are they like the old ones? -meaning they are going to renounce to everything material so that they get closed to the divine, and maybe torture themselves?

If they are not like the old ones, what are they doing? -inventing a new system of believe from the old traditions, but completely unrelated at the same time?

the new hippies' series: (5) spiritual materialism

2007-12-27T21:19:00.000+01:00

There's a Tibetan author who has lived for quite some time in the U.S. and has put a name to it: "spiritual materialism". It means not only a certain crave from spiritual stuff and a tendency to collect and accumulate small (unrelated) pieces from this and that Eastern tradition; also, according to the author, there would an egoistic approach on every Western person when trying to acquire or apply the new knowledge -even with a teacher, no matter what they were shown, the students would imitate it externally, being careful not to sacrifise or loose anything inside.

The guy puts an example that I really enjoy: he talks about a sort of Zen meditation of a certain Japanese tradition, in which the students are confined and they have to take care of their tools and the way to eat the food and drink the tea, and the whole point is to get people immensely tired so that the process might help them to get a "better understanding of the self" (or whatever is the point of the Zen, I must say I don't know much about it). Anyway, there's been of course Western students trying this technique but finding it completely useless: by following the procedures and the ceremonies they don't get bored and tired, the contrary, they get amused since they're doing Japanese stuff in a Japanese way which is so exciting!

First time I read a book from this one author I was in North India in a Buddhist area and it looked to me he was describing so well most (not all) the hippies around who where half spirituals and dressing that way of theirs (see previous posts) and bowing in front of the Buddha images when visiting the monasteries.

It seemed quite reasonable to me when the writer was recommending to everybody who had honest interest in spirituality to put themselves on the hands of a teacher and follow him/her and the teachings and techniques all the way through, leaving no room for "materialism" anymore.

Afterwards I read more about the guy, about his schools in the U.S., and eventually (there's reports and at least one essay on the subject) I learned they made big parties on the premises and the teacher encouraged sexual exchange among his students, and was he getting laid himself with some of the female students -maybe he just wanted to make sure they would follow their advice.

(It was denounced by some of the novices who attended to one of the parties and were not so happy with it; however it does not matter much, who would believe they did not know anything about it until they were asked to get naked?)

It's a pity, because I used to like the writings of this monk, I found them precise to the point and refined and awesome, but now to my eyes he has lost all his credibility. Regardless, there's still a lot to learn from this author, since it seems he was so good and understood the minds of his Western students fully, and knew how to get lots of hippies to apply to his courses!

the new hippies' series: (4) working the least

2007-12-14T22:11:00.000+01:00

Not that I'm going to criticise anybody who does not like working, of course not. Old and new hippies and myself.

Some of them find their way through, they work a few months in overpriced Europe while they are living humbly (even in a squat), and during the rest of the year they go abroad anywhere cheap and make good value of their money. Others are just stingy and think twice before spending every cent.

My flatmate last summer, for example, she was a bit like that. We were not really organized when we had to buy something for the house (e.g. soap, toilet paper); one of us just got it whenever either she or I found it was missing. Gradually I realised she would not find anything missing, she just waited. I wanted to be sure and I devised a stupid experiment.

In India I learnt toilet paper is not really necessary -there's billions of people in Asia who do not use it. (There was this Israeli guy I met who asked the key question: if you found you had some shit on you forehead, how would you clean it?) Which method is best I'm not sure, regardless I got used to the other one in India, and in particular I didn't mind at all if I was sitting (as I always do) before my shower. However in Europe there's toilet paper and I use it (besides it's usually the jar which is missing). Some people find this whole subject is just digusting; that's not the point though. My experiment was: I would stop using paper if as usual I was in need just before my shower. Just to see what would happened.

What happened? The paper got finished and everything seemed fine for a few days. She was unemployed at that period (I was working like hell by the way), and I checked she went to the shop at least once to buy food. I don't know exactly how she was managing (I guessed she was using tissues). Finally, on Saturday mid morning, I realised I was having loose bellows and I went to the shop and I got the effing paper.

I would have talked to her if all the mess was about anything, not about a couple of euros. If I was not about to leave. And anyway my objective was to understand if she was as stingy as I had imagined. It seems she was.

This girl was taking short-term contracts very happily (the ones that others would take only because they cannot get a better one), so that at the end she could live from unemployment benefits for a while afterwards. She only looked for a new job when the time would come the state stopped paying. Which is not so bad, in my opinion, unless you make it a way of life. Unless you make it as if you are holding a day more waiting for your flatmate to get the paper (instead of you getting it).

There's hippies and hippies, there's the ones with the nice arrangements, and there's the stingy ones.

the new hippies' series: (3) buddhism

2007-11-30T18:49:00.000+01:00

Most of the new hippies are Buddhist. It is not only that they like tankas and Buddha images and a particular kind of clothes (even though those clothes have nothing to do with it, see (1) below). Besides they are interested in meditation and other techniques, and some of them declare openly they are looking for enlightenment. In those gatherings of the hanging dicks, see (2), there's plenty of Buddhist stuff, and for example in Madrid there are a couple of clubs which are really fancy and decorated with Buddhas and praying flags.

Most of the hippies are vegetarian (well that's kind of fancy in general these days) and they don't smoke nor drink nor have drugs (some of them; others go for trance parties...), they follow the principles of Buddhist monks, except for the free sex (there's no way around it; even if there are some famous Buddhist schools in the US who are famously quite tolerant about it, it is difficult to put free sex and Buddhism together).

A friend of mind from Japan explained me she's half Buddhist half Shintoist, and for her Buddhism is a religion about the suffering of life. If you look at it that way, it is strange to see those western people calling themselves Buddhist.

It is as if there were new hippies in Japan dresses kind of gothic who called themselves Catholics and read the bible (better say some books from Japanese authors explaining the ideas of the bible, because the book itself would be too obscure) and made huge parties drinking lots of red wine and having lots of sex because Jesus said love each other as I have loved you. Besides they would come to Europe and visit the churches and be very happy to join during mass and communion. It would be just as weird.

the new hippies' series: (2) hanging dicks

2007-11-13T20:50:00.000+01:00

Hippies' views on sex are not that innovative: no surprises, they are for free sex. Having sex is a natural thing, every civilized person should be modern by now and spontaneous and unconstraint and remove all religious and cultural taboos about sex.

They're right, of course! During their gatherings they wander around and participate in whatever activities they've planned while most of them are naked -a friend of mine confessed to me she got fedup of the army of hanging dicks.

Sex and being naked are just natural; however, what is "natural"? For an animal, it is natural to be naked, especially if it has a fur cover for protection in winter. Regarding sex, even though it depends a lot on the kind of animal, there's always a link to reproduction strategies; for instance for mammals, since pregnancy is long and the new-borns are quite vulnerable and dependent for a while afterward, females need help and rely on their partners, thus they usually look for a male that is not only healthy and strong but trustworthy and decent -females are not happy with just anybody. Males on the other hand take at least part of the responsibility, however they try to be as promiscuous as possible (simply as their policy, no hard feelings).

However humans are not animals, that's why one has to be careful with the meaning of "natural" and check out a dictionary maybe: "natural" could be something shared with everybody else, which has not been learned, and also it could be something just reasonable. (And there's a few more unrelated entries.)

"Reasonable" means accepted and relates to culture. Traditionally, sex roles have been linked to perpetuation and building up families. At the present time in the West it is not the case anymore: sex has been "liberalised". Which means (Houellebecq's explanation is wonderful) that some wealthy people get a lot more than before (including maybe most hippies), average people get somewhat more, and even though it's a land of opportunities and freedom, there's for some reason a number of people that get nothing at all: the homeless of sex.

In conclusion: nothing.

I don't know what hippies mean by "natural". They have lots of sex, but not just with anybody -that's the only thing I can assure you. Or maybe it is just an excuse (to hide my regret) because obviously they have never been my "laying ground"!!!

the new hippies' series: (1) dress up!

2007-11-06T20:33:00.000+01:00

In a effort to become completely banal and non-transcendent, I've figured out I'll start a series on the new hippies.

(I'd like to say I'm one of them, it would be a mild means of self-abuse, as well it would help to ensure I'm going to make an accurate description; anyhow, some people might think I'm behaving a bit weird for the last few years. In one way or another I should be able to prove I have been thriving on with them, at least observing them for a long while; for example, if I'm going to tell you they are easy going with sex, then I should add I got laid with lots of them -however you know there's no shortcuts with love in general, and it does not get much easier with hippies -nor more difficult.)

1st chapter of the series is about the very 1st thing which is apparent with hippies: their looks.

One might get the impression they are very much authentic and dress up in the ways of some remote and unknown culture (towards the East, usually). I met a very agreeable Turkish girl in Ayvalik; she's friendly and her english is very decent, she's open-minded, curious and genuine. She lives in Istanbul and a while ago some of her friends abroad came for a visit, and ask her to take them shopping. They were looking for some clothes but they did not like what she was showing them; they were looking for something more "authentic", they said. She asked them to be more precise and they explained there were some kind of Turkish pants in which the fabric between the legs was opened until the knee. She understood then: yes those pants were probably traditional, mostly used by countryside people in small villages, and as far as she knew it was impossible to get them in the capital.

Turkish people are in general in a big conflict between old and new, east and west, still they stay quite traditional in many of their views, towards the family for example; their pop & rock music is such a mixture they usually add the label "anatolian" into it. However, they would never dress like a farmer -and they see no conflict in that regard.

It's quite the same in India, where foreigners (and in particular new hippies) look like nobody else around -as expected by the locals of course. They've actually realised and they produce clothing in the particular touristy styles and flavours.

A minute of doubt

2007-11-03T10:17:00.001+01:00

Finally I left Istanbul and it was not easy of course. I met some very nice people over there and I managed once again to tie a rope from my ankle to another city, a link which made it hard to leave. (Alternatively, as N Kelman puts it, "nowhere is worth going except where we left, and the faster we go the further away from there we get" -another trick of the monster inside.)

In Madrid I got worried because I don't want to stay very long (winter in such a cold place? no way!), however it seemed it was difficult to get a room for such a short period, even worse for a flexible period. And I had this minute of doubt: do I really need to stay in Madrid? should I go elsewhere? but where and why? I just felt I need to be somewhere (anywhere) for a while with no flights in the horizon, no departure date. Much better it would be to stay anywhere for a particular reason. But where and why, anyway?

However it took me less than 24 hours to find a place (maybe it's not perfect but for sure it's good enough) and I removed my worry, I made "lots of space in my mind" and I realised I had been a bit silly during my minute of doubt -since I actually know what to do (and the reasons) if I just stop and think about it. (The places are not so important, if they were I would not wander around so much.)

The day after I was having breakfast with a friend, we were about to leave for the weekend and he had gone to bed late and was tired, he had to pack his bag, was lazy, and the thought of having to do it was painful. He said he knew it would take him 30 seconds since he had to take only the minimum stuff for the weekend, but still, it was painful. I told him maybe he could pay somebody to do it so that he could remove the worry and make "space in his mind". Which was pretty much the same as my moment of doubt.

"Everybody has worries that look exaggerated and idiot to others" -that's only a symptom, a sign that shows how it works inside.

(The post itself looks exaggerated and idiot to me, I wonder why I wrote it! I don't quite recall how this nadaist thing became a kind of (lonely) preaching about these tiny movements of the mind. I'll have to put it upside down.)

Those days of the month

2007-10-25T10:59:00.000+02:00

These are those days of the month, symptoms are clear: I'm irritable, upset, very emotional, quiet and depressed and excited the minute after, bursting into tears for no particular reason... the only difference with a woman period is that she knows more or less when is it going to happen and how long is it going to last.

Another difference is that if you ask her why is she crying she might get upset and yell at you because you just don't understand anything at all (you insensitive and numb prick), while me I just notice the tears coming out and I wait or if it is raining I get out to the streets with no umbrella.

Istanbul is not helping, it is not such an "inspiring" city (whatever that means). The area where most cheap hotels are is just an area with hotels and foreigners and restaurants which flavours are a mix of fancy and traditional turkish. The area where locals hang out is crazy, is a big street in which everything (for a 12 million people city) is supposed to be happening. As for the sightseeing, even in my monumental laziness I've seen most of the "mandatory" stuff already.

Monumental laziness, which makes it so difficult to wake up in the morning. Why would I get out of bed when I hear the alarm, if all I do during the day is writing and if I was awake one more hour I'll be one hour longer in front of the blank paper!

However I know the period will go (maybe not the monumental laziness) and I'll see the city with different eyes and for sure won't be happy to leave, next week when I leave and I advice my fellow travellers to spend a few extra days here, if they have the time.

Writing from an ugly place

2007-10-12T19:54:00.000+02:00

Here I am, still at the same place, Ayvalik the port to Lesvos. I practice a bit in the morning and then I write a lot a huge lot, and I'm feeling very very well and I have no intention whatsoever to go anywhere else anytime soon.

I take no real decisions during the day. Well, maybe sometimes I decide to skip the practice, once every few days. I have breakfast in my room and then I start writing. The only decision is where to go to for dinner; at middays I usually go to the same restaurant, very decent food and a nice waitress (I guess it sounds stupid, anyway I find it is a fair enough reason). And I feel great and it does not seem there's anything I need, even if it should be boring. If I think about it, I hardly talk to anybody, except the few words I know in Turkish (which refer basically to food), and occasionally to travellers, just a little bit. And I don't do anything else, don't watch TV (where would I go?), nothing, just at night after dinner I read a wonderful and luckily very long novel (by J Heller).

Where's the magic, I wonder. Would be the same if I was in an ugly place? Probably yes, if it happened to be, (I say "it happened" because it does not seem to be entirely under my control).

Sometimes I do get bored, of course. This morning when I woke up I thought maybe I should leave to Istanbul (Lesvos is too far away now). I thought of leaving exactly that minute, but it was to late for the bus already. I decided to skip the practice, had breakfast and took it easy very easy, and eventually, since I had not much to do (and actually not later than any other day), I started writing. (I could have gone to the places around I havent visited yet even though I've been here for a week, but I didn't.)

And I wrote so much and so quickly, it was brutal and awesome. I did not want to leave it, not even for a break to eat. Now in the evening I'm exhausted. Definitively is not quite under my control.

However I know this is not going to last (not in Ayvalyk), and I keep wondering, wouldnt it be better in an ugly place, with people who speak a language I speak, with cinemas and etc? Does it make any sense? Why would not I write from an ugly place?

At the port to Lesvos

2007-10-05T13:04:00.000+02:00

Ayvalik is a small turkish town at the northern Aegean connected to Lesvos by ferry. The island itself is somewhere at the horizon, amongst some other smaller ones closing the bay in which the port is. But I've got sick (just a cold and a fever) and I'm waiting.

I was in contact with some former job colleagues for some hellish tax declarations I had to prepare, and I told them about my plans to visit Lesvos. They said they envied me and wished me good luck and nice experiences in the lesbian paradise (was I looking for new adventures?, they asked). I had to clarify that I only wanted to go to whichever charming greek town and find a nice room with a desk and a view (preferably to the sea; even better, a terrace with a table and a shadow and the view to the sea). Over there I would spend my time writing, that's the reason I came here for.

When I got to this town of Ayvalik, to the port to Lesvos, and I was feeling a bit weak already, and I went to a guesthouse, it looked somewhat nice but I didnt pay much attention since I only wanted to take the room quickly so that I could leave the baggage and rest a bit; my plan was to stay for a couple of days anyway. I fell asleep for a short while, I woke up and I went to the shared toilet, and then I saw it, there it was: the terrace, there were tables on it, a shadow half wood half grapevine, and a view of the rest of the town, the red tile roofs, on the left side an old church and a minaret, on the right side the bay and the sea and the islands in front...

I'm not going to come to any easy conclusion about my targets or my dreams or the way everything ended up being so that I am here today. Maybe I still feel like going to Lesvos, maybe there's something in my imagination I'd like to find out there (to experience in there?) regardless of how probable it is I get it the way I've supposedly imagined it. Anyway I'll stay in here a few days for sure, thinking about the ferry, half sick and keeping myself warm, writing... not in a hurry at all.

If you work with pigs

2007-09-17T17:30:00.000+02:00

There's a poem I wrote 4 or 5 years ago, now that I know some former colleagues are listening...

Si trabajas con cerdos el olor no se va.
Llegas a casa y te lijas la piel,
te arrancas las uñas,
las limpias por debajo, y te las vuelves a poner,
frotas uno a uno cada cabello,
abrillantas las axilas y las curcusillas,
haces un enema en cada poro de tus pies,
pero el olor a cerdo sigue ahí.
Puedes pensar que tu trabajo no te afecta,
que desdoblas tu personalidad cuando te vas
y la recompones cuando vuelves,
que puedes mantener tu yo íntimo intacto,
que continúas impermeable a las exigencias del guión.
Pero recuerda: si trabajas con cerdos se te queda el olor.

(Translation into English will follow soon, basically it means if you work with pigs you might think when you get home you clean yourself up, get a shower, and the stink will go, but if you work with pigs you'll smell.)

The idea is actually older; around 10 years ago a friend working as an IT consultant told me about a friend of his who was working in a pig farm.

I remembered about it yesterday during my connecting flight from Frankfurt to Istanbul. I was sitting just beside the wing, and the noise from the engines was quite loud, annoying. But then I realised there were other noises there in the background: the sound of turning the pages of a newspaper from the guy sitting next to me, some quiet conversations (it was late already), the blonde stewardess walking around... and I realised that I could enjoy and relax if I tried to focus and listen to those ambiance sounds, then the dominating clatter of the engine got further and further away...

The guy sitting beside was Turkish. I switched on his reading light (during take off they'd switch everything off, he was reading and he didn't seem to know about it), and after that he was helplessly trying to talk to me; his english was so bad, he spoke good german but I only know a few words (like "kleine" and "grote", some numbers). It was silly, however agreeable at the same, he guy seemed happy meeting me, a foreigner travelling to Turkey. If I understood well, he was going back to visit his father at hospital; lung problems, surgery?.

Probably he had had a long journey from somewhere in Germany, his hands were black dirty and he smelled like a pig. (Is that the reason why I remembered about the poem -or was it because of the noise of the engine?)

Countdown for Istanbul

2007-09-05T22:42:00.000+02:00

10 days to go, and not necessarily coming back...

It's all about time, isnt it? Even if I feel somewhat tired and I have some much staff to get finished (including a frightening VAT declaration), I am quietly waiting and it feels ok.

It would be nice if I said that, after the forced working-break about to finish now, I'm planning to go back to the doing-nothing, to nadaism. But I'm afraid I'm not, I'm just and only really looking forward to continue with my next novel. (However, it depends on how you look at it, writing could be a nadaist activity for me, at least according to Spanish editors.)

Anyhow, the point of this post is the pointless (as the previous post, as everything). I've got the promise of freedom, in Istanbul and around in Turkey, and it's enough for my mind to keep me alive and happy. Besides, there's the pleasure of my resignation, the delight in my leaving.

(Warning: nothing new on the following statement); stupidly enough, it seems that a mind which is forever about to do something, or alternatively, which continuously has just done something, would be a mind in paradise. There's a single thing I'd like, for now: let me enjoy it!

The point of the pointless

2007-08-14T12:52:00.001+02:00

I've been now around 2 months and a half working, handling requests and preparing deliveries pretty much every week: doing “useful” stuff.

Although the first question is: what's the meaning of “useful”. For me there's quite a few valuable professions, e.g. doctors, taxi drivers, farmers and fishermen, waiters. Not me. Even scientists give a more real fruit to society, compared to mine.

I'm being paid, that's true. But I'd rather be doing something for the nadaist cause, I'd be devoted to meaningless investigations and the like.

It's all a matter of time, isn't it? It's the practical problem to deal with: when you're working you don't find free time for whatever you like, when you're not working you want to spend your time on amusing stuff, something exciting and different, or perhaps you'd just like to repeat those very nice things you enjoyed so much in the past.

Psychological time actually becomes a bigger problem: you don't want to feel that you're wasting your time - particularly when you're about to die (I've never understood why exactly there's a relation between having a good time and a kind of examination you're supposed to pass before your death?) Anyway, it's even worse, it's a mystical or religious problem, since your time is limited and in consequence there's some questions without answer you may dare to ask about waiting for an answer.

Obviously everything, literally everything in a human mind, it's all about time.

And then, there's this guy I happened to meet, a writer who lives (starves) from his writing. It seemed he wanted to help me but he had enough of his own, anyhow there's a lot of courage he gave me, and something he told me I found very beautiful: “in literature there's no wasted time”. Even if you throw it away when you're finished, next time you try to write it, it will be better. Next thing you try to write, it will only become better.

I think he's right, and for sure it does not only apply to literature. A colleague at work told me that he feels the more or less the same about programming in Java. No doubt, if that's ok for him. Other people raise children.

The point is: you have your personal definition of your activity for which there's no wasted time, then you should just focus on it and not spend much time on anything else. If that activity becomes your job, then you'll get paid for it. If not, you'll have to sacrifice time for whatever useful you are able to do and entitles you to a salary, and the rest of your time will be devoted to the pointless.

And the point for you will be on the pointless, of course.

Animal death

2007-07-29T22:18:00.000+02:00

I love dogs, when I was a child and a kid there's always been a dog around in my parents' place. (However, it's true I migh not like them so much, not enough since I've never had one myself at home, and even worse, my flatmate now has a small white hairy evil one and I'm getting tired of its barking, I think it's a dirty animal for a flat, etc.)

I'll put it in a different way: before leaving my parents' I've had quite a few dogs, and grew fond of them, felt affection (I'd say love if it wasn't such a big and important word). What I like the most it's playing with them. They're kind of simple of course, but so enthusiastic, devoted to whichever the game. They enjoy it even if it's square, they run after the carrot if needed and they like it.

And of course they die eventually, and it's tough, a couple of them went to my feet for the last breath and it hurt. However, there's another thing I've always liked about dogs, it's that they're all pretty similar; they're somehow different, smarter or sillier, fast and clumsy, fat and sharp, but essentially they're all the same, all so keen for games, for example. I quite easily end up liking my new dog as much as the dead one, even if I like it in a different way.

Some pet/dog lovers get a bit angry when I try to explain it. They tell me that I'm not being honest, that I am lying when I say I love dogs, and there's nothing I can say to change their minds.

But there's this very good friend who likes dogs as well, mostly the playing with them, as me, and he told me something I found very beautiful. He said he did not know if I was right or wrong, if there is a rightness or a wrongness applicable to what I was saying. Anyhow, he carried on, maybe it was just right, maybe it was just the right way to feel about death, and not only for animals, also for human beings. Not just about death, but the way to feel about people.

Quickly he asked me to forget about it, it was all nonsense, he said, it was around two months ago. From time to time I do remember, I spend some time thinking about rightness and wrongness, and I don't seem to quite get anywhere.

Old idea for a survey

2007-07-13T16:20:00.000+02:00

I've been back to work and back to hospital... they took my gall bladder out, seems it is quite a useless organ, nothing to worry about. I'm at home, still resting, trying to reduce the number of painkillers I take a day. And I bought a plane ticket to Turkey for september. I'll leave if I've made enough money during these months so that I can survive without working for let's say half a year. If not, I'll leave anyway; it would be a waste to stay, the ticket is not refundable.

These days I have had a lot of time to think, even if my mind has been disarranged, chaotic, sedated, and I've remembered an old idea for a survey. It's a question to be asked to males only: do you feel different after a long time without sex? you loose control, you go nuts? you stop behaving yourself?

Take the extreme example of sexual abuses during military operations. Sometimes is taken as a "collateral" effect of a war, which is horrible anyway; maybe it is a deliberate intention for a "racial cleansing"; in some cases, like e.g. UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, it's just painful, awful, disgusting. However, no matter how terrible the abuses had been, no matter how much everybody regrets it and wants those involved to be severely punished, there's always a sort of thought that it is in some way "logical" that the military become rapist, since in their missions they're far away from women for such a long time, and men have "their needs".

Ok, the example is really extreme, but the question is not "how many months without sex would make you feel such an urge that you may rape a woman?" The question is only whether there is anything in your mind which changes at all; the point would never be to justify or discharge the rapists.

Anthropologists say sex roles are purely cultural, the result of the conflict for controlling reproduction.

Sometimes males say (although they would admit it's a cliché) they would do anything to get laid, and they claim women are able to control them through their either resistance or concessions. What happens if you don't play the game? You'll get bored? sour? crazy? just lonely?

Back to work and straight to hospital

2007-06-23T16:25:00.000+02:00

Beginning of june I started working. It was a good chance that came up, as a freelancer, well paid, and for a maximum of 400 hours. (It's kind of weird to negotiate the maximum of hours, instead of the minimum.) Very quickly I realized it's not for me anymore, the nonsense of projects and consultants and different groups trying to make others responsible for their delays. Anyway, I said to myself, it was only for the money and for 2 or 3 months and after that I could take half a year holiday if I wanted to.

Second thing I realised, I didn't have time for anything anymore. The job was boring but that was not not an issue, it was just something that I had to do and I did it for the money. The problem was that it was the only thing that I would do during the day. Even if it was a normal journey of 8 hours, then I had to cook, and eat, and rest and relax a little, a shower in the morning, stuff like that, and there was no time left for anything else. Damn, I repeated to myself, "money... 2/3 months... half a year holiday".

But then it happened. The doctor does not quite agree, but for me it is clear. My body could not stand it anymore, and after 9 days, my pancreas tried to commit suicide...

However, it was not too tough, not as bad as it may sound. The day after, already in my hospital bed, the gentle nurses smiling and asking me, my answer was yes I was feeling much much better. A few days afterwards I was really ok, and before one week I was back to the streets... back to work.

Let's see if I can get my body to understand: it's a matter of money for 2/3 months, and then half a year holiday. If it does not want to understand, then of course there's nothing I can do and I'll have to take the holiday straight ahead... not in a hospital bed, I hope.

Sex is the answer

2007-05-09T16:48:00.000+02:00

The number of readers, which was very small already, is going down since I've changed the face of nadaism. “We were very few and grandma got pregnant”, as the spanish saying goes (although the meaning for me is somewhat ambiguous). First of all I must say that I will keep on writing if there's at least one person connecting let's say once a month. Secondly, I've been thinking what would it be it's making it so boring, I honestly believe the matter has huge importance for the day-to-day life, what could I do to make it more amusing, and I thought maybe sex was the answer.

Besides, since this is something posted in the Internet, probably by writing the word sex a few times (sex sex sex sex), quite a few people whose names you dont even know start getting really interested.

Maybe I've created a bit of atmosphere with the 2 paragraphs above, maybe I didnt, anyway if I did I'm going to break the spell quickly: anthropology is actually the answer. I went one morning to the library and I realized that everything was written already. Well, probably there's something written about everything, and I mean everything-everything. As for this subject in particular, anthropologist have written a lot.

It makes sense; a simple approach that I had in mind to prove that men and women are equal was to check gay couples (maybe some sex coming back on this paragraph), which I'm pretty sure will be in quite a struggle to live together, and they won't be able to blame it to the fact that “all women are the same” or “men are always like this, interested on only one thing -sex”. Well, anthropologists decided to take a look not at homosexuals but at another cultures, and not because they wanted an answer for any question, but just because it's their job; anyhow their findings are amazing.

They basically say that the sexual roles are cultural. Which includes sexual behavior and habits; I leave that for your imagination -their examples are somewhat too exotic, about tribes in Africa or in Indian America. At the end, fertility is the only difference between men and women, not sex, and culture is the “grammar of conduct”, of all conduct, they say.

I'll end this post with a quote of the Kama Sutra, (which could add some more readers, the ones a bit bored of sex): “Women are the eternal mystery. It's impossible to know how far the love of a women goes, because the nature of females is subtle and intelligent.”

To differentiate

2007-04-23T13:00:00.000+02:00

When people make generalizations they base themselves on their personal experiences, (which are necessarily limited, i.e. relatively limited), and besides on their values and believes, opinions, on the way they feel. If you ask them about the differences between both sexes, for example...

Some would use their religious background, which can be so varied depending on the religion itself, but essentially refer to procreation: that's for them the key to define the roles of men and women. I dare to say, with all due respect, it's a limited view.

Then there's science. Some might point out human beings are mammals at the end, which means they have a defined strategy for reproduction: females have just a few chances to have babies, they carry them for months on their bellies and the new-borns are weak and must be taken care of for years; in consequence, they select very carefully the men who will be faithful and stay with them throughout the process. Besides there's genetics, which means that males are supposed to spread their sperm as much as they can, while females have somehow to detect which males are healthier and more capable so that they can cross with them, giving more chances to their offspring. And that's a limited view, I dare to say.

Science would also study physiological differences between men and women, and will test some parameters of intelligence to that they make clear there are some various tasks which are done better by either one or another; e.g. men more capable when reading a map or in arithmetics, women better in geometry. So what?, I'd humbly ask.

There's even some half mystic standpoints, so that men and women would be different and complementary, and that's why their union makes so much sense. Polarity and attraction, the parts and the whole, etc. Well... to me, that's like any other believe.

Just look up the dictionary: to differentiate means to percieve there's a difference, but also to establish it, to make it different.

The obvious differences

2007-04-16T18:28:00.000+02:00

Body shapes. Some internal organs. Hormones. "Those days of the month". And only women get pregnant. There are some phisological differences everybody could agree with.

There's cultural differences: men and women are not educated the same way, i.e. they are repressed in different ways. For instance, men should not cry, women should always look beautiful.

There's the common vague understanding that men are somewhat more rational, (in their behaviour and decisions), while women are somehow more connected to their emotions, (i.e. women manage their emotions in a better way, and use them).

And there's the mysterious way in which women know exactly how much more they feel like eating or drinking, and in consecuense at the end of the meal they just sip your glass or cut a portion of a precise weight from your plate - it's exactly the piece they miss.

Those above are the differences I will accept. For the rest, I'll try to prove that men and women think the same way.

Reading your partner's mind

2007-03-29T18:36:00.000+02:00

Sometimes your partner expects you to know what he or she wants, other times he/she would like you to do or to propose or just to say something in particular, which shouldn't be so difficult for you to guess (?), since you are together and know and love each other.

The female is supposed to be the one that expects the other to be an oracle, but I'd say this is a cliché; men are also very happy when they're given by surprise exactly what they wanted. Maybe males don't talk so openly about those dim expectations, maybe they disregard something so vague and emotional even if they feel it or wish it, since they believe it's nonsense or impractical. (According to the cliché, the reason would be that there's only the one thing in males' minds, and anything else is like an additional present they don't really deserve).

Anyway there's the situation, two people living together and one of them does not understand something about the other, but the other thinks the first has understood. Actually the 2nd expects the 1st to understand because it's so obvious, they've even talked about it before, and they love each other so much. Still, the 1st, very much in love, has no clue. Which is annoying for the 2nd. From that point (1st clueless and 2nd upset) onwards, it may only become worse; no solution possible, the 2nd could even try to explain it, again and again, but the 1st will not understand, (why should 1st?, is now a better moment?).

If 1st could read his/her partner's mind, (and a tiny bunch people claims there's means to do it), then 1st would know what 2nd is thinking. But then, 1st would also know absolutely everything about 2nd, every single corner of the mind of 2nd would be clear, the nasty details as well. Maybe if 1st would be able to see 2nd so completely and openly, 1st would not like 2nd so much anymore. Even worse, maybe 2nd has the same ability to read 1st's mind, and 1st is scared that 2nd gets into this magic view of 1st, and some time leater 2nd breaks up in anger.

Those minds with their reading powers would be scared of showing too much of themselves to each other, of finding aspects they don't like (or they could hate) about each other. The problem of not understanding each other will of course remain, but it would be like a secondary matter; maybe it was secondary since the beginning.

It's not that I mean anything by this post. How would I know?, me?, a long-lasting and proved bachelor!. My point is actually about control, how looking for control means missing the point, sometimes.

Waiting chaos

2007-03-10T17:34:00.000+01:00

I got my room, finally; no excuses for the chaos anymore. I have the feeling that that I don't find the time for some stuff that I'd like to do, but probably it's because the day is not long enough.

I do my practice, I write, and I cook and I eat, and I rest, and unfortunately as I say I cannot spend much yet for anything else - I hope it will come. For example, I'd like to continue with the translation of the yoga sutras that I promised.

And I'm happy, even if the price for the rent is a small fortune, and whenever I go out I spend small amounts, and not so small sometimes. Money flies fast and I have no income but I cannot be bothered, I don't feel the vertigo, because I'm waiting. Waiting is magic.

I'm waiting for the brother of a friend who is a writer, (I mean somebody real who makes a living from writing); he is reading my novel and promised to give me some honest advice. I have no idea what is he going to do or to say. And I'm waiting for a friend who is going to start up an IT project and might have a part-time job for me, (although I believe it's unlikely he goes for it, and if he does I wouldnt say he will hire me).

Waiting gives you peace of mind, waiting gives you space in your mind because you don't need to worry about the future anymore, because the future will come at the end of your waiting. It does not matter what you are waiting for; if you are waiting you will make your whole mind available for focusing on your day.

Then I practise, I write, I cook, I eat, and I rest. And sometimes I go out. And sometimes I regret a little that still did not find time for some other stuff. It's perfect, I'm centered, I feel I could be waiting for nothing for ever, like this.

However all this is just different words to put the motto of this blog, of course, and the main problem remains: no contributions are going to come. If I could just believe they're on their way, I'd wait for ever.

People work Monday to Friday in here

2007-02-25T20:22:00.000+01:00

A friend, who has just started working after a few months on holiday, told me: "while I was in C... doing nothing I actually felt I was very busy and amused and I did not have much free time, but now that I'm here working, often in the evenings I wonder, what shall I do now!. And the weekend is 2 full days to be filled with and I don't know what to to do!".

By the way, that's the reason why you need so much money to spend when you are working: you get bored so easily and feel the need to indulge yourself. However if you are happily doing nothing (i.e. you are not desperate to find a job), you don't need much to amuse yourself and are able to live cheaply.

Now I am staying with a friend, and the place is really small, a 1 room apartment. I sleep on the floor and obviously have to go to bed and wake up when he does, he's always lazy to get up and late to work. Finally when I'm on my own I do my practise and have lunch, and hardly find a couple of hours in the afternoon for doing something like looking for my own room, until he comes back from the office...

I'm having a very good time, and I appreciate so much he's giving me shelter. My life quite chaotic, and I'm doing nothing like never ever - but I guess I'm just indulging myself. However I'm afraid, when I go back to myself (I have the room and I'll move on thursday) it's going to be difficult to get back into the arranged and neat routine of doing nothing.

A few sutras in bitter Europe

2007-02-07T21:21:00.000+01:00

Bitter cold, I mean.

When I wrote the last post I was just coming out of a flu, I was still locked in a warm place and basically I had not been outside yet. At least London was cheap, from my bed. Now in Spain, I've been around for 3 weeks in Europe and the cold seems to be still in my bones. I've postponed any serious thought for the moment... not much time for the yoga sutras either. Here you have a few however, the fist 14. There's 200 in total, it might take me around one year to finish?.

" Now starts a guide on yoga. Yoga means calming down the states and movements of the consciousness. When it's achieved, the most inner layer of the self comes out strongly; the rest of the time, the self identifies itself with the states and movements of the consciousness.
" There's 5 states and movements, which may be painful or not. They are: knowledge, illusion or error, delusion, sleep and memory. Direct knowledge may be based either on perception, or on inference, or on authority. Illusion is a false impression of facts or reality. Delusion is a verbal fabrication which is empty of any substance. Sleep is an involuntary absence of movements of consciousness. Memory is remembering words and experiences.
" The practice of yoga and detachment are the ways to calm down those states and movements; practice is the continuous effort, and if it is long, uninterrupted and awake and alert, it's the foundation to get to calm down.

Not very exciting I'd agree... that's because I havent reached the "superpowers" yet, which the practitioner is supposed to acquire through continuous discipline and after quite some years. It will be more "challenging" (I've always hated that word in its professional use) but not impossible to translate. Should I mention I've met some Westerns in India who were quite interested on those powers, (maybe they want to acquire them, or only understand them?). Anyway there's no reason to laugh; for Indians, our European obsession on achieving enlightenment sounds quite funny as well.

Nadaist yoga sutras

2007-01-23T22:25:00.001+01:00

The yoga sutras were written by Patanjali some 2500 years ago, they are a very precise piece of knowledge about yoga. But they were written in sanskrit, which is a difficult and dead language, and they were very short, their meaning a bit obscure, as it happens with many other old scriptures. The fact that according to the myth Patanjali was an incarnation of the snake god does not help bringing light to the subject, I'd guess.

Neither do help much the big number of books that have been written on the subject since the beginning of the 20th century. So many pages of commentaries on a bit less than 200 short aphorisms cannot serve to clarify it but just to mess it up more and more.

Some of these modern thinkers claim that in those ancient times the sutras were written, they were actually understood by the readers, because the spiritual knowledge was on average much much higher compared to the present moment, in which modernity and technology have spoilt everything (?). I would not dare to contradict anybody on anything, but it sounds like the typical statement about any past period of time being better. Why should the contemporaries of the snake god understand anything he was talking about, what do we know about those centuries, were there more yoga practitioners compared to the present?. For sure there were not people from every corner of the world travelling to India to learn yoga.

Anyway, it's not that my translation is going to contribute to clarify anything, of course not. Not that many people are going to read it anyway. Not that it has any value either, I'm not translating it from sanskrit, but just playing from another english translation. But the point I'm going to try to make is that I will translate them not using any spiritual word, that using the right words it could be a very clear explanation with no ambiguity. Depending on who you ask, my translation could be a blasphemy or an exercise of stupidity. I just hope it will be more or less funny.

Let's face it

2007-01-12T15:57:00.000+01:00

I have no idea what to do.

I do know what I'm going to do next, I have the return flight to London, which I booked so long ago I can't remember, (when january 2007 was far away and meaningless), and I have to leave India because of the visa. I'll spend a few days in the crazy expensive city, I'll visit my family to say hello, and then I will go somewhere to stay with a friend for some time, he/she still does not know, since I don't know either. Little by little I'll get used to Europe again, and I'll see how my money flies 3 or 4 times faster compared to India, even though I'm staying with a friend. (If it takes me some time to realise it, it might be a different friend from the 1st one).

In the meantime I'll finish the novel - I'm nearly there already. I'll make everything possible to get it published, feeling very sad since if I had success it would be the end of the nadaism and this time there would be no way around, (it was still ok when I starting the regular yoga practice for the sake of it, also when I was focusing on writing just for the sake of it). But the nadaist cause needs money, and if nobody contributes, it is over. Anyway no problem for a while because it is probably a hopeless try I will make.

Then, money running out fast, novel not published, the consequence is obvious and sounds very very scary: I'll be forced to look for a job. Let's face it. It is going to happen. It will be the end.

I hope by that time I am not much worried than I am now, (i.e. right now I am not worried at all). I'm quite sure, actually.

Also I'd like to think that by that time I have an idea or a hint of what to do. But let's face it, I won't. How could you make sense of such a step.

New year's eve

2007-01-02T15:29:00.000+01:00

Short post to explain you how did it go with my new year's eve, because it was awesome.

The yoga & vipassana guys were going out for dinner, but somehow I did not feel like it. They are very nice and warm people, I've spent some good times with them, no complains about it, (except maybe that their conversation sometimes tends to go too much to the yoga & vipassana subjects). And they are not "party people", not particularly, which is kind of nice as well.

=> A side note maybe, quite an important one though: make no mistake, yoga people are quite neurotic. I don't know why I thought in a yoga course in India you would find very nice and balanced and peaceful group, but no no no they're nuts, (starting by myself of course).

Anyway that night I did not feel like going out with them. And I did not have any other alternatives since I don't know so many people around - besides the yoga classes, my social life is limited here, there's the girls I try to talk to now and then with little success. Then I didn't.

On my way to the restaurant I was feeling kind of weird. Was I going to spend my new year's eve having dinner on my own and going to bed early?. Would I not regret it and feel sad about it?. The answer was obviously negative. But I don't know, I had my doubts untill it was over; it seems that you cannot be sure unless you give it a try. May I encourage you to do the same one of these years?. It was a wonderful finding. No hassle with new year's eve anymore.

Christmas and all that

2006-12-25T11:20:00.000+01:00

I'm in a tropical beach north of Goa. At midday is still too sunny so I usually have to hide, it's a good time to go in front of the cold one-eyed computer, and to update the blog maybe - it's been a couple of weeks since last time, but the simplicity of my days here leave me quite silent, not much to say then...

Yesterday it was christmas eve, you could say this is a good place to spend the holidays. Although I guess it's as good as any other. The best christmas in my life were probably last year, I was also in India and I went for a visit to a tibetan settlement in the south; but those days were for sure amongst the best in my life, I had just left everything and I was travelling with a very very good friend - christmas did not have much to do with it, neither against it, it was just a date in the calendar which was quite unrelated to what was happening to me.

Well yesterday I did not have many plans, did not feel like going into a party for sure, there's some friends around, mostly from yoga classes, and I was guessing I would meet them and have a quiet dinner with them. It's funny though that I had not seen them during the full day and I was getting a bit kind of anxious as dinner time was approaching: the perspective of spending christmas eve on my own did sound weird. I was surprised I had that feeling, (I have had lunch on my own yesterday and it was perfectly alright), but there it was.

Eventually I met them of course, and we went for dinner, it was not much different than usual, (we have food together pretty much daily), except for the fact that we decided to go to a good italian restaurant, supposed to be the best in town, for a change. Afterwards we were all tired and sleepy and went straight to bed.

If you believe that the external things are your problem, that you get disturbed and stressed because of the daily hassles, the job, the responsibilities, the family, or whatever else, then the solution should be easy, no?, then you would know what to do if you wanted to get out of that disturbance, of that stress.

But, whatever your reasons, if you actually do it and leave everything, maybe you find a lot of peace of mind, or even you find something huge you had not realised before, or you start feeling happiness, or I don't know which good things start happening to you. However, if you are lucky, you might also figure out what was the origin of that disturbances and the stress you felt in your "old life", because in your "new life" there's also annoyances, and you may get very angry about them, as much as you want...

It does not mean that you've learnt automatically to deal with all those problems, even worse, no matter how small they are they may go out of hand, probably you're even further away from solving them, and it is very frustrating since they are so tiny now that you are free and you have no reason to get disturbed. The good thing is that you've learnt something very very important, something you know it makes the difference!! - and it's so obvious you kind of wonder how it is that you've never known and you needed all these adventures to get to the point...

The sausage machine

2006-12-10T14:52:00.000+01:00

It does not sound well in English, "the sausage machine". Not even in Spanish, but at least there is the expression "there are more days than sausages", and from there you can more or less guess it. I imagine a very big sausage machine in which the pigs enter alive falling from the trunk into a door on top, and then on the right side the sausages come out in a chain. The core mechanism of the device is quite complicated, not only mechanic but it also involves electronics, and there's regulators and bottons that look old fashioned like the ones on the chest of Darth Vader.

Well I could try to draw it, maybe it would make a motive for a nice Buddisht tanka. But I'm kind of busy you know in this tropical beach, attending to yoga classes in the morning, writing a bit, and I hardly have time to go for a swim before sunset... if anybody is reading, and bored enough to do it and send it, I would be very happy to post it in the blog. Besides I could show it to some indian artisans-for-tourism and maybe they like the design, and start selling tankas like sausages.

Anyway the point of the sausage machine is not the tanka. Some months ago I was talking about some "funny" characters in a neurotic mind like mine, such us the croupier or the thing, so that nothing never seemed to be really in peace. Even if I was emptying my days, my days were not becoming empty, etc.

These times I'm by far more relaxed; (probably because relaxation is a matter of practice also). When I thought about it, I was expecting that the croupier would leave me alone so that I could spend more time with the thing. But no no no. The croupier is indeed sleeping in his shinny shirt with his head over the green kind of carpet of the gambling table. But the thing is not closer or further away, and my mind has become a machine of sausages.

You know sausages coming one after the other look similar, but if you look more closely they are all somewhat different in shape, length... (I guess it depends on how precise the machine is). Anyhow that's the feeling, it's what's coming out in my head, all the time, the soft noise of the machine, the smell of the raw meat, always in the background.

Definitively, it is an improvement!.

Indian wedding in the dry season

2006-12-01T12:54:00.000+01:00

... had nothing to do with the "monsoon wedding". Not that all movies should have anything to do with anything of course, but western expectations might be too high sometimes.

Even if it ended up not being an exciting kirsch party, it was very interesting. It was high caste and quite formal, lots of attendees, maybe a peak of 1000 (?), and the ceremonies and rituals were really complex. Although in essence not so different to the west I would say: there's more people invited than anything you can handle, there's a kind of script so that everybody knows more or less what's going to happen, there's a feeling that it is a very very special occasion. Ok there's the indian "exoticism" (to our eyes), and the colors, and the rituals, and it is soooo long - the full thing was one day and a half.

The most curious part was actually behind the scenes. The marriage was arranged, in India in most cases it is still arranged, even for the educated and wealthy people, (the example my friend who works in IT). Quite an unromantic deal: the "1st cut" of the candidates is done by the family, based on 3 main criteria: (1) caste is the same, (2) astrology matches, and (3) he/she looks alright at the photo and has the right height. Afterwards both families meet and have some lunch, and the husband and wife hold a private interview of a few hours and have the last word.

(Besides the situation is not balanced for him and her, but that's a bit like complaining about some of the monarchies e.g. the spanish which give preference to males even if there is an older daughter - either you like the idea of having a king or not, you cannot give a modern touch to something as old as that).

But the really surprising issue for me is that my friends are ok with it. I've been fascinated about this subject since my 1st trip to India, actually. I even got to understand that 2 people may fall in love with each other in that situation, if they are willing to go for it and they are very very honest - they pursue real love?. But why, why doing it this way.

Why there is no chance for men and women to meet in India?. In the wedding they were gorgeous ladies very dressed up, and my friends showed me how to know if they're married of not by their neck collars. But why, why did they tell me that if I kept looking at women we would all get into trouble. Why any kind of seduction, even the most innocent staring, seems to be banned in India?.

Love stories

2006-11-24T07:45:00.000+01:00

A very very good friend, who I met in Rishikesh, got to know I am an amateur writer and wanted me to tell her a love story. She even gave me the beginning, the 1st statement, which would be "when he saw her she was standing by the open window with a red rose in her hand and the untamed wind caressing her face", or something of the like.

Possibly as a counter reaction, I ended up telling her a story of unfulfilled love, dramatic, the main character consumed in pain and fear. I'm not sure she enjoyed it, but I think it was actually the same kind of love she had asked me to tell her about, the romantic love; the feeling of a teenager craving for a beautiful girl, the impulses and the blindness of somebody taken by passion and desire, the jealousy in a relationship...

There's the nice poems meant to express that one cannot even breath without the loved one, there's the possession and the strong fear of losing the loved one, there's the despair, desperation and craziness when the loved one does not love the one. All seem to be aspects of the same kind of love, romantic it is usually called, which regards the loved one as an object of love, and not so much as a person to love to, which happens in the mind only; and it is not such a big exaggeration to say that it hardly needs the loved one. At least not for the romantic game, for which a single person, the one taken by love, is enough.

I tried to explain to my friend that I don't really like this romantic love, even if I'm not sure I believe that I don't. Well, love for me is a struggle, since reluctant women always manage to make it that way. Then, I kind of despise romanticism, but start my quest for "real love", for that love happening only when the two people are together, that kind of magical feeling in the present, pure, crystalline, (not when I'm missing her or waiting or looking for her or just thinking about her).

But what about that quest?. It is probably a new pattern, a solution for the struggle in which the impulse to look for love and the fear, blind fear for it, both get into a new balance which looks rationally sound and beautiful - or maybe just very very unromantic and a bit insane.

One year!

2006-11-15T15:49:00.000+01:00

Today it's been one year that I left everything including my job, one year that I've been a nadaist - even if I started the blog only around 3 months later.

So it's a kind of anniversary and could be a reason for a celebration, maybe. I'm doing nothing though. I'm in Delhi, which is a kind of uninspiring city, and only here on my way to Mumbai. Besides today I've got my shoes stolen and a famous "delhi-belly" - and I don't mean the last one as a travellers' cliche.

Furthermore, only yesterday I left Rishikesh and it was tough. I had a very good time there and it was not easy to say good-bye to some of the friends I've made - maybe I should talk about them in another post, maybe I'd like to insist a bit on the somewhat boring ideas regarding the struggle...

Anyway, it does not matter, here it is where I happen to be in this important date, that's it. There's no good way or bad way to celebrate. There's not even a reason to celebrate when everything you eat goes down to the toilet so fast.

It reminds me, when I left London in April I decided I would find an island in the Mediterranean and maybe rent something for a few weeks and spend the time writing and going to the beach. Eventually I decided the island would be Sicily and I got there beginning of June after a tough night train journey from Rome. I was in Catania, very tired, very early in the morning, I went to a guesthouse I had kind of booked and it was nice and cheap but they told me to go for a walk, since the room was not ready yet. The city looked nice even if I was exhausted. When I went back to the guesthouse, in an impulse I negotiated with the owner for a better price if I stayed longer. He said yes.

But when I got a bit of rest I was not so sure about the decision. I had just arrived, maybe I wanted to take a look to other potential cities to stay, like Siracusa or Taormina, maybe I just wanted to think about it. Eventually I realised, it took me hours or even days, that all the anxiety I had about my decision to stay in Catania was actually about the trip itself. I had been one month an a bit just on my way from London to the "promised island", and everything in the way was enjoyable and easy, because I was just on my way. Then in Catania I realised that I was there.

It might sound silly. But the rest of the trip was lovely. I was there, in whichever place I was. And now I have the sensation I'm always there, anywhere I am.

So here I am in Delhi, with my delhi-belly, with my new shoes, in a day that by chance is related to a very very good decision I took one year ago. And I have the feeling that I could stay as a nadaist for ever, if only somebody would give me the funds to start it up.

There's another nice thing I remember about Catania. The owners of the guesthouse were very nice, invited me for dinner a few times. Eventually the house was full and they proposed me to move for a few days to the apartment of a brother of the man who was living in Milano. It was such a nice place, such good days, cooking and writing and doing nothing.

The apartment was in the via Amore 4, which means "street of Love 4". When I left I decided that whenever I could I would always try to live in the street of love. But I havent kept the promise!.

Struggle

2006-11-07T14:13:00.000+01:00

There's quite a few confusing ideas in eastern phylosophies and systems of belief, one of them is about renunciation. Not that I understand anything, of course. But I had the idea of the indian or buddhist ascetics leaving the material world and going to the forest to live in endurance as a path to somewhere superior. Somehow it is related to the karma as well, although these two are completely different concepts I believe.

Anyhow, maybe I was making a mistake here with the renunciation. In the yoga class I learnt that these guys are not really interested on the self torture, but rather on the struggle. It could be anything, it may be attempting a very simple yoga posture, (one of those that myself I can attempt and never make right), or, just to take a completely unrelated example, it may be confessing your mum that you are gay on your 40th birthday. When you have the impulse to go for it, the 1st internal reaction is fear, is "I cannot make it" or "I'm going to hurt myself or somebody else" or whatever. There is a conflict between the willingness for the action and the fear of it, and there is a counter-reaction which is the struggle when you are actually trying to do it.

That's the point they want to focus on. Since the struggle may become creative, since something new could come to your mind as a result.

If does not really matter if you make it or not, there's many other yoga positions to try; even if you've made it is not enough, since surely it was not perfect or you could not hold it long enough. And your mum probably knows at this stage you are gay, (even if she did as if she didnt), so the problem is really why you havent told her yet, and a new struggle will come when you are trying to figure out what to say next.

It is the struggle itself which is really the important moment; not what you make of it, nor the sense of achievement, nor what you rationalise afterwards. My guru-bitch tried to show me I should forget about any of the struggles as soon as they are finished, and not to make a fuss of it, of course not to write about it. So I leave it here.

My guru is a bitch

2006-10-30T12:33:00.000+01:00

There are two yoga asanas o positions called with complicated sanscrit words which mean "dog streching with the head up" and "dog streching with the head down". Next time you see a dog streching up or down, you know, just look carefully, and keep in mind that there's millions of yoga practitioners around the world trying to imitate those movements.

Some yoga teachers insist that you should study the nature so that you will understand some of the positions, like the 2 mentioned above, plus some many others called after animals.

Everyday after the tough yoga sessions I go to the Ganga river for a bath. The water is cold, it is coming from glaciers a couple of hundred km up, which makes it even better, a massage for the back and the muscles in pain. At the beginning not even after the swim I was able to relax. Until I realised that there was always a dog around, a female dog, a bitch, sleeping under the sun. Then I tried to imitate its posture, not literally lying on the floor but let's say the "soul" of its attitude and itention, and it worked, I found some peace of mind. So the bitch, which never ever seemed even to notice me, there sleeping under the sun, became my guru.

One day after dinner I went back to the guest house, it was 10 pm, very late for somebody walking up before the indian sunset. Then I saw a dog running towards me. And it was it!, it was the guru-bitch, who came to say hello shaking its tail!. I tapped its head a little bit, showing respect, and excused myself since I had to go to sleep.

Of course the day after the dog did not move when I went for the bath - it was giving its class.

Nadaist principles: revision

2006-10-18T16:57:00.000+02:00

I'm once again breaking my nadaist principles. I've joined a yoga course and I'm already at the 10th lesson.

In my defense, there's a couple of things that I can say.

First of all, I'm a very bad yoga practitioner. Whomever knows me long enough, or has played basketball or football with me, is perfectly aware that I can be more or less clumsy or effective, but anyhow my hips are like the trunk of a tree, and flexibility is not my asset. There's around 50% of the yoga positions that I cannot make, and for the ones I'm able to get closed, I suffer quite some pain. Thus it is not that I'm learning a lot.

But, most importantly, it does not matter. The point of going to the yoga class is exactly that: going to the yoga class. There is no long term or even short term objective. You go there and do your practice as good as you can and try to focus on your body and on your mind, and you have to let go at the same time. I'd say it is a sort of nadaist activity.

I'm in a very cheap but nice guesthouse by the Ganga. It's very quiet and it has a beautiful garden. I spend most of the day after my class there, I write, read, and listen to music, I go for a swim to the river even if the water is very cold. When I'm hungry I knock the door of my neighbour and we go together to the restaurant. It's a wonderful life, and even if I'm still working in the novel most of you know about, (another breach of the nadaist principles), I'm trying to do it in the yoga way, in the nadaist way if I may say, focusing on the page I'm at, even on the sentence and the word I'm at. And when I'm finished I could either throw it to the trash or try to publish it, it does not matter.

It may look as if I'm trying to find a way to excuse myself. But honesty, even if I'm kind of busy, I feel as closed as ever to be doing nothing, and it feels really really very good!.

Sadhu's fashion statements

2006-10-04T12:52:00.000+02:00

You see the sadhus all around in India, they are the ascetics, have taken a fully spiritual path and they've given up any material possession and live maybe in a cave or go around travelling or I don't know. Buddha was actually a sadhu. Besides it is supposed to be the last stage of the live of every brahmin (higher cast). Anyhow, in particular in holy places, you see lots of them, e.g. like in Haridwar where I am now, (Uttaranchal) - bathed by the river Ganga, same as Varanasi.

I was having a tea at the (holy) promenade by the river, taking a look at the scenes. A guy came and asked for a chai. He was telling off a sadhu that sat down with him and shared the chai. I did not understand a word, but it was obvious the guy was upset. It seems some sadhus are not so genuine and try to cheat people in different ways, maybe this was one of them, anyhow the sadhu eventually stood up, said his last words, and left on his own.

Sadhus are poor since they've renounced to everything, they're dirty since they've given up soap. Their hair is a mess how knows if they ever wash it, or themselves, (except in holy rivers and lakes). They spend a lot of time in the open so their skin is really dark and some of the hair looses color; some of them look as if they've been to the hairdresser and had it done rasta style. But then, I realised that this sadhu possibly a cheater who was leaving had actually a perfect rasta hair, which could not be just the effect of dust and dirt, wind and sun, but had to be the work of a professional!!. Besides, he had several necklaces and his loincloth was shinny orange.

I started looking around at the sadhus with my new eyes, and indeed, this one had bracelets at his forearm, the other one was wearing his shabby pieces of cloth with lots of style, and most of them used that kind of bags that the westerns half mystics like so much (see previous posts, and by the way I have one of those bags myself), they all painted their faces a bit... I went for a short walk around the Ganga and yes it was confirmed, every one of them had a peculiarity, something nice even if humble, bracelets or necklaces or the hair vogue or the smartness of the rags or sunglasses.

The western half mystics don't look like indians nor western, the sadhus are actually the only indians that dress in the same wave as the half mystics. (However, of course, it has to be the other way around).

I don't know if the indians manufacturing clothes for the half mystics (there is already a kind of industry around it) have realised this fact. They should come to the shores of the Ganga as if the sadhus were on display in their catwalk and take ideas and create fashion.

Spiritual materialism

2006-09-30T16:52:00.000+02:00

Pushkar (Rajasthan) is a small town beside a lake somewhat related to Brahma the Hindu god. The water of the lake is holy for the religious crowds and they go and bath and drink from it, (it looks quite greenish by the way, and big big fish lives in it since fishing is not allowed - they survive despite the amounts of incense and flowers that are thrown daily from the shore).

When I arrived in the late afternoon I thought of going to watch the sunset, but there are lots of warnings in the magic guidebooks about touts that want to "help" you to make a pooja (offering). Thus I looked for a quiet place, (actually there was not even a direct view of the sun setting down). A guy here and there would come and do their ablutions in the green water. Then a priest came and cleaned up (indian cleaning) some of the steps by throwing buckets of the holy water, and then his gadgets for the ritual. Afterwards he went for a bath himself and, since at that moment I was the only alive person around, he asked me if I could stay at least for a few minutes and then I would look after the gadgets - in case a doggy would come I should keep them safe.

The guy even swam a bit and went to change loincloths and came back and started his pooja. An old man joined him with a cymbal and a stick. Eventually they needed somebody to wave a kind feather duster (holy one) to welcome the gods - they asked me as a last resort. I joined and we did the thing and tossed flowers to the lake and the priest sat down and started singing (praying). It was nice, relaxing, lonely, even if his voice was not melodic. Pleasant. When the fire was finish the priest stopped. Then we talked a bit, he explained me that he was praying for shanti, (calm, meaning non-aggression). His english was crap, when I asked something the answer made no sense to the question (or maybe it was mysterious), and I guess he got a similar impression of me since I did not understand when he was asking something. At the end he recommended me a couple of simple mantras. I'd guess he was a honest hindu believer.

The ritual was kind of nice, curious, as I say the full scene was peaceful, agreeable, and maybe if I tried the mantras I would feel ok with them. It's quite common for we westerns to have those kind of feelings. There's a buddhist writer who explains it using a very good example: some meditation techniques are supposed to bring boredom to the practitioner but actually for the foreigners are enjoyable, they say they find them "an amazing experience". This guy (Trungpa) calls it "spiritual materialism", a mistake of even truthful spiritual seekers, who try a technique and find it nice and get a result, but then their rational mind makes a full setup about it which has nothing to do with it, (since it has nothing to do with anything rational), and in the worst cases there is a masala mix of rituals and details that he/she likes or finds powerful, of several religions and woodo and shamanism.

Of course the half mystics of Leh and Pushkar and all around India are the perfect embodiment of it. But nobody seems to be free: myself if you would had asked me only a few days before I'd told you that no no way I would never be the altar boy of a priest, whichever religion it was...

Leh is cool

2006-09-15T08:07:00.000+02:00

Leh, (Ladakh, J&K, north India), is for sure a cool city, a touristic city.

After some wandering around you realise that the residential area for locals occupies hardly the same surface as the section for hotels and guest houses and restaurants and travel agencies. Luckily is the low season now, not too many people, although still you can find the main kinds of touristic subspecies.

There's the Israelis, (not all of them of course, it is always wrong to generalize), with their very long and tough military service, 2 years, and after that they're crazy to take a holiday at least as long, and they come to India since it is such a cheap place to go around, and they smoke joints and drink and do nothing. On the other hand, it's important to note that the Israelis (the ones of this kind) literally don't move around so much, they don't get out of hotels and restaurants, thus unless they are exactly in the same as the one you've decided to go to, (since it is said in the magic guidebook the food is good), they will not bother you, you won't even notice them.

There's the half mystics as well. They are easy to identify for their clothes, which in Europe would look a bit like Indian, but in India they just look weird. Lots of colors, loose garments, which appear to be worn out. (It seems Indian recycle old sarees for the manufacture; they've realised there's a big market for the half mystics' peculiar style). Anyhow, besides the clothes, the half mystics are interested on anything that may sound spiritual and religious and traditional, although make no mistake, just interested enough, not going much into details that would be boring.

Besides in Leh there's lots of the specie of trekkers, who all dress as if they were going to go on a trek, (of course). It is true they're going to go on a treck, sooner or later, but not necessarily in the next five minutes, as a neutral uninformed observer could think when looking at them. "Wow, all these people in this city just about to go on a trek at this moment, how many there will be then in the mountains".

And there's plenty of shops of handicrafts and clothes, (in particular for the half mystics but also for the other travellers), and bored and somewhat but not too much annoying shopkeepers, and low business in low season. And plenty of restaurants and different kinds of good food. Well, and Buddhist monasteries, surely too many.

So it is a weird cool city, and it is good luck there's not so many tourists now. Since I don't know what day is it today, you could probably convince me that I've been either 2 days or 1 month here, or both with only a few hours' difference.

Indian home stay cliches

2006-09-09T13:08:00.000+02:00

There's a travellers' cliche about home stays in India, for sure. It's said it's supposed to be a very enriching and deep experience, even if nobody knows what exactly it's meant to be.

And then there was a nice village in the middle of nowhere and I really liked it and I decided to have my piece of home stay in India and for sure it was intense. HOWEVER:

- The owner of the house was a drunkard

(Well he had a broken leg in a plaster, and he was really bored, he said he needed the alcohol for digestion since he could not go to work -- ?, anyhow at the end of the day after 2 litres of a hellish artisan liquor he was quite pissed, and I had to have dinner with him and it was annoying, even worse with his limited english).

- The friends of the owner of the house also enjoyed drinking

(Even if they could and had to go to work. One evening I prepared dinner for them, and they got so drunk, and when we ate and they liked the food so much, the conversation got so bad about me being so nice to cook for them and about eternal friendship and about god in the tribal kinnauri views - and it implied me drinking the undrinkable, at least a bit, whenever they got more enthusiastic).

- And I got a marriage proposal

(Actually the 1st evening the owner asked me if I was married and then he started talking about his land and the dowry, if I liked any of his 2 daughters. And I tell you it did not feel good, not at all, I nearly felt like vomiting, even if it was a stupid reaction and I only had to say no).

- And women in India are treated like shit

(Myself trying to make the point, e.g. helping the daughters at the kitchen or bringing the plates back and forth, was stupid and hopeless. Women are nothing in India, at least in rural India, they're treated as servants).

- And there were nice and warm moments but I wonder

(I wonder what did we actually share, what was the cultural exchange. They're just supposed to treat guests as half gods, thus they make you feel good. Traditions may look nice, you might feel curiosity, but mixed with annoyance and pity about the things you don't like or that are unfair - I had lots of pity for the girls, but how honest it was?. And what are their perspectives, their possibilities, their choices? - are these people really interesting?).

- And I got some bugs as a good bye present

(Which were biting me all around, and took me 3 days to remove after nearly striping my skin, and all my body was still itchy for a couple of weeks).

As a positive note, I guess experiencing is the best antidote for naivety. And it was a perfect nadaist activity, since I did nothing in those 3 days.

Well there's travellers' cliches and so many ways of travelling and nobody seems to like being called a tourist. Maybe we should start an anonymous club and introduce ourselves to each other saying something like "my name is Lorenzo and I am a tourist". And then we could start saying the truth about the trip, since it is not always so fantastic...

Disappointed guru

2006-08-10T15:55:00.000+02:00

For a number of reasons I've stayed in Shimla for nearly 2 weeks. It's a city closed to the Himalayas but not yet there, altitude 2000m. There's lots of tourists that pass by for a couple of days on their way to the deeper valleys. They come, chat a bit, and leave in a hurry even if there's so much rain and landslides - the tourist agents call it "adventure".

But there's also people that stay, some days ago I met a german girl, quite young, who told me she had found a very spiritual person who was helping her a lot, who was exactly what she was looking for, the reason she came to India. She looked really happy.

Then yesterday I met an israeli girl at a coffeeshop and it was raining so much and she was bored and wanted to do something and we ended up going together to one of the sights in the city. At a certain point we talked about nadaism, of course, and she said in a way she wanted to leave everything and go travelling for a while, but on the other hand she was happy with her life in Jerusalem and with her job and she did not want to risk all that. She was in a big doubt for the short term as well, not sure about what to do for her 2 weeks left in India.

The israeli girl had some pain in her back and wanted to get a massage, but a good masseur was not so easy to find. There was a guy, male, that somebody told us about, and we went to visit him together. This guy did not look so interested in the massage itself, and starting talking "spiritually". He said he was a very intuitive person and wanted to prove it, he made some amazing guesses, at least with me, he told me I'm afraid of water, (which is more or less true, I was very much when I was a child, now I can swim but still feel it is not my element), he said I look at everything with the stomach, as soon as there is tension or worries it goes there, (just true), and finally that I have had a lot of problems with women, (well this one was not so difficult, just looking at my face I'd say, and also it is quite a common issue). Anyhow, he tried some guesses with the israeli girl and I don't know how right he got but she was all the time asking for more. The guy was repeating here and there that he would be able to help her, that she was doubting a lot about her life, not sure which way to take, and she needed some balance in her mind.

I honestly don't know how genuine was the guy, but I really think that he's been able to help to a lot of people, the ones that believe in him. The german girl that I met a couple of weeks ago was still visiting him, and she was so happy.

Anyway I don't know what people are looking for when they come to India.

The day after, i.e. today, the israeli girl left Shimla and headed to Rishikesh - one of her friends was sick but feeling better this morning. By chance I met the guru again and I was having a coffee and he joined me. The conversation was quite disordered, discontinuous, he was looking at people, observing them, (potential clients?), smiling to anything I'd say, but not really interested on more guesses or deeper conversation with me, (maybe he saw using his intuition that I had no intention on hiring his services, but only a lot of curiosity). From time to time he was talking about the israeli girl and saying that he knew she was going to leave but he would have liked to help her. Finally I asked him if he was disappointed because she was gone.

- No!, he said, how can I be disappointed, I'm the happiest person in the world!.

- Well, I said, maybe it was a bad choice of words, but it looks to me you really wanted to help her.

I did not tell him to look for the meaning of the word in the dictionary. The guy left after a while, I had to insist a bit so that he would let me pay his coffee. I didn't change my mind about him, I'm sure he helps people. He lives a good life as well, thanks to the "donations". Any good tout has a reasonable good life.

Only I don't see why a teacher should not be disappointed sometimes.

They call us pinkus

2006-08-01T14:56:00.000+02:00

The deeper I get into the Himalayas the more difficult is going to be to get access to the Internet - good excuse for eventual lack of updates.

Now I'm in Shimla, a very popular hill station, lots of indian tourists but also some whites, (we're are just everywhere). I was hanging around lost and I found some locals getting drunk in a kind of picnic place, it was a good-bye party. They invited me to join and in the heat of the conversation they told me they call us pinkus, "the pink foreigners".

One of them in particular was amazing. Doing nothing for a living (he has some land), a drunkard, in favor of the Palestine cause in such an extreme way that you could say that he's a neo-nazi, but also very very spiritual.

At sunset there was a beautiful view and the birds were singing. He told me if I could feel god in that beauty. I answered that I saw it was beautiful but there is beauty in a way in my hometown as well and I never felt god there, so why here. He agreed, that's exactly the problem with all the western people, he said, looking for something which actually they will not find in India but only on "their perception".

For me this guy could be the archetype of indian spirituality, (maybe not the one of the enlightened, but of the common folk).

Ropes tied everywhere

2006-07-27T18:44:00.000+02:00

My apologies for this 1-month kind of break in which I havent updated the blog.

It's not that I'm looking for an excuse, but I was in a mess with some ropes (see below). Anyhow, I am in India now, back here once again, and I really think this is the place for doing nothing, thus I will also have more time to talk about anything.

There's this old personal image that I have about myself. Since I started working I became a nomad in a way, wondering around. It was nice, I made good friends here and there, but it was also tough, since I left my family and my old friends in the first place, and I had to start again from scratch every now and then. And I kept making it worse since when I managed to make good new friends I turned them into old when I left and I moved somewhere new.

For the image, I picture myself really big size walking on the earth globe, and there is a rope tied to my ankles, the other end strapped to the places I've been to, linked to the people there. Eventually it gets impossible to move, since the ropes get into a net and then into a mess, and I get stuck and I cannot move. However, when it happens, I'm not in the place that I would like to be at, but I'm just in the middle of nowhere, in the place in which by chance all the ropes got messed and stopped me.

I must say I like the image because it describes the way I feel about it. These nadaist months, after the wondering around in Europe, I went to my parents' and I visited old friends and the feeling of the ropes suddenly came back and it made everything very hard.

One could wonder what are the ropes. Or what make them tied. Being in India maybe it would be easy to put an "elightened" kind of answer to that question. But there's a point that comes first. It's a bit obvious, (these obvious points that don't help at all unless you realise them yourself, in whatever the way). I can look at the image at any moment e.g. right now and see that it makes it for the explanation and, even if it is exagerated, it is accurate - but I can regard it coldly and not feel any sadness or anything. And there are these other times, (e.g. the weekend before the flight to Delhi), in which the image overtakes me and dominates me and makes me feel anguish, but it is not because it becomes more correct, or less acurate, it is just because it has just triggered the fear, in a way.

So the image is a thought which is always right, and which generates a torment but only sometimes. When it does hurt and when it does not is a mistery to me, but I'm thinking maybe that's the whole (obvious) point.

Doing nothing to save the world

2006-06-25T16:52:00.000+02:00

Yes nadaism is not only amusing, besides doing nothing helps to save the world. Of course it is not making a big difference, it is quite a subtle contribution; that's probably the reason why nobody had not noticed till today.

As a start, doing nothing is by far better than doing something wrong. If you do nothing you don't break the law. Ok you don't stop the wrong doing that is already happening, (I'm thinking about the real day-to-day bad stuff like wars, people smuggling, killings), but at least you don't participate nor contribute to it. If everybody did nothing the world would be no doubt a better place to live; not every single person, which would not be sustainable, but if we had a significant percentage of the world population functionally disfunctional, let's say 10%, there would be a lot less evil acts, by around 10% on average for the example.

Additionally, by doing nothing you don't meddle or interfere with local affairs. It is common to criticize some organizations that try in their best goodwill to help 3rd world countries, but they don't understand the situation and by their actions they might end up harming more than helping, bringing unbalance instead of wellbeing. However there is not a more tolerant or agnostic approach to problems than doing nothing.

As for environmental problems, ok the nadaist still consumes, (not so much anyway, due to lack of funds), but it is guaranteed that he/she does not produce at all, and production is a strain for the nature as big as consumption, (in particular in sectors like mining or fossil fuels, but also in others that might sound more common, like electronics). I would dare to say that the "ecological footprint" of a person who does nothing is halved due to the lack of production.

Besides, (the more one thinks about it the more advantages are found), from a more right wing pose there could be a fair criticisim for the doing nothing, since development is exactly what some countries need in order to improve the living conditions of their citizens. But the nothing-doers are just spending their money, all of it until and it is finished, which is a perfect catalyzer for growth, (as any high school student should know). If in fact the nadaists go and travel around developing countries, their pouring of money can only be move beneficial.

This is a great finding I believe. The little remorse that I had left for my attitude is gone now; everybody wants to some extent to do something to help deal with global problems, although they don't always find the energy or the good way to do it.

I'm going to propose to the authorities that they create a new NGO, (and to fund it!!).

The point of travelling & the croupier

2006-06-20T19:31:00.000+02:00

All the stuff about the point of travelling of the previous post sounds ok of course, it is a rational explanation, you may or may not agree. But actually it is not so simple, because of the croupier.

The croupier keeps on checking at every moment that I'm not so amused, (I don't remember the last time I got bored), or worried, or not feeling so well, to wonder once again about the purpose of the trip, (if at least I was spending less money or I had some contributions to the nadaist project).

Of course the cheapest is to stay in the same city for a while, to avoid transportation expenses. For the rest, the hotels I go to are usually the cheapest and the food in Italy if you are a bit careful is quite inexpensive. As for the doing nothing, the least possible, that's cheap. The croupier should be happy in that situation. But no, if you are really doing nothing, are you not wasting your money in a country like Italy, since there are much cheaper places to be?. If for whatever the reason you engage more activities and for example you enter the Colliseum you always wanted to and the ticket you know the ticket, (and maybe you don't enjoy it so much for whatever the reason, maybe you are a little bit saturated of art), then the croupier complains again, and so loudly!.

So the croupier will look for every hole, anything that is not exactly perfect, and will wonder about it, and depending on the mood will manage sometimes to torture me a bit. (Well torture is probably a word too harsh, but that's its mechanism, that's its field).

Then the only solution is to rely on the thing (also from previous posts) to take decisions on the spot, to decide whether to visit that temple or to go that city. But the decisions have to be on the spot, and it is annoying, for example I have to get to the entrance of the place to let the thing decide if I get in, sometimes I start phone calls looking for accommodation in places that I barely think they are interesting just to let the thing decide that of course I won't be going!.

This one is not rational and the consequence is that it does not make sense. What can I say.

The point of travelling

2006-06-17T20:42:00.000+02:00

Sometimes you're just travelling around going from one place to the other, moving out whenever you feel there's nothing more to see or to do.

Some other times you stop somewhere for a while, maybe just because you are tired and it is a nice place, or because you are really tired, or maybe because you know people over there or there's something you want to do and that's a good place. And then you may spend a few days or weeks happily doing very little, closed to nothing, because at the end you are travelling, in a kind of a holiday.

I guess there is no good or bad way for travelling, and eventually if you do it for a long time you will find yourself enjoying in both situations, combining them, (i.e. in my case moving quite slowly and doing little in the places I go to). Also, you will have moments in which you won't feel like anything, of course.

Because the real point of travelling for me is that there is really no point, apart from the amusement, either in the journeys or in that place I've stopped for whatever reason. But I guess this one will only be wood on the fire for the people (if there's a few people left reading) that believe that my trip is a kind of existential quest.

A bit annoyed today

2006-06-10T18:15:00.000+02:00

I wonder why there is not an entity to oppose the croupier, to balance it in a positive way, just to remember in an honest way the good staff about one self?.

It is not the ego; the ego is not constructive, it will always protect itself, it lacks integrity, it is biased by definition.

Which one is it, the croupier or the ego, the one that makes me occupy myself only about myself, about the small world around me?. Is it both?.
(Small world, but of course very important for me; that's the contradiction between "nothing really matters to much" and "satisfaction").

And, by the way, has the thing anything to do with any of this?.

Bah, don't take me seriously, it is just that I'm a bit annoyed today.

The thing

2006-06-07T18:23:00.000+02:00

During my wandering around, I've noticed there is something taking my decisions, I've started calling it the thing; (by decisions I mean the small simple steps that I take at all times and make up my journey, starting with what am I going to have for breakfast until whether I'm sleepy enough to go to bed).

The thing listens to the rational arguments, but is seems to be much in contact with emotions as well. When it takes decisions, all the different options I had considered seem to acknowledge the verdict from the thing is ok. Also seems to make my behaviour a bit erratic, since sometimes I take a weak decision, e.g. rationally I'm hungry and think of going for an icecream, but then the thing intervenes in front of the icecream parlour because it wasnt such a good idea, let's say I was tired and it was better to go for a siesta and I hadnt thought about it. (Those are the simple steps of my easy life, it makes it not such a complicated or emotional example).

Maybe forget about the example; I'm just trying to say there is no doubt something that takes the decisions in your mind which is not fully rational, which is over the rational stuff in a way, because it takes into account other contributions to your mind like the emotions, and also because it happens in present. It is like the (classical?) difference between the moment in which you understand something, which happens somewhere deep in your mind, in present, and it is not verbal, compared to the moment afterwards, when you take your time to rationalize it.

Of course the thing sounds mystical, one could think it is a paranormal voice, from god even, (???). That you could surrender yourself to the thing and nothing wrong would happen to you. But the thing does not make you a superhero, does not decide that you start trying impossible things, however sometimes it will surprise you (it has surprised me) putting you into situations you thought you could not handle, and you will get through. The thing knows more than my fear. But it also knows that if my fear is too strong I will get paralyzed and do nothing. So it will not take decisions completely against my fear.

The thing will always decide the right thing to do according to the circumstances. If it is a scared decision, it will be because fear is dominating. A decision by the thing is never wrong, it is just biased sometimes, (e.g. biased by fear, ego, rational). And, well, with that explanation, the thing itself does not even need to exist.

Anyhow, if you believe in the thing, that it exists, that it will always do the right thing, at least you will remove the fear of taking the wrong decision, and that's good, because that fear could only have made your decision wrong, (possibly that is).

The croupier

2006-05-30T13:24:00.000+02:00

If I empty my days, my days should became empty... but actually it does not happen that way.

I think it is the croupier, the thing that is always giving cards, whatever there is available. Well, it is probably useful, a kind of mechanism to worry about things that are important, to remember that today you have to do this or that, an alarm system. The problem is that it does not relativize at all, any small issue can make me feel as worried or fearful as any huge problem.

There is a good example that happened in Belgium. I spent there a few days for some administrative stuff, anyway it was very good to meet my ex-colleagues and some old friends. One of them lent me his house; he does not live anymore, anyway the place is amazing, he basically built it with his own hands and the hands of some friends for I don't know how many years. It was really a special feeling staying there, sometimes emotional.

Anyway, one of the days I had to leave more or less early in the morning, just after the breakfast coffee, in a kind of hurry. I took the bicycle to get to the bus stop, and when I was on my way I realised that I had not double checked that everything was alright in the house before leaving. Not that anything was going to be wrong. I guessed the only thing was the burner for the coffee, and I thought about it and I remembered myself switching it off. So I did not go back to double check anything. The amazing thing was that at some parts of the day I got really anxious about it. Imagine: how do I let the house of my friend burn !!!!! I was really worried and at the same time so surprised about worrying, since it was pointless, since I knew that everything was ok, and it was just that thing I call the "croupier" checking on me again and again and again, playing with something pretty emotional like my friend's house.

In the evening when I was getting back riding my bike I was smelling smoke. I could not stop laughing at the nonsense of the sensation.

But then, I guess, sometimes you worry about something which is important, or sometimes you are not so sure that you've switched off the fire, or it is just something that does not depend on you, and in those situations the mechanism must be the same, coming back again and again to cause you pain, but not really helping so much on itself.

On the other hand I guess it is the same mechanism that allows you to remember that you have an appointment, or that you have to switch off fires of the kitchen, or whatever you need to take care of.

Funny thing that it seems impossible to stop, and that it will try to play with whatever cards are available. I'd say it is just the results of years and years with my "habit" of worrying so much about everything, and it will take me still some more time to relax the mechanism, (if it can ever be relaxed). On the other hand I'd also say that the only fact of knowing about it makes it by far less powerful.

I'm in Sicily now. So nice, so relaxed. And the cropier humorist keeps amusing me every day.

Germans and Spanish

2006-05-15T10:17:00.000+02:00

In Belgium now, on my way to Rome, and I still had to prove the point that the Germans might be the most similar central Europeans compared to Spanish. Well, the results of the investigation are quite negative. Sometimes it is just good to refute a hypothesis.

Anyhow, at the beginning there were a couple of clues thatwere very good, it appeared to me since the very first day in Berlin that (1) Germans seem to speak loud and (2) spend a lot of time at the streets.

As for number (2), well it was the spring, although at night it was getting a bit fresh, the weather was pleasant, and in the city there's really a lot of restaurants and cafés, always crowded. There was also a big park closed to the room I rented, (the famous Tiergarten), quite full of people; this one day which was really sunny and I went there for a walk and there were so many people on the grass lying under the sun, some of them in swimming suits and some others in their underware, and some even naked!, then looking more closely I realised there were all men, one of them was even distractedly exposing his everythings to anybody passing-by; probably in the wrong place, I just kept walking straight staring at my own feet and got out of there. Then, it's been quite afew years I haven't lived in Spain, but that's not anything you'll see over there, (I've double-checked with my mum).

Then about (1), they definitively do speak loud in a bar when they are drunk, but I thought at home also... until the landlady came to me and kind of apologized since by chance I seemed to entered the house whenever she was in the middle of an argument with her son, she claimed she does not usually yell to him but he's in a difficult age, (around 15 is my guess?). Then I started switching off the mp3 player more often and yes, the streets and the underground are completely silent of conversations.

Anyway, there's a lot of clichés about the Germans, and they still drink beer on those huge jars, but they don't seem to be fat and big anymore, in fact kind of old ladies tend be skinny and to dress like teenagers, showing the belly, (for the confusion of the typical male staring at spring-dressed girls at the streets).

This week back in Antwerp has been nice, there is a guy who has find a finantial hole in the nadaist contract, (although that's more like a luxury problem), and there were some pseudo-trascental findings in Halle. I'll explain in following posts, (sightseeing in a place like Rome could be stressful but I will try to keep calm and cool and find time for doing nothing and also for the Internet).

Nowhere worth going except where we left

2006-05-05T16:16:00.000+02:00

From “Girls”, by Nic Kelman, a novel about power and sex: “And so we want faster cars, faster boats, faster jets, faster computers – anything more powerful than everything else. And we continue to want them even after we learn that there’s nowhere worth going except where we left, and that the faster we go the further away from there we get”.

Myself, I just wonder how is it that we have that small machine in our heads which seems to be programmed for melancholy and sadness, for missing the past, for sticking to the crap. A human being is an impressive artefact, and the human mind is in particular amazing, the outcomes it can produce, the puzzles it can figure out, however it seems to be in fundamental conflict with, (if not driven by), those emotional mechanisms that make up the wonderful feelings sometimes, but also the background noise, the remaining sensation that there’s nowhere worth going except where we left.

And the point is, despite of the fact that the sorrow is there, while it didn’t need to, if you just neglect it, and try to make your living at the rational part, it doesn’t seem to work at all.

Anyhow, I am going to take a rest from transcendental kind of stuff; the post for next week (or whenever) will be the results of an investigation I am working at, under the hypothesis than German are the closest people to Spanish, (at least, when they are drunk).

Real life

2006-05-01T17:38:00.000+02:00

Some good friends have confessed that they regard me as a kind of guinea pig, and my decision to leave everything as a big laboratory experiment; that they want to see what happens to me, they want to know the end of my story, (although of course they don’t mean any harm and they don’t want anything bad happening to me). They meet me and see that I’m happy and relaxed and enjoying my time, but they’re afraid that eventually when the money is finished, (because the nadaist project itself does not seem to be self sustainable), I will fall and get into a hole, a depression even bigger that I had before. Well, I’m also a bit concerned about that moment, (maybe around the end of the year), in which I have to go back to "real life" and to work and deal with real problems.

Then, in Berlin, my landlord is a psychologist; we started with a kind of corridor conversation for politeness, and the guy does not speak much English (and I’d say he does not speak much anyway), anyhow he looked interested on my story, here and there he was asking questions and making short statements, however there was this issue in which he insisted quite a lot more: he did not understand why I was calling it "the moment to go back to real life", it did not make sense to him, it wasn’t the good words to put it. He did not add much, which was the perfect way to make his point.

Nadaism reborn

2006-04-19T17:19:00.000+02:00

One of my nephews has posted a message complaining it’s been twenty days since I last updated the blog. Well, I’ve been busy breaking the nadaist principles. My landlord in London offered me to work for him some 15 hours a week to pay the rent, and I accepted.

The fact that it wasn’t for money but for shelter (or a basic need), and that I did not enjoy it, (we’ve built a bathroom), are not good as excuses; anyhow, since nobody had given me not even a cent to help me through the blog, (still waiting for Leo Bassi to order the money transfer), there’s nothing to reimburse in the nadaist fund.

Some other people had been complaining that I was a bit cheeky asking for money, (until I removed the buttons to make a donation, which did not work anyway). Well I think it was a fair commercial transaction, you wanted to know the answer for a big question, and I was going to sacrifice myself and my lifetime for the cause. But I still think we can make a deal. You can host me for as many days or weeks as you want, giving me shelter and food. Of course, I don’t do anything in exchange; (nadaism, remember?). Please send me your coordinates and the dates that would be suitable for you. I’m going to leave London in a few days, and then I’ll go to Berlin for a couple of weeks, and afterwards it’s up to you darlings. As a start, I’d rather go somewhere in the Mediterranean, in May is still not too hot and there’s not so many tourists. For the summer, I’d prefer to go North, somewhere fresh. Thank you.

More on apathy

2006-03-30T23:12:00.000+02:00

For somebody apathetic, doing anything is always more difficult than doing nothing at all. Such a person could find a rational backing for their lack of interest; although they would need to spend some effort, probably it would have some benefits as well.

Writing the nadaist contract could look like an example, (but not a effective one, since it does not bring any profits at all). Anyhow apathy means a certain kind of agreement in which you take less risks, but you don’t get the real thing. Could be seen as a contract between you and your fear, your insecurity; just going through life like a tourist with a guide: it’s safer, you don’t waste your time, but you don’t experience the genuine stuff. Nobody is sure what’s the genuine stuff anyway.

The contrary is absolute freedom. Nadaism is not a frame for that absolute freedom, but at the end everybody needs food and shelter, no matter how free they feel. A fake enlightenment could be used as a similar kind of setup, I’d say.

Apathy?

2006-03-28T21:36:00.000+02:00

Thanks to the site meter, (wonderful tool), I’ve seen that this blog conversation is getting more and more intimate, nearly a monologue... maybe now, knowing that hardly anybody is listening, I could address a fundamental subject: how to figure out the differences between nadaism and apathy?.

Well, I’m not going to avoid the easy joke, I’m not really going to bother explaining it.

Clichés and anticlichés

2006-03-24T19:03:00.000+01:00

There's a number of clichés that I've always found quite annoying, and I've been fighting them by trying figuring out other statements, the anticlichés, which at the end, repeated continuously, became new personal clichés, and got me even more bored.

For example, the cliché about life that passes quicker the older you get. My anticliché claims the explanation is pretty simple: when you were little everyday was a new adventure and it was truly important, not only subjectively but also as a percentage; if you are 5 years old, 1 year more is 20% compared to what you've lived, while if you are 50, 1 year would be only a 2% of living that you add.

If I had an anticliché about the weather, it would be the most boring thing to repeat I can imagine, even more than the comments themselves about the weather.

All the enlightened writers and thinkers eventually talk about silence, they might put it into words in slightly different ways, but whenever you read it rings some bells, since it has become a kind of cliché around; e.g. in the explanation of E. Tolle, “every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its lifespan is surrounded by silence; silence enables the sound to be.”

Alright!. And then you start listening to the noises around in your room and wherever looking for that silence and indeed realize that the concept itself is tricky, (and beautiful, maybe). But in fact they’re talking about god, the unmanifested, the being, the self, (depending on the author). They use an irrefutable sentence with poetic kind of meaning and you are put in a trap unable to argue. How are you going to tell them they're wrong. But still you (I) don't understand.

Then, I'd like to explain you that during my introspections, (nadaism leaves a lot of free time), I've been surprised of how much I cheat myself, intellectually and emotionally. But then, how can I tell you that honesty with yourself is the 1st step, not making a personal cliché out of it?. What do I do, when you agree and tell me that you see the logic on it, but you complain that it does not necessarily show you the curative proprieties of honesty itself.

The dark side of the force

2006-03-22T19:27:00.000+01:00

When I first saw “Star Wars” my preferences were divided but I was mostly in favor of Darth Vader, even if he wanted to sweep off the Republic, even if Skywalker and the Pricess and Han Solo were heroic, fighting only with their hopes, with no means, to save a full planet. The dark side made so much sense: using hatred, wrath, and moslty fear, which come from a very deep place in the self, and creating such a powerful entity, maybe physically harmful, but encapsulated in a wonderful black dress, so smart; that’s the Darth, an impressive character, who seems to be living in a world apart, not needing anybody else, independent. The ones at the good side are the weak, they don’t have balance, they are ambitious and at the same time they’re confused, unpredictable; they reject violence but actually use it, they cannot see that the dark side is so much above them.

The step to the dark side is the neglection of the real world, which does not make sense, and the creation of a new vision based on the own identity; that’s why Darth Vader seems to have a certain aura of integrity, honesty, and although I’m not so sure of the reasons why I was attached to him when I was a child, I think I understand it fully now, and in a way I’ve regarded myself as a Darth.

Anyhow, at the same time I understand that everybody else probably believes that they’ve done something similar, (although they might express it in different terms), and everybody walks around believiving they are a lonely Darth Vader, making their way, on the dark side, safe in their total distrust.

Looking around

2006-03-19T10:32:00.000+01:00

The day after I stopped working I went to the Indian consulate in Brussels, (for the visa, which was getting urgent). I remember it clearly, it was a shitty day in mid November, last year, tough wind and cold rain. After a queue nearly 2 hours long, I went for late lunch to a Chinese restaurant in the center, which is a place that I liked a lot, the restaurant I always went to when I was in Brussels. I even knew more or less the menu, anyway that day I asked something I was not sure that I had tried before, and it was really excellent, what an amazing taste, unbelievable. Then, I had a nice coffee and I went to the station, to go back to Antwerp; it had stopped raining for a few minutes, and I passed by the Place de la Bourse and I found that the building was beautiful and I didn't think I had ever noticed before, even if I had been around so many times.

It’s a different kind of feeling when you actually look around you, when you don’t just spend your day mechanically and not perceiving what’s going on. I think I have had full weeks going to the office and back home, including the weekends, with my eyes and senses quite shut. It does not have to be very big things, (depends on your day I guess), but starting the basics; e.g. maybe in your visit to the loo you are not focusing and you don’t quite feel that sensation of relief; it looks quite common to eat quickly and not really tasting the food; or even if the sky is grey there might be nice clouds moving around or a storm or a yellowish sunset due to the smog.

I’m not saying either that everything is beautiful or that it is all going to be alright or that your life is going to be bright or that you should be always there with a smile or anything like that. If by chance you thought I’m saying that, I suggest you read the text again taking it more literally.

Today it’s bitter cold outside, crazy London in march. The icy sensation gets inside through your clothes into every single corner of your body. This is not a fable and there is no moral.

Antecedents to nadaism

2006-03-18T13:31:00.000+01:00

Several people have warned me that the word nadaism has already been used. Some might go a bit further and say that not only the name but the ideas and the philosophy behind are not original either - which is true. They point out that I'm falling into big contradictions as well.

A Colombian poet called Gonzalo Arano wrote the first nadaist manifesto in 1958. "Midnight. I get down the ceiling through a staircase. There's a nice full moon. I get dressed. I go out to the streets. After a few steps I have this reassuring feeling: today I haven't done anything". (http://www.gonzaloarango.com/). However, as most artists, the author gets extremely pessimistic in his "pious progress to madness and suicide".
As for me, no endurance path makes sense at all.

Besides, there's a Austrian female artist called Nada Hribernik-Godler who wrote a book called ¨Nadaism: philosophies of life and art". In her own summary: "Innerspace is filled with images of splendor as words fulfil the promise of thought and inspiration in this offering of a personal philosophy". Seems to address some paranormal subjects and also supposed to be a "nice coffee table book for any artist". (??).

Also, there's some British musicians and DJs who call themselves nadaists, @ www.nadaism.co.uk.
In total, there are around 2000 entries for "nadaism" in google, and about 10000 for "nadaismo" (since it seems the unknown Colombian poet had certain influence; some critics compare the movement he started with the Beat Generation).

As for the ideology, it is true that nadaism might have some roots on existentialism, and shares some of its mistakes. Is life worth to be lived? - that's a question you cannot rationalize, nobody would commit suicide so coldly after facing an intellectual deadlock, (except maybe some artists).

A friend suggested me that "La Salle de Bain", by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, is still his nadaist bible, "showing the way, but also showing the futilility of it all as in the end he renounces and returns to the struggle of life". From the novel: "Lorsque j'ai commencé à passer mes après-midi dans la salle de bain, je ne comptais pas m'y installer ; non, je coulais là des heures agréables, méditant dans la baignoire avec le sentiment de pertinence miraculeuse que procure la pensée qu'il n'est nul besoin d'exprimer". (I should translate it I guess; you can copy-paste e.g. in www.worldlingo.com, the result is readable, more or less).

And finally, some could even find plagio in nadaism from Eastern thinkers like Krishnamurti. There's plenty of authors trying to go deep into the uselessness of thinking, suggesting that we should spend more time being present in our lifes. But they write very long books about it, in order to encourage you to think about it...

Enlightenment in London

2006-03-10T21:40:00.000+01:00

Every tourist in London knows the feeling: whenever you open the wallet you get a heart attack. The locals recommend the use of credit cards. In particular if you smoke or drink, everytime you indulge yourself, or just when you buy a ticket for the tube, you'll feel as if you've been just raped.
However it's true there's a number of attractions for free. For example you can go to the Tate Gallery cafeteria to watch the sunset. You'll find out a lot of people has had the same idea, (it must be suggested in every tourist guide). Also, there's a lot of cheap concerts, a lot of talented young musicians, luckily one of the bands will play not too far to your place, (so that you avoid expenses in transportation). On the other hand, raw food can be so expensive, that a number of decent cheap restaurants can be a good alternative to cooking.

Anyway, there seems to be a community of people looking for enlightenment in London. The other day I was in a lecture about meditation, and they had a kind of weird ceremony at the beginning, one of the steps was that each of us in the audience had to talk for a minute to somebody you don't know and explain the reasons why you've come. Then the girl sitting on my right started talking to me, she told me that she had seen me the day before in Brixton, in a similar kind of gathering!. I thought it is probably a good place for a pick-up, you may get a nice confused girl and be as merciless as you want to her.
But even with the promise of good sex while you are seeking, the silence of the mind seems to be a very tough discipline. I see no other option than giving up meditation, following by the way my nadaist votes. Giving up is such a natural process, brings peace to your inner mind, and the subconscious, (that monster inside you which believes that you don't deserve happiness and that everything you do is wrong), gets a lot of relieve, you feel it stronger each of the occasions you resign.

Stop thinking!

2006-02-24T12:25:00.000+01:00

Thinking is pretty pointless.

My mind spends most of the time making projections about the future and reviewing carefully the past and that's nonsense. You might say that thinking about the future could be good since it helps you to be prepared and to foresee what’s going to happen, but I have my doubts.

For example yesterday I was in a car going to the airport, I already started a bit late and I was in a hurry, and there was a traffic jam. Then I got worried because I might not make it in time, and then start thinking if the ticket was refundable or not, how urgent it was to get to London yesterday, if there would be a plane later, or today or tomorrow or whatever, also, to whom I should call when I miss it, the things that I won’t be able to do, where I was going to stay last night, etc, etc, etc. And it is not that I looked at it very rationally and looked at the different possibilities and the solutions and create a kind of scheme that will define the future action depending on what happens, a tree of decisions, no; I was basically looking at it with anxiety and getting worried. I was not getting prepared for the outcome of the traffic jam, I was not foreseeing, I was just worried. So it was useless.

Of course, I made it on time to the plane and at the end it was just a stupid episode. But, even if I was late and finally I had taken one of the actions I had been thinking about for so long, how long would have taken me to decide what is the right things to do after getting to the airport and being rejected at the check-in counter?, 1 or 2 minutes maximum to get to the same conclusion?. And it is not only the anxiety, it is that maybe in the car the radio was on and there was a song that I loved and I did not listen to it. Or there were beautiful birds flying around, or it was a nice sunny day and you could have opened the window and feel it, or there was a chance for a nice conversation.

I’m not saying that projecting to the future is always useless, but the way I do it most of the time is pretty clumsy and stupid.

Now in London I'll try to investigate meditation, the silence of the mind, a bit further.

Diary of the nadaist

2006-02-18T21:59:00.000+01:00

In a regular day, I wake up early, although it takes me some time to get out of bed. Then I go for a shower, I shave slowly, get some light breakfast, solemnly I visit the toilet, and relax for a while. I go to the street to buy the newspaper, and for a walk, and when I'm back it's already time to start preparing a nice meal for lunch. Then I eat, I check there's nothing watchable on TV, and that's the moment for some mild activity: meeting a friend, going to the cinema, for a bicycle ride...

When I'm back, depending on how hungry I am, maybe I can open the newspaper, maybe not. After cooking and dinner it should be ok for sure, but perhaps I want to read a book instead, or write a little, I'd rather listen to some music, or play some chess or a computer game, or there's a good movie on TV. Sometimes I can only take a quick look to the paper drowsy before going to bed, or maybe the morning afterwards, having some coffee.

Probably it's not a good idea that I spend a while everyday in the writing routine for the nadaist blog. Most of the times it will look just as the text above. Besides it would add even more structure to my day, and there's already a framework too heavy by feeding myself and logistics and other physiological needs, (and not so much time for the paper). Thus I will only cover the nadaist exercises and some real activities.

So, next week I'll try to join a meditation course. I'm just back from a 2 months trip to India, over there I was thinking about the nadaist principles, and I found amazing the way some folks, (I mean common people, not gurus or mystic yoga touts), could describe thought and mind and obsessions and the subconscious having no background on western psychology. They told me that meditation is the silence of the mind, just like that, and there's no divine implications. So I guess I'll try to join a course, even if it is a bit of a contradiction to the principles, since it would be an achievement to learn to meditate; however I hope you excuse me - meditation seems to be the perfect nadaist activity. Anyway I assure you I will quit as soon as I can.

Nadaism

2006-02-17T06:30:00.000+01:00

Definition of nadaism: the principles, exercises, the contract.

The text is moved to the head of the blog page. Still feel free to post your comments below.