nadaism

Monday, May 01, 2006

Real life

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.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Nadaism reborn

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.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

More on apathy

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.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Apathy?

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.

the second language

The second language refers to a quite interesting proposal by Peter Sloterdijk: to try to translate more acuratelly some important words, e.g. enligtenment, in a way everybody (religious or not) could agree with.

There are new needs in the west, where everything has become so rationalistic, but there is an obvious source of misunderstanding when two people think about the same word in different ways. I'll try to find a writter or a phylosopher or a thinker that could have made a clarifying interpretation of 4 concepts: enlightenment, redemption, liberation and devotion.

differences

Is there any essential difference between a man and a woman?

Ok, there's obvious and visible differences. But let's look at it from another point of view.

If you try to live with somebody, and share most of your time, and be completely intimate, and shop furniture together, and even raise children...

do you expect it to be easy to understand and accept the human being you are sharing everything with?

are you not using the fact that your partner is a man or a women as an excuse because you don't understand anything about him/her?

These below are the differences I will accept. For the rest, I'd like to try to prove that men and women think the same way.

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're missing.

The nadaist contract

Do you want to know if a person who passes all the time doing nothing would be able to live a normal and happy life?

The principles

- We humans continually pursue our minor objectives; when achieved, we only realise that they were not satisfactory, and then we look for a new target. A nadaist breaks the circle by not having any objective at all.

- The mind needs to be occupied, the process of thought is endless: either it may be killed (e.g. tv, music, a novel, alcohol, drugs), or given a focus (sometimes the same tv, music, a novel, also studying, investigating, playing an instrument, or other activities that require discipline). Both mechanisms are the same in essence. A perfect nadaist despises any objective, and would rather stop thinking. However thought is difficult to stop and also is sometimes useful (only sometimes; most of the time our thoughts wander aimlessly). A human nadaist is simply aware of how pointless it is either to kill or to focus thought, but uses all methods at hand when thought cannot be stopped.

- A perfect nadaist would kill thought and spend all the time alone and doing nothing. A human nadaist would amaze him/herself choicelessly with many things, would cultivate friendship, and even have a family, why not. Any nadaist knows that thought cannot kill itself by thinking, just tries to listen to his/her thinking, with no resistance.

- Nadaism requires discipline, so that there is no discipline. A nadaist is very careful with randomness, since a perfect chaos would become a pattern, which is the thing to fight against.

- A careless reader may associate nadaism with total uncertainty. But if uncertanty was to be total, then it would become a certainty. There's always room in a nadaist for a few safe places to shelter when thought is pressing up.

- The nadaist is not looking for unhappiness or misery. A nadaist just wants to live in the present, with no concerns about the past or the future, and with no patterns.

Exercises

These are practices that may help to budding nadaists, but they cannot be taken literally since they would become patterns.

- Go to bed and wake up as irregularly as possible. Go for naps at unexpected moments.

- Join courses in different subjects that you may or may not be interested in, and never finish them.

- Hire somebody to go to your home and rearrange your stuff, so that you don't know anymore where anything is.

All hobbies are allowed (reading, sports, games, whatever), but only as a pastime, carefully handled, so that there is no sense of achievement. e.g. a nadaist may go to the cinema, but will remember the least technical details, just the ones to select other movies that are not too boring, and pursuing no targets like following up a full career or a cinema current. A nadaist may also go travelling, just for the amusement. He/she will need to plan the trip to some extent, to try to get to the places that are not pointless, to avoid those in which there is not really much to do. Anyway the nadaist will for sure feel pretty much at ease wherever, will be an independent traveller, flexible, and will move around according to moods.

The contract

I'm committing to follow the nadaist principles. I will not work, I will not engage into any activity at all in the long term, not even in the medium term. I will amaze myself with methods that only try to kill or focus thought in the moment, in a short sight. In order to become a nadaist, I need YOUR MONEY for MY LIVING. If not, I would not be able to follow the principles.

- I will use the money strictly for living and for selfish purposes.

- I will carefully track all the money of each of the contributors.

- If I ever refute nadaism, I will pay 50% of any future income to the nadaist fund, which will give the money back to the contributors proportionally, adding a 100% interest plus inflation. When the total amount has been repayed, I, the failed nadaist, will go back to live a normal life.

- In case of death, my belongings will go 100% to the nadaist fund.

- I will log my daily activity, and if anything is considered to be against the principles, any contributor may issue a complaint. I'll have the right to defend myself, to prove that I was pursuing no objectives. At the end there will be a weighted votation for all the contributors. If I'm declared a failed nadaist, I will give 50% of any future income to the nadaist fund, which will return the money to the contributors, adding 10% interest plus inflation.

- The contributors decide when and what amounts, when to stop paying, but they cannot disengage. They can only expect their money back, with interest, in the cases above.