back to Rishikesh

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

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

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

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.