The Winner Takes It All

In the last year, I have changed a lot. Or at least that's what I feel... in a way, I feel I've grown up. I am still not much of an adult and I kept wondering, lately, what does adulthood mean? We all have definitions for this, mine is like 'finding answers'. There are many questions we all ask ourselves, some of them rather trivial and some of them deeply existential.

I like simple things and I hate big statements. I get goose bumps whenever I hear sentences which try to be existential statements... beginnings such as 'it is normal', 'it is good', 'it is bad' awaken the punk inside me and make me wanna grin and ask - 'says WHO?'. In this sense, I strongly believe in subjective values and individual definitions. Well... apparently my time has come to ask the existential questions and, when trying to provide them with simple (but personal) answers, I realized I am utterly lost, at least for half of the answer.... When we wonder about life, we answer based on our family model and on our personal experience. And if the latter I have plenty... I almost completely lack the former.

A couple of nights ago, I dreamt of my father... we were in a room and he wouldn't talk to me. I don't remember what was it all about, but I was right and he wouldn't want to acknowledge this. The room suddenly turned into Hell (yep, THAT Hell) and blood started to infiltrate into the room from all the corners of the walls. It was dark and I was calm, almost happy - finally, my father was in the place he belong to. In Hell.

For a long time I rejected the idea that our family of origin determines who we are and what we become... and I still do, but with one notice - our family of origin gives us a lot of indirect knowledge. We do not know directly, before we experience it in our own families which we later on build, what does it mean to have a family; all we know is what we had home. And from this point of view... I wish I was an orphan. There are not enough words and not enough good thoughts in this world to appreciate what my grandparents did for me, namely extracted me from that wasp nest which my family was.... but this is not my main point now. 

I learnt very little to nothing from my father. Our relation, if we can call it as such, was a troubled one and the main influence it had over me was to teach me to compete. He has a bad mouth and whenever he was  giving me some blurry discourse, I would look at him and think - one day, you will get it all back. From me, with interest.

Now, I changed my mind. I don't want to return him any of the favours. I actually hope that I will never see him again in this life and, if I am very lucky or I get myself a good karma (note to self - save some orphans from drowning if you get the chance) in none of my future lives. After one bad argument I decided it'd be a good time to stop pretending that he exists. Well... so far it worked wonders. Once his existence ceased (for me, he might still be alive), my own existence improved drastically. My inner peace was never again troubled by his existential dilemmas and dramas, I didn't have to pretend I like him or his new wife, I didn't have to listen to dumb life lessons or to smell the wine (after a life time of stuffing himself with alcohol, his smell changed and turned into a wine-like smell. I still hate wine).

Recently, I heard of him from some remote relative (first degree cousin but again... it doesn't look like you can cut the connections with only one member of the clan, so his entire branch of the family was erased as well from my present and future) and I realized he finally gave me a very important life lesson - one he never planned or intended to give, but he paradoxically succeeded to provide. That common relative said that he sold all his assets and entirely moved to his wife, where he decided to invest everything he gathered in 60 something years of life in her property. 

To somehow have it clear - I never expected anything from him. Once I got out of his door and closed it behind me, I knew there would be no future for me and him and I should not expect anything, not even a final succession act. I don't need his money and I am doing perfectly fine without him. So when I heard the news, I simply shrugged. It was to be expected. Later on, as I was caught in a traffic jam, I started to think about it, wondering what the hell was he thinking of but that it is his choice. The thought of 'you'll get it back from me, with interest' crossed my mind for like 3 seconds but then again I wiped it off. I'd rather have my peace than his money.

The next thought was - it's his choice, to erase his own life. And then, the idea hit me... There are people who are losers for ever. I've always believed that being a loser is a punctual matter, that one becomes a loser only under certain circumstances and that it is, basically, a reversible situation. One can always prove himself to be otherwise. And then again, I thought of my father, and I realized I am wrong - there are people who would end up as losers, by voluntary choice and there is such a moment when it is too late to change this. 

The thought of our own mortality becomes pretty clear after a certain age. You realize that life flies away too fast and that you have that inner need to submit your own candidacy for immortality. The older you get, the more you want to look behind and say - I achieved this or that, I am proud of myself for this or for that thing, I performed well, followed my dreams or plans, reached them and kept being active and strong. WRONG! Some people live never understanding yesterday and never really thinking about tomorrow. They play the victim and blame the circumstances for whatever they failed to do and they simply are too weak to try again. They are happy with losing but being able to complain about it and sometimes receiving some pity or some shallow petting on their shoulders - oh, poor you, what a victim you've been.

I look back at me and my father and think how hard I wanted to beat him down... but there was nothing there to be put down on its knees. He lost in every minute of his life, by not being able to build anything - a family, a child, a career. He is now retired and none of his former colleagues care whether he lives or he died some time ago. He is now old and the family where he spent almost 30 years of his life doesn't even make a phone call to ask him whether he is alive. He is now too old to have a child and the only one he had became too estranged to even think of him as a shadow of a parent. He didn't place a bet and he never played... just got carried away by life and didn't have the strength to play any of the rounds. He lost by presence, not by absence.

Now, in this last act of the drama, I find it amusing how he decided to voluntarily wipe off his own life and withdraw his candidacy to immortality. And by this, he finally taught me one thing... Cancelling his own life because of too much ego, wrongly directed, and because of too little will power to stand and even decide what he wants or not, he showed me that there is a time when it is too late, when you cannot revert. There is a moment in which you lost it all, if you ever had anything.

So... thank you, daddy. I won our long term match, so I mercifully give you what is yours - pity. Sorry, old man. You lost.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull - The Odyssey

Somebody told me this is who I am... so here is the story

Just Take a Look at Me Now

When I saw her I knew it wouldn't last for long. She looked too used to being on her own to stick around for too much... and I wasn't sure what to do about her also. Somebody called me to show her to me and we looked at each other for a short while. She was young and common and she looked like she was waiting for someone. Which she wasn't, it was just a search for food and somebody from inside got out to bring her a cookie. She ate it and she looked ahead, like thinking where to go - straight ahead, or turn back. I gave her a pack of food and she ate it in a hurry. She was not that thin, but neither too well fed - it was an unexpected good meal and she took advantage of it, hurrying up before the offer ends. 

I tried to put my belt as a collar and take her upstairs. I had no plans for her, but didn't think I could leave her down there, all alone. She got scared and she pulled off her head from the improvised collar and ran a few meters away. She stopped and she looked back straight at me.

It was not hate, neither it was fear. It was just mistrust, in its purest form. I saw her eyes and I knew I looked like she was, now, at other people and then just went away. She didn't need me and she didn't want me. Life for her is hard, but she can't trust and she doesn't want to. Probably she can't even dream of a soft pillow and of a warm home, which she never had and never will. I can...

Some wonder why I love stray dogs. It's simple - I am one of them. I do not make them humans neither I see myself as a dog - I just see that we are so much alike that it's hard to think of. Just like her, the anonymous stray dog I fed today, I walk in the world and I am all on my own. I sometimes look at the clouds and there is this desperate hope that there is somebody bigger than me who cares. And I just need a sign that somebody is looking at me now ... which never comes, and I just know that I am all alone.

This is sometimes a very overwhelming feeling... It's pointless to try to describe it, but it's the blank feeling of being totally and utterly alone. I know... generations have been preoccupied with this and they came up with gods and then with God and blablabla. But I am not religious - I lack the ability to have faith without reasoning and to trust someone who doesn't seem to be there... so I look at the world like that dog looked at me today. Me and her are the same, two unknown shadows passing on the streets of a city, whichever city might that be... sometimes having the luck of a good meal just to keep on walking. 

Footsteps don't get imprinted in the asphalt. Nobody will ever know I was there, she was there ... and we just kept walking.

In meinem Leben

Sea of Sin

I'm home for quite some time... Like a shored sailor, I enjoy the peace and the lack of storms and giant waves. I like to look outside from my balcony and to see the city, to hear the words I can understand while walking on the street, to be able to chat with the cashier at the supermarket, when I pay my bill ... I like that my phone rings and that I can chat for 10 minutes about nothing and that I can interact with people and with my friends.

However, after about one month of staying I realized that I've been too much away to come back here untouched and to act like I used to, when I was young. I've been alone for too long, I guess, and this loneliness calls me back. I start to feel overwhelmed by interactions and the peacefulness starts to be heavy on my heart. When I think of going away, I know I'll be missing the shore but when I am here I miss my ship, my sea, my nomad being.

I've met quite a few sailors in my life and I've always wanted to be one. I saw them leaving and coming back to their families, welcomed guest but so unadapted to the family life. Their visits home were a source of joy and happiness, but in he same time an earthquake for the routine. And after a while, when they were leaving back to the sea, everybody was sad but in peace - life was coming back to normal.

When does a sailor come ashore and stay there? Why some settle, after a time of sailing, and some just keep on going back to the sea? I've noticed that the family was the main reason used for settling, but I've always wondered how do they feel inside... how does one feel to be home, after being homeless for a while? Am I over-romanticizing and naively building some adventurer's characters, or are they for real? Is it immaturity and an eternal adolescence to keep on running back to your sea of freedom, while pretending you have responsibilities ashore? Or is it something stronger than you, which keeps calling you back to the sea, to the storms and to your ship? What is stronger, the love for your family or the comradeship you feel towards your fellow sailors, with whom you face the danger and the fun of a life of nomad?

Last night I dreamt Sh. I've loved him since my 6th grade and I don't think I've ever stopped. I never fucked him and I've always known this is for another life time and not for this one. Somewhere in my early twenties I met him again, just to find out how much he loves me too. Of course he was by that time married, and I was (just like now) sailing. I forget about him most of the time but there are nights when I dream of him and I wake up lounging ... I somehow know that if I had ever been with him, I would have never gone sailing.. and I would have been unhappy, without knowing why.

Maybe I am born like this, or maybe we all secretly like unhappiness. Or maybe missing something, missing the shore while sailing and missing the sea while ashore is what keeps us going further. I do not know.... and I do not know what to choose and what to do... I try to keep on sailing and to keep on coming back home, but I know it's a frail balance and I will have to make up my mind. Or maybe it takes one Sh. to make me decide... or then again, it's too late now to change and not even a Sh. would make me stay on shore. I do not know, but I will soon go back to my ship and hope it won't sink this time either.

Out of Africa

I would like to impose a visa regime for my soul. I sometimes allow people to enter, take a tour or even make a little place of their own inside. Such a bad idea... it seems expansion is the dominating natural tendency. Everybody wants to take over and it's useless to place signs - 'private property, do not trespass'. Every sign becomes more of a challenge for expansion.

- Hey, my soul is not the Easter Island, we are not trying to prove the Darwinist theory here...
- that's what you think?
- well... it was my garden ... there used to be flowers and exotic birds here and I used to enjoy seeding thoughts inside. When they were growing, I never allowed them to become weeds... it was shiny and peaceful here... what are you trying to do?
- civilize you... civilize you because I love you. Let me make order in your garden and tell you what to plant. And let me show you how to clip the wings of the birds, so that they don't fly too far. I like to watch them in OUR garden.

They give you no option and they force you to choose. Offended, they threaten to leave if you don't let them fix your garden. Or, cunningly, they stay and try to make the hawks lay eggs daily while you don't notice. They think the phoenix burns their wooden cottage and they try to make a steak out of it.... since the bird enjoys the fire that much... why not?

What choice do you have but to force them out? And if you are to condition their entrance from the beginning, what will be the selection criteria?

Maybe that's what wedding rings are... visas given to somebody willing to fertilize your crops, when you are too blind to see the phoenixes anymore. Welcome to the civilized world, good bye my Africa...

Sense and Sensibility

I rarely write about animals, I find it hard to. Not because they occupy too little space in my life, but quite on the contrary - because their stories fill up my life on a daily basis. I don't write about them, because I feel humbled by their strength and by their ability to endure life with humans and, some of them, to love us, humans, more than we deserve. I feel I lack the words and the ability to transcribe this.

I owned myself quite a few dogs so far, I met and tried to help a few others. Each of them had a clearly defined personality and, if they were all to look alike, they would still be so easily distinguishable. Tofa: delicate, picky and cheerful... Ugly: meticulous, devoted and humble... Raptor: an old criminal, joyful and willing not to bother... Gica: a leader, an epitome of dignity, and still a puppy deep in his heart... Aldo: neurotic to the bone, innocent and joyful when he trusts... Cara: serious and independent (but still able to love so much that she would give up her independence to follow me wherever), strong and yet playful... Toby: a dog like a smile, a bit cunning and always happy ... and the list can go on - Aldo (II), Bijou, Kitty-Cat, Dunguska, Fido, Bruno and then again another Bruno, Molda... Sosetuta, the stray dog who was protecting his girl-dog till the last day of his life... and his girl, Griuta, who died soon after Sosetuta because she was too weak to survive without him... The unnamed stray male who was raising generations of abandoned puppies ... they all marked a place in my heart and their memory is still with me long after they have left my life.

And then again, the unnamed dog... deserving a monument like the unnamed soldier, unknown martyr or humble survivor, so rarely having a good faith from birth till death... how can one write about this and not feel humbled? How can you look at a cat, so far untouched by humans and a bit wild, who surrenders into your lap and starts purring, for as little as a can of food and some petting, otherwise than with respect? Is it innocence, is it trust, is it ... what is it?

Humbleness is what moves me and touches me the most in animals. The humbleness with which they accept their place and they live their life. The humbleness with which they face the good and the bad, they live the today and survive till tomorrow. No complaining, no whining, no self pity and no dramas - just patiently facing life. Humbleness is not a virtue we are used to, and it's not a culturally transmitted value. I find it hard to understand how one can watch a moon eclipse and still over-evaluate his place in the universe.... almost just as hard as understanding how can one kick an animal just because he passes by next to it.

Why am I writing this? Because during my long drive home, I encountered again the Romanian village and the dogs wandering on the edge of the roads. Thin, humble and scared, hungry and always searching for a piece of food, for a piece of life, they made me feel again powerless against the suffering of the livings and reminded me that the best way to perpetuate injustice is to pass by and do nothing. If we were all, once per year let's say, to take attitude and do something about the things that we care for, the world would be a better place. And no... I am not participating in a beauty contest and I do not want rice for the African kids or forests for the tigers... I just want a decent world. There where compassion and common sense prevail, nothing can turn bad.

Dungeons and Dragons

For quite a while, I am addicted to the internet; and, with all honesty, to online games. I managed to spend a couple of years playing Utopia, a game of medieval fantasy (experience which I hope will turn into a nice research soon) and I generally get hooked to all types of games as long as they entertain me.

They have a lot of interesting features but their best one is, I guess, how the game style reflects one's personality (this and the fact that they create unexpected social ties and bonds). I am not a psychologist and, with my talent in people, I guess I shouldn't even consider this as a hobby. But I find it fascinating to think about the person behind the screen and how he/she must be like, given the visible results of the game. Utopia was a very mathematical game, but you could see a lot of other personality features - and, interesting enough, I met a lot of nice people and I made quite a few friends in that universe (read 'on that server'). For a few years, I was every day logging into my game and talking to people; with my good math skills and obsessive compulsive behaviour, I ended up running a kingdom. Besides the excellent practice for leadership and for team management (which I found extremely useful since then, tho' my gaming tyrannic policies are a bit harder to practice in the real life than in an online game), the game gave me the huge opportunity to befriend people from all corners of the world.

I spent a lot of time chatting with them, about the game at the beginning and then about me and themselves. The in-game forum was very often alive, and although the main part of it was dedicated to the strategy, there were threads with jokes, pics or with music. I flirted with a few of them, I found out when some were getting married and I was a shoulder for some of them, when they were being sad, or cheated, or were having I don't know what sort of problems.

The youngest member of the team was an Australian teenager of 15 or 16 when we got together in the same kingdom, and he was a college student when I left the game. The oldest one was a 45 yrs old Dutch squatter, having a lots of cats and a few ex-wives. There were the Canadians and then the Asian tigers, from all over (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore). When somebody new was coming to the kingdom, you could not know who hid behind the name... and the process of getting to know each other was then starting.

During all these months and even years (if I think about it, I spent definitely more than 'a couple' of years in the game... but this is not so relevant) we never met. But I don't think I had closer friends than my kingdom mates. And I spent a lot of time caring for them and for their provinces as well; from a certain point on, I started to notice the resemblance between the province and the person. Some were nice and caring, and they were always sending aid to others; some were just so eager to war and attack other kingdoms that they barely had any defense in their province; it was not hard to notice, for example, that the attitude towards risk was very well reflected in the construction of a province - the more the player disliked taking risks, the more defended his/her province was.

As life was taking us further, we were leaving the game one by one. Some were changing places, others were having newborns and no more time for online games, some others had to start to work for their living and so on. At a certain point, I myself left and the kingdom disbanded. I still talk to a few of my former kingdom mates and I know how and where they are and what are they currently doing. Of course, the relations are getting colder because we don contact each other on a daily basis, but they haven't stopped completely.

With my limited time, I now play a few flash games, mainly those which are so easily accessible on FaceBook. One of them is Farmville - not so relevant what the game is all about, because it is quite obvious from the name itself; it is a simple thing, where you build a farm, harvest your crops and enhance the appearance of a 22x22 squared surface. Not so complicated, but gives enough space for a personal mark.

For somebody who is both homeless and deeply in love with nature, building a farm is a fun hobby (even if you do it virtually); so I paid attention to my farm and then I started to notice others'. Apparently, in a small surface of 22x22 squares, there are infinite possibilities to arrange all sorts of items - from housing to animal cottages, while keeping enough land to plow and maintain your farm productive. Since you can watch the farms of your friends (if they play... and some of them do), you can also try to make some correlations between the persons (whom you know) and their farms. Again, a striking resemblance...

Am I trying to make a point here? I don't know, maybe I am. But for the time being, it's just an overview of a pretty interesting phenomenon. You cannot hide what you are even in the virtual world.

Words

As strange as it might sound, I deeply dislike academia. Strangely, because that's what I do for a living; not strangely, because it was not my first career choice, but something I ended up doing, for a number of reasons - decent (not great but decent) payment, relaxed schedule, sometimes fun environment.

A few years ago, it looked pretty well - nice people (we were graduate students then), a lot of alcohol (needed sometimes), smart talks (and smart asses), good quality humour. Well... that was just the surface, the visible part of the iceberg. The deeper I got into the academic waters, the more I hated them. And it's not only a matter of people... I have nothing particular against people. I mean... I don't dislike academics as a separate species among the humankind, but on an equal foot with everybody else. And, to be very specific, I don't dislike all academia - I fully understand why exact sciences or medicine should exist. But humanities?

Never until now in the history of humankind people were paid to produce nothing - and this is my main problem with Humanities: what they deal with and live out of is the production of words. OK, there were the king's fool and the king's poet... but they had a role. What role do all the graduates of some beautiful sciences (no, it's a very wrong word, this is anything but science... but how else to call them) have for the society?

Some time ago, I was having a rash when hearing the words 'French post-structuralism'. They all looked to me like people with a lot of time to waste and a lot of pens & papers at hand. Sadly, the disease seems to be spreading. I hear about new academic specialties and I can't stop wondering... WHY do they have to make a discipline out of everything? WTF is a specialist in Culture, huh? Why do you need to graduate 4 yrs of college to be able to have an opinion about a movie (and call yourself a film studies specialist)? OK, you can write about females and discrimination, but WHY start a gender department and create a school of thought called 'feminist studies'?

Don't take me the wrong way - I can understand all this as a... let's say... sect. Such as a group of people sharing the same beliefs. And I can also understand the students paying for getting a degree in one of those fields... in the end, we are all so deeply imbued with the idea that 'believing is paying' that we owe a big thumb up to the Church... but let's not divagate. Why does the society pay for this?

I know, academia is actually a business. We managed to convince everybody that the main asset of today is real time information and real time communication, so the poor students are buying the crap and pay their tuition, imagining they will end up being smarter. My fear is, however, that they will end up being just indoctrinated. We never teach them to doubt or to wonder... we teach them what the gurus said. But this is not a religion, a spiritual way... it's just somebody's opinion about how things are. All the respect for Foucault, but Jesus worked more to be quoted so often. And dying on a cross should give you more credibility than wondering whether a pipe is a pipe or just the representation of it.

Moreover, we don't teach them anything about work. Again, maybe the 20th and 21st century are a step closer to the Apocalypse (the one that my grandma is waiting for since the beginning of 2000), but all along history people were paid to WORK. What do the 'humanists' do, be them teacher or students? They produce words on papers. Are they inventing at least a sharpener for a ball point pen? Nope, they are INTERPRETING - because this is what they are taught to do. To interpret the interpretations of others.

In the world of interpretation, nothing seems to be real anymore. There are levels and meta-levels and a lot of psychoanalytical jargon trying to convince you that nothing from what you see is real, but it is a product of your subconsciousness, or of the collective subconsciousness, or of some Oedipus/Elektra complex or God knows what else. If it's not psychoanalytical, it's Marxist and it's about class and oppression. And if it's not Marx, then it's the Panoptikon and the ubiquitous relations of power. C'mon, people... WAKE UP. Even princesses take a crap, once in a while...

Liebe ist fur Alle da

A New Year spent in Lithuania, at home, gave me very little choices but to watch the Russian TV shows (having a Russian speaker with me, while I speak neither of the languages, it seemed like a decent compromise to make). I'm not gonna write a long plead about the inherent patriarchy, coz I don't feel like an European bel hooks for now. But a short one... yeah, for sure.

So... what could I see on the Russian TV channel I watched? Well, in a random order: Medvedev giving the New Year speech, old Russian stars with various amounts of money spent at the plastic surgeon doing whatever they were trained to do (like... singing, dancing, acting or something else) and half naked girls. This last part is what caught my eye. Why? No, it's not because I started to develop a certain interest in the weaker sex, but because I had the feeling that I am watching a men's club show and not a New Year TV program.

For like 4 hours, some guys came on and off the stage and pretended to sing, while he girls kept dancing - OK, we can count in here pole dancing, belly dancing, strip-tease (half) and sensual rubbings against few half naked boys. The first thought was that the few representatives of the stronger sex dancing there in their underwear, were for the delight of the few gay viewers among the Russian audience. But then I realized it's not this - it was too much macho breeze there to even consider introducing the idea of 'gay' - but it's actually adding to the voyeur pleasure of the straight males, by mildly suggesting sexual intercourse. OK, lesbians are fun, but how much of it could they take? So a few male counterparts had to be carefully inserted (pun intended) into the show.

I am by no means a puritan. I couldn't care less about the square cm of naked skin I see on the screen. In the same manner, I'm not a feminist - it's hard to belong to any other '-isms' when you are already a misanthropist; I confess I dislike men and women almost equally. However, I am a big fan of equality - if we are to use some of us for our sexual arouse, it's perfectly fine, as long as everybody is satisfied. But I can't stop wondering how much the women in the audience enjoyed that particular show? Or maybe... and I only say maybe... who cares about what women have to say, anyway?