إن شاء الله

This saying, so pertinent in Arabic culture – you hear it from the readings of the holy Qur’an to the taxi driver who has just let a slimy spit out the cab window – has been growing on me for quite a while now. Insha’Allah – God willing. And as you know it is not about god with me, by far, but there is something within that saying that wakes up my dormant fatalistic force of life, joie de vivre. Insha’Allah.

I think Stephen Hawking has once said that quiet people have the loudest minds. You just have to reinvent the ability to listen, which has been oh so painstakingly dying in this outspoken world. I have re-learnt this gift when travelling – one day, your feet, dead tired and blistered from walking, soaking in the salty healing waters of, say, Fraser Island, and you, exhausted and preoccupied with your own self, unwilling to even lift your eyes, suddenly hear a story you normally would have opposed to listen to, and you are suddenly confronted with the understanding how often you have failed to listen and how many stories you might have missed. It is a moment of a perfect A-frame wave barreling, with its quietly loud hum of the universe coming together at the end of the tube. Yes, that is exactly how it feels.

So I listened. As I was about to drift to sleep at the Doha airport in Qatar (after 9 hours of standing in line and finally receiving my ticket at 7 in the morning for an 8:30 flight) I heard someone shyly greeting me. “Hello. Hi. Sorry to bother you, but you probably should not be sleeping anyway, right?” – he must have heard my flight info when the Qatari were very discretely yelling it across the hall to me.

I unplug one earphone to signal that I can answer to whatever he needs to know and that he should be going briefly after that. He rambles. He is from Nepal, living in Paris after moving there from Columbia. Does not look Nepalese – all suited up, the kind of fancy faceless businessman you get used to seeing in Doha. I see the sun slowly climbing up outside the glass airport walls, airplanes taking off and landing, the soundtrack of “Drive” still quietly ringing in the one unplugged earphone.

He asks to see my palm. I laugh – is that a new pick-up technique? He explains it is a tradition in Nepal – fortune telling from your palm. He looks intensely, face expressions changing rapidly, curiosity and dismay written all over my face. He says I scare him and that my palm is like nothing he has ever seen – yeah, right. He says he is not very good at this – well, isn’t this a revelation.

He says the palm tells him that I have never studied and yet I am wise beyond anything academia can offer – ha! Finally somebody has acknowledged that, I laugh. He says I am restless, never happy with what I have, always wanting more and ending up risking everything and sometimes one too much. He tells me I need constant supply of adrenalin to remind me that I am alive; and that I have very few people to trust. He says I am naïve and cruel all at once, and that I ask for more than most people are willing to give.

And many more soul undressing, terrifying and enlightening out-of-the-blue revelations, which will remain written on my palm.

He offers to someday raise money, jump in a car and drive with him from Paris to Nepal, doing charity on the way. And then he leaves.

I drink a first good cup of coffee in eleven days and stare blankly at an Italian who is trying desperately to charm me. I do not mind him sitting down next to me and I hear his talk on his telecom business in New York, but his voice drowns somewhere in the smell of time-appropriate Cappuccino and the sun above nothing but desert. What do I care about telecom on a Qatari morning…

(I was told to never end any writings with an ellipsis by an idiot professor once so there you go)

Watch Malick’s “The Tree of Life”. It was beautifully refreshing – it has been long since someone has created a movie about life as it is and had not stumbled on banalities and clichés.

I know winter has come when I step into a teashop after the three or four months of coffee being my only warm drink. It is very inspirational and I am happy to go tea shopping again. Cheers.

tightrope

Thanks, Clau, for kicking my ass to write something down ;]

I’ve been meaning to write about the complexity of decisions. But my inspiration has shifted yet again.

I once heard someone respond to the question of what was her first novel about: “you know, as all first novels are – everything… and nothing”. That’s how I feel every time I write. Once you put the ripe, all-encompassing feeling down to words – it looses its pulse, its raison d’être.

Recently I have been greatly inspired by Salvador Dali. Actually, I’ve been in that phase on and off since “Little Ashes”, but some recent happenings have urged me to revisit his whole philosophy. The twistedness he regarded life with, the challenge he posed to stagnant and narrow thinking. Like in the words of one of my favorites, Albert Camus: “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion”.

My parents used to say (or hope) that my sharp angles would be altered by time and I would become something more of a lady. I’m afraid this process is happening in reverse. Time has made me more critical, more demanding; I am less immune to bullshitting and idiots. And I am terribly thirsty for original people and unique ideas. It has been so long since someone has shaken up my little mind bubble and challenged me.

So many out there are pretending to be unique fucking snowflakes, whereas he/she is just another “creative” ad designer or self-convinced über talented hipster walking around babbling about Kierkegaard’s philosophy. People are so obsessed about their individual identity, about what expresses them best and at the same time they feel insecure if their belongings and affiliations are challenged in any way. It’s an interesting time we live in – the mishmash of individuality and group psychology; the strive for individual and the longing for commonality. It seems to me that recently the hardest challenge of all is to stay real, uninfluenced, uncompromised by the perceptions of what is in and not acting accordingly.

That is why we adore the pure minds, the ones who step out of the conformity bubble and “live life on the edge of life”. On a tightrope. Today those, who follow their inner call, are regarded almost as some sort of gurus, messiahs of the new and the true. Look at the most prominent people of our day – they are the living proof of this principle. They refused to follow the herd; they were looked at as crazy wackos at their very beginnings and eventually grew to become these contemporary messiahs of their fields.

My life has been based very much on the ideas expressed by (RIP) Steve Jobs at his Stanford speech: your job is going to take up at least 70% of your life. OK, that’s me talking, AT LEAST 50%, right? So how on earth can you settle? I say never rest until you have found something that makes you ecstatic. “Sing with rapture and dance like a dervish” – that’s the feeling we all should aim for (ok, sorry for this bit of vomiting sunshine).

Challenge yourself. Ask for more. Want more. Because living your life in any other way is simply unacceptable.

moody

Just felt like sharing these quotes from Californication:

"Rome is burning," he said as he poured himself another drink."Yet here I am knee deep in a river of pussy."

"Here it comes," she thought, "another self-indulgent whiskey soaked diatribe about how fucking great everything was in the past, and how all us poor souls born too late to see The Stones at wherever or snort the good coke at studio 54, well we'd all just missed out on practically everything worth living for." And the worst part was, she agreed with him.

"Here we are," she thought, "at the edge of the world; the very edge of western civilization and all of us are so desperate to feel something, anything that we keep falling in to each other and fucking our way towards the end of days".

and

"Just the fact that people seem to be getting dumber and dumber. You know, I mean we have all this amazing technology and yet computers have turned into basically four figure wank machines. The internet was supposed to set us free, democratize us, but all it's really given us is Howard Dean's aborted candidacy and 24 hour a day access to kiddie porn. People... they don't write anymore, they blog. Instead of talking, they text, no punctuation, no grammar: LOL this and LMFAO that. You know, it just seems to me it's just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people at a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the King's English."

Just loved the insight. Especially the "fucking our way towards the end of the days" and the "proto-language" of stupid people.

I feel quite fatalistic these past few days, roaming the streets of Sydney alone, thinking waaay too much. Like how strange that this social detachment of 5 months made me feel so good about myself. Not too good, but just the right amount of comfortable. Or the fact that I kept in touch so much with the most unexpected people. What kind of shit is that? People change? Friends change? Out of all the people I've known and loved for over 10 years or even 5 years - none of them remained interested in keeping contact. And I guess neither did I. Facebook substitutes the need to ask how's it going because you think you know - from their status updates and their photos - you assume they're well and all. It feels liberating for such a social snob like me but also sort of depriving. I did feel something was missing.

And yet I kept in touch with friends I've known only for a year now, friends that have become inspiring and life-altering in so many ways. Perhaps it is because we have something in common, similar sense of direction and purpose and the passion for our ephemeral relationships in their infancy that we have to cradle and push to the limits at the same time. We can be so many new things, so many alter us that have not had the chance to be expressed.

There are people now who I can be my complete crazy self with and they get it. No judgement (well, maybe a little) but just the same freaky attitude of this crazy emotional uplift or downfall, always in an asymmetrical spiral. Funny thing is, it never felt confusing or over the limits - just right.

And there are people now who I can talk to about Hubble and the hydrocarbon lakes on Titan and the string theory with the possibility of multidimentionalism or the findings of neurons firing at somebody else's action... I know it makes no sense when I write it down like that but that's how we can speak: randomly and chit-chatty about physics and astronomy and science - not from a "know all" position, but from a point of a curious mind, wanting to learn from each other and not being criticized for the gaps in our knowledge or for using words that "are too smart" (yes, I have faced this criticism in my short life and I find it absolutely hilarious).

And no people are bigger or lesser, I consider myself very much a "whatever makes you happy" kind of person but ultimately what matters is - what do you bring to the table? All I need from a friend is a) to accept me for who I am and kick me in the butt when I do stupid things and b) to give me something I can learn from him/her. That is truly all.

The Romanian has given me a whole new perspective of me and I find it very amusing. The last of her wisdom pearls was: "you can't clearly differentiate between danger and fun sometimes". Whereas I tend to think of myself as a very good judge of that. See, therefore I learn something new - if not about the world then at least about myself.

Goodnight my pseudo-intellectuals, I tell you in my proto-language.

Intervention into my own blog

Starting the blog I thought I could focus on one or a few subjects, research them like so many prominent bloggers do and give my contribution to the betterment of society. Yeah, not really working out. Firstly, I am the “Jack of all trades and master of none” (well, that is unless you’d like to read a blog about horse-riding). Secondly, I can’t do research. My attention span is that of a 3-year-old (though I seriously think sometimes that my niece of that age is more attentive than I am). I love the creative process – the thought, the idea – I get overwhelmed and turned on by it but put paperwork on me, no, not even paperwork – put a notion of “having to do something” on me – and I’ll go mad.

So screw the improvement of society. I’ll spill my guts out and write in incomprehensible charades – that’s what I do best. Or not. But that’s at least me.

And the society will survive on it’s own. Just like Socrates contemplated the dilemma of the rotten youth (as recorded by Plato): "The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress." And yet, the world is still turning, civilizations still standing (though I’d have to agree on the girls – my God are they shameless).

My epiphany came from “El secreto de sus ojos”: “A guy can change anything. His face, his home, his family, his girlfriend, his religion,his God. But there's one thing he can't change. He can't change his passion.” And although I am penis-less, I do agree with that to the fullest extent. My passion is people, freedom, adventure and that is what I’m going to write about from now on.

We are the constructions of our parents. Not only in the sense of that we are who we are raised to be, but even more in the fight against being what we were raised to be. In the search, the quest of trying to understand the ways we are wired in, the things that make our hearts skip beats and all the fake pretences so firmly ingrained in our social behaviour that we can barely recognize them as replicas of our true selves.

Take me, for example. I was raised to be fit for a royalty – learnt languages, played instruments, read classics and went to the National Theatre every week. It taught me versatility, stretched my will to the lengths I did not know existed. Made me a perfectionist as well as lead me to resent perfectionism and try to root it out of myself day-by-day.

That is why, my dear Romanian friend, I’m so full of contradictions that are so difficult for you to understand. I want to live on the edges, change professions every day and yet I wish not break the rules. My quest for freedom and justice, both in home and work, often lead to upheavals. My mood and relationship with others can change in an instant and the faint-hearted are often overwhelmed by my exploits.

I’m passionate about so many things and I’m inspired easily. I see messages and meanings in everything – every book I read, every movie, every silly TV sitcom. But that’s how I see life – an accumulation of meanings that we have to untangle, puzzles we have to solve and figure out what really drives us.

I can be indulgent and dive into something with my full heart but then my upbringing kicks in and I can be heartless to myself and to others. That’s why my life spins from drinking beer (and any other alcoholic substance that comes my way), eating cake and constantly being with people and their dramas for half a year to almost complete isolation, fruit and veggie diet, killer workout 6 times a week and introspection. And so I keep spinning in and out of various extreme cycles all my life and it’s the only way of living that I know so far that makes me happy.

My heart bleeds when I see people with potential, with smarts and wits, locked up in offices of jobs that are “sufficient”, not challenging themselves in anything, slowly submitting to social conformity and simple comfort that it brings. We learn to blame others for out faults and mishaps and rely on the notion that this was the only life possible for me. Well, if you didn’t have the balls to step out of the bubble of convenience then I’m sorry, but yes, this is the only life you could have lived. And I pray it makes you happy, at least sufficiently.

And it is hard to change. It is hard to risk. I know, trust me! I love using this quote for change (a bit of gruesome realism, but really true):

"Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?

Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice. God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.

Harper: And then up you get. And walk around.

Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.

Harper: Yep, that's how people change."

But that’s what gives me the thrills – the unknown on the other side – be it a fall or a wonderful uplifting – and I’ve had them all. It’s a rollercoaster ride, sure, but isn’t that what life’s supposed to be? Sure you’ll try to feed me the crap that I have the circumstances to do what I want to do – no husband, no kids, supportive parents. And yes, I do have that, but you cannot prove to me that I would not do this if my circumstances were different. All you have to do is fight your own fears.

Friends have the right to judge me and most of them have the guts to spill it to my face, watch me bleed a bit, put a band-aid on my stitched up soul and pour some tequila. But at the end of the day – we all end up with our lives only; so those are the only ones we should be concerned with.

my little demons

http://www.majordojo.com/GoTheFtoSleep.pdf à this book for parents inspired me to write about kids. I talk about them a lot. I post pictures with them. I’ve worked with them in one way or another almost my whole life. Oh, and yes, that small detail of having 2 nephews and 2 nieces.

My friend recently said that this one time when I was telling her one of my children-related tales on a bus (in my normal manner of a too-loud voice tone and weird semi-Italian hand gestures) half of the bus was apparently terrified by my tale. But I’m sorry if I don’t feel the need to sugarcoat everything that’s related to children. No wonder I’m so used to calling my sister’s children “my four little demons”. Yeah, so if you want a cotton-candy kind of tale – better stop reading now or you’ll never look at me the same again.

I was 13 when Augustas was born. Oh, I should begin with telling you that my sister told me she’s pregnant in a horrible market drenched with the wonders of Russian legacy. And that’s how she kept on announcing all of her pregnancies – completely randomly until I started thinking that it is a strategy to drive me to a heart attack. Truly, you can’t even imagine.

So Augustas was born after a C-section and I don’t even remember the circumstances of the decision, but what happened later changed my life in so many ways that it’s often hard to wrap my head around. Somehow it was decided that I will be spending one half of the day with my sister in the hospital – to help her get by (her husband would be with her the other half). To me the most exciting part at the time was the fact that I would skip school for a week. Yippy! Yeah, I didn’t really realize that school will be substituted by dirty diapers and loud, very loud, never ending sessions of head blowing cries. And it’s not just the babies I’m talking about.

In the hospital they still have the tradition of collecting all the babies from moms (if they wish to give them) with these trolleys and the nurses feed them and keep them while they sleep and stuff. The part I find very amusing is when they deliver the babies back – I always feel a bit excited – maybe I’ll get one today! It’s a bit like those kebab sales people on the beach – anyone a baby? Yes? Which one’s yours? My sister was accommodated in a two-bed room but she was the only one in it. But since there was one bed free – I’d be usually laying on it. So this one time when they were “delivering” the babies to mothers and they entered our room the nurse looked at me and was like – which one’s yours? I’m thirteen for chirst’s sake!

So I learnt to pick a two-day-old baby up. Stick him in the sink. Wash him with elements of advanced juggling since you can’t wet the huge snapped bellybutton. I asked endless questions of the joys of being in labor for uncountable hours and saw all there was to see firsthand. It seemed like an exciting journey, a role I got to play for a week. And then you wipe your hands and carry on with your life and only sometimes are struck by the thought of what it would be like if your role was to never end – what if it was for life? That thought still petrifies me. And I still want to compulsively hit people when they say babies are all cute.

First of all, they’re not all cute. There are ugly babies. My sister would at this point throw me a horrified look. Ok, but ugly babies are not the issue.

I remember being 14, wondering the streets of Moscow – sounds like the beginning of a Dostoyevsky novel but wait for iiit… - with the babybjorn carrier and the second of my nephews, Vilhelmas, dangling his 4-month-old feet in it. My sister was auditing private Moscow schools and I was playing nanny. He’d be calmest when walking so I must have walked around the world and back in those 10 days or so. It was 30 degrees and the humidity seemed to intensify the horrible Moscow smog. Vilhelmas was about 8 kilos at the time so by the end of the trip my shoulders where blistered and bruised by the carrier – that’s a workout I certainly recommend! I’d wonder into shops and try to try something on. Put Vilhelmas on a chair with the whole babybjorn, support him with my knees, try a shirt on, quick glimpse to the mirror – nope, the colors don’t match with the baby carrier. Quite the problems of a 14-year-old.

Vilhelmas had a thing for food and since my sister was still breastfeeding and didn’t believe in pacifiers I’d have to bring the baby to her the moment he would open his eyes (cause about 5 seconds later he would be screaming louder than a country’s war siren). That was a problem – my sister was working. This one time he opened his eyes when we were in the hotel room and my sister was working 9 floors below me in a conference room. I sang all my songs and danced all my funny dances and jumped up and down with the baby in my arms for about 30 minutes but he just kept getting louder and louder. I realized I have no time to waste so I ran across the 4 star hotel barefoot, in my pajamas and with a screaming baby in my arms. I almost threw him into my sister’s arms when I got to her and started sobbing for the first time in that trip inconsolably. Everyone in the conference room gathered around me trying to calm me down… 10 years later I still struggle trying to tell it as a funny story ;]

I can still remember a specific kind of look on my sister’s face when she was pregnant with her third, my precious Morta. We were in California at that time and I would just see her face change color in about 2 seconds and I’d know that the next 30 seconds are crucial in finding the nearest puke vortex or I’d be the one covered in it. She was a trooper – never complained although literally barely could keep any food down. I would have become Gorgon and turned everyone around me into stone.

I was always saying that I’d be the godmother of the first girl or, eventually, the third child, so when Morta was born I, once again skipped classes and ran straight to the hospital. They didn’t want to let me in, but you can imagine what that means with my determination. Yeah, I almost got kicked out of the hospital cause I used all my curse words on a few nurses.

Morta was a baby like no other – she lived on her own schedule and by her own rules. Had a huge gingery mohawk and an attitude like no other kid I’ve known. I’d spend hours going back and forth with her stroller inside a room (she’d fall asleep only in the stroller at a certain time) – sweat dripping down my back and repeating the words from the book that I’ve posted at the beginning of the post – please, darling, go the fuck to sleep.

The most fun I’ve had was her 3-year-old crisis. Oh, that was one hell of a ride. She’d never give you her hand. NEVER let you help her put her shoes on (and you can imagine how much fun that is when you’re in a hurry and a three-year-old is trying to tie her own laces). This one time I decided to take her to sit in the audience of a live TV show for children – thought it could be a lot of fun for her to see the process and just the places where I spent half of my childhood.

The TV studio gets really crowded, so everyone’s supposed to be sitting real tight. Meanwhile Morta decides that I have cuddies or what not and she should keep a quarantine distance of 1 meter. So we’re sitting in the front row, the happy TV host asks us to sing and clap and smile at the camera. My little sweet precious Morta looks straight into the camera – dead look in her eyes, not even a blink, lips tight, arms crossed on her chest. I was only silently praying that she wouldn’t stand up and leave across the studio forcing me to run after her apologetically waving at the camera.

Ah, Gertruda. The fourth one. When my sister announced she was having another baby it was pretty much as if she would have stated she had gotten a new dress. Oh no, wait; I would have been more surprised of that. This time, for the first time in those 10 years that my sister was either pregnant, breastfeeding or giving birth – I wasn’t there, cause it happened in Brussels.

But we came to visit a week or two later, by car, so we arrived at night. I went into my sister’s bedroom, picked up the girl and took her to change the diaper. The next day my sister told me she’s never seen anyone (apart from her and her husband) to handle her babies so effortlessly. And yes, it is effortless for me, because I’ve done it over and over – practice makes perfect. I sometimes joke that when mine’s gonna pop out I’m just gonna be like “oh, another one”.

I remember sometime later I was putting Gertruda to sleep so I put on an Elvis Presley CD and danced and sang with her in my arms. It was one of those miraculous didn’t-even-notice-how-she-fell-asleep times and at that moment I had a thought that, finally, I’ve grown up. I don’t find it hard anymore. Tiring? Yes. But not something I couldn’t cope with.

And if there were times when I felt overwhelmed and I had to burry the urge to curse all the gods of Olympus, I remembered the way sunshine lit Augustas’ golden locks this one time at my uncle’s summer house. Or those instances when Vilhelmas would ask to tickle him and laugh although it would be quite obvious that he’s not ticklish. Or when Morta wiped a tear after she got her first ear pierced, pressed her little lips together and bravely nodded her head to get the second piercing – sweat was running in rivers down my back and I felt faint – as if she were my baby. Or when Gertruda learnt to say “I love you” and would repeat it ten times a day, just to make sure that you really get what she’s saying. Or when Augustas was getting his first stitches after falling off a tree and the nurses wouldn’t let me be there with him – I hated them with such fierce anger that I couldn’t think it possible to hate anyone more. Or when Vilhelmas brings me hands full of lizards and frogs – overwhelmed by the wonders of nature – and reminds me so much of myself. Or when Morta used to ask to stroke her back to help her fall asleep – I could always feel how much she misses mommy and daddy and how stoically she fights the tears away and presses my hand in her little palm. Or how Gertruda gets this completely crazy look in her eyes and you know that she’s gonna do something mischievous but instead of trying to stop her you just sit back and watch – like this period when she denied any clothing on her body 24/7.

Or those millions and millions of other little glimpses that are etched in my heart and mind for eternity and nothing else matters – they may love me or hate me, not see me for years and not talk to me, but they are ever-present to me and always will be.

And let my epilogue be the words of Tina Fey (as if I haven't written enough already): http://melodygodfred.com/2011/04/15/a-mothers-prayer-for-its-child-by-tina-fey/

Fairytales and pierced ears

My father raised me as a son he never had. My mother raised me as a little princess. When I was four I wanted to get my ears pierced but my mom argued that with holes in my ears I would not make a good princess and this terrible drawback I did consider for a few days. And then marched down to the salon with a strong conviction that whatever there is in stake for me – I sure hope it’s not becoming a princess.

Of course as all little girls I would play dress-up and put on mum’s make-up, but then with all that I’d jump on the side of the sofa pretending to ride a horse through a jungle and fighting off the evil and unjust. I’d climb all the trees imagining I was saving animals, rode my bike down all hills I could find ending up with scared legs and a happy soul.

Before going to Australia my wonderful father gave me one of the best presents I’ve gotten in my life – a Swiss knife. My mom watched me from aside, happy as a clam, and I saw her in that very moment finally accepting that it is not a pretense for me – I don’t try to seem tough (cause I’m not), but I just love to death anything that sharpens the edges of my life and awakens me from emotionless gliding through it.

Ever since I can remember my life was a fight – my childhood was as pleasant as it gets and I could not have been more loved and cared for – but I always had the urge to fight for – the truth, the brain or the individual. I could never accept that one can bow ones head and conform and not ask for more – more taste, more edge, more borderline fun.

Everyone was speaking about the fact that the moment of the royal nuptials will define a specific moment in your life – something one will be able to refer to even speaking to ones children or grandchildren. So for the sake of it I organized a dinner and invited over some friends.

Throughout the ceremony I couldn’t rid of the feeling of frustration – to me it ultimately felt like a funeral. How can a wedding be so ice cold, emotionless and formal to the bone? All protocol and a peck of 1,4 seconds. Unintentionally I reached for my pierced ears and reminded myself how lucky I am not to be a princess.

no cool

I see people as energy. As something that interacts with the mythical symbolic framework I have inside my head. I see people do magic – very rarely – but when they drop their cool and they venture to be what they are, or what they want to be – it’s more than I can hope for. It takes a shitload of courage to not care about the outside opinions and to just be.

We’ve been, I know we’ve been. My last year of school was all about thinking that the world is an oyster and we can make whatever we want out of it. I still do think that – in a much more reserved manner and no longer with a “wise” backdrop to it. I think I’ve gotten wiser, but isn’t that what all of us think every two to five years?

There’s also an option of not thinking about it at all. Just chillin, y'all know, going with the flow and stuff. I’m not wired for that. And I’m aware that this brings unwanted complications and all that serious-faced stuff. But that’s what I am.

Of course we all think we’re gonna be big. We’re gonna be something. But are we? It scares me to think otherwise. It’s scary to pour your soul out - and it’s not productive nor does it work in your favor. But what are you, if you’re not your true self? You’re a tool, a cool object, but cool doesn’t drive me, does not inspire me at all.

The people I’ve loved in my life are the ones who’ve had the courage to challenge themselves, to venture beyond the normal, the perceived, and the expected.

I need someone to see me like I see people. I see people as something magical. Anyone who has insight, or wit, or anything that makes me hold my breath for a second – is magical. I know it’s cheesy. But that’s how it is.

I may not surprise you. Cause I’m the same as you – the same decaying matter, not a unique snowflake (as outlined in the Fight Club). But if I don’t surprise you, then we are more alike than you think we are.

Would you kill me? If I needed you to, if I desperately had no other option, would you?

Ribbon whaaat?

This whole conflict between Hollywood and the alternative cinema makes me giggle a bit. Every European filmmaker declares that Hollywood is decadent and that he despises it and spits on those who even try to compare his genius to anything of Hollywood. The latter of course does not give a shit as it makes a shitload of money and rarely takes the time to get involved in useless European discussions.

My argument certainly isn’t that Hollywood movies are good and European are bad; what I’m aiming at is that the juxtaposition – intentional to the bone – is simply childish.

Take The White Ribbon that I painfully watched yesterday. Yes, perhaps it is a piece of art in the cinematographic sense; yes, the cast is without fault whatsoever (especially the children). But once again I object the “art for the sake of art” standpoint. You may call me trivial but seriously, I need a message in a movie and that’s what I think they’re for. And if you deprive me of catharsis, if you leave me with nothing more but a tape of black and white images in my head after two hours – I consider those two hours wasted.

It’s what Lithuanians love doing with contemporary cinema as well. The freaking country of cinematic disaster, traumatized by gloomy Russian literature and not talented enough to pull off a Dostoyevsky they march on with their “Brisiaus galas” kind of mindset. Oh, there’s gotta be tears. And a deep dark depressing onset. And some violence for the sake of violence (and this is not addressed to Zero as I consider it a truly wonderful statement. And some very few truly inspiring movies like Balkonas. In your face Nereikalingi Zmones). Like the recent Lars von Trier, whom, I’m sorry, I don’t understand either (I mean duuude, if you suffer from severe depression and various phobias – do you really have to put me through it too?). And yet again I may be called an ignorant and superficial cinema nazi, but seriously, do we NEED that violence? Is it the only necessary tool to bring out the message? Cause honestly, I’m getting a bad case of compassion fatigue.

And yet there are masterpieces that may be a bit gloomy, a bit slow, but they do it for a reason, a message, something my brain feed on like vultures for days and days in a row. Like Das Leben der Anderen – it could be regarded as a slow movie but to me it seemed perfectly paced, bringing out the essence scene by scene, sound by sound.

Like the Cidade de Deus may seem too violent at times but it has nothing to do with hitting a penis with a hammer (thank you, Lars, for engraining that image in my mind for eternity). It’s a heartbreaking story which absolutely cannot be told without the images of violence – it is the essence of it, it disturbs and yet leaves you hungry for peace.

I even truly loved The Believer, as it sets off to explore self-hatred and self-search in such a painful, personal way. And Little Ashes – a quote from which I use in the opening of my blog and which has become part of my everyday life.

I could go on and on with examples of brilliant movies made all around the world for the purpose of sending a message. And to my mind a movie is much more powerful if it has one, rather than when it simply is a statement of a self-absorbed artistic individuality.

Warning: media

Warning: this post may be biased and narrow-sighted as it is infused by frustration while still in a lecture.

Why did I choose to study journalism? This question crosses my mind more often now than at any other time in my life. This is because during the time of my studies in Lithuania I could blame the system for the journalism studies’ shortcomings – the whole educational system is rotten, young people don’t contribute to the educational progress etc etc.

But then I went to Denmark – the best journalism school in the country and a university that ranks in the top 60 of the world’s universities. And then I went to Australia – to a no1 journalism school in Sydney. And my frustration has not diminished, vice versa - it has grown fiercer with every day.

What is my problem? The humongous gap between practice and theory. I get a lot of counter arguments to this one saying that most disciplines face this controversy. I say we have to look at a particular case – journalism is all about practice. You cannot read McLuhan or McQuail and then just easily adapt it in your work. It does not work that way cause the guys are not living on another planet, they are living in another universe for god’s sake.

Journalism scholars think they know better and journalism professionals think they know shit. The scholars research the media in a way it should function ideally – and I don’t even know what the ideal is (please do inform me if you’re aware of these ideal conditions). Has it ever functioned in an ideal system? No. Has the need for it decreased because of that? Quite contrary, in my opinion, journalism is at its best today, because there’s so much social interaction and higher accountability due to the fact that the access to information is no longer limited to the privilege of the journalists.

Yet the scholars see a problem in the PR overtake, in the diminishing role of the journalistic professionalism, in the lack of specialization etc. Of course there are problems but this is not the problem. The problem is that the scholars are not addressing the problems in a right way. They distance themselves from the practice; take the position of some kind of a preacher who knows better and therefore misses the target completely.

Scholars love saying that if journalism won't start abiding by the scholarly advice it will become so rotten it will actually one day die. I find this hilarious and in this case want to remind you something that Socrates said and Plato recorded on paper:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

According to him the youth should have ruined the planet completely and driven the world to anarchy if not worse. And yet we progressed and our world is more wonderful than it has ever been. That’s what I think about journalism as well – every generation of journalists’ thinks that they are the last ones who are credible and yet journalism survives and, further more, progresses. Maybe not in an ideal way, but still.

Australia, New South Wales, Sydney

I think – I THINK – I have settled now. So here are my first notes.

Sydney is big. I mean really big. And it gets even bigger when you try to minimize your public transportation use. Not because it’s dodgy or something – it’s great. As a matter of fact it’s so great, people thank the driver getting off the bus. Seriously, everybody yells thank you, even if they’re getting out through the back door. No, I avoid buses in order to see more, feel more, soak up the sun and feel the humid warmth in my lungs and my bones. Yes, it’s usually 25-32 degrees Celsius.

It’s a living, breathing organism. Literally. Their cockroaches are the size of my palm. You see them everywhere. And then in one night you see a huge rat running by, a bat is throwing food at you and you step on some sort of a huge slimy moving thing in your kitchen. Awesomeness.

It’s laidback. I’ve never been to a place so busy and yet so relaxed at the same time; the coexistence of these contrasting traits, to my mind, is what makes up Sydney. This is why the first two weeks I’d leave home at 10am and get back at 12am – the city grips you and doesn’t want to let go. I didn’t put up a fight.

I have a home now. Compared to my shoebox in Denmark this is a palace and people are already joking around that I won’t leave my Ivory tower without a good reason. I live in an old terrace house (quote from Wikipedia: “Terraced houses in Australia refers almost exclusively to Victorian and Edwardian era terrace houses or replicas almost always found in the older, inner city areas of the major cities.”) It looks something like this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Paddington2_terrace.jpg

The area is called Glebe, which is known for being a bit alternative and hipster. What I love about it is the Saturday flea market, the tiny cafés where everybody sits back to back, antique book stores and simply the feeling – I stroll down the main street at least twice a day and stop by the same fruit market and chemist store every week – I get to know people – because all the stores and small, personal, like you’re transported back in time when there were no supermarkets and people knew the ones who sold them food from a local farm (as their grandfathers knew each other).

I didn’t even think I’d like those times until now: the two Asians who own a post office/groceries store call me “the girl from Europe” every time I drop by, and an aged Italian lad working at Pastabella café winks if he sees me pass by. A guy from a seafood restaurant promised to call if a job opening comes up. These little instances of everyday personal interaction warm my heart and make me realize that the world we live in has made us become indifferent to each other to an extent we don’t even realize.

Things happen here. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling of seeing Annie Leibovitz originals, almost touching them, grasping the depth of the colours, the texture of background and the intensity of emotion when a picture is 2X2m. I would have never even dreamt of this opportunity and there I was, staring at Susan Sontag in a casket, almost crying, so moved I could not talk.

Or last night – I went on YouTube and at the top there was a banner saying, “YouTube Symphony live streaming from Sydney Opera”. Jumped in a cab and 10min later I was standing at awe in front of those magical projections, feeling the breeze of Sydney harbour on my skin, fighting the occasional raindrops and glaring at the full moon hanging on the side of the opera café.

There are three Lonely Planet travel books on my night table – I brought them all the way from home no matter that they added perhaps 3kg to my ridiculously poor luggage. But every time I open them now it’s no longer some distant ephemeral thing I’m looking at – it’s my present, it’s very much real and it humbles me. I bow down once again before fate and, most of all, my parents, who provided me with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I can’t really tell you why exactly I’m so amazed. Nothing’s too new – I’ve seen the skyscrapers millions of times, swam in both Atlantic and Pacific oceans, saw many cultures and met many people. One of those countries that truly took my breath away was Syria, but I never had the feeling I could reside there. Whereas Sydney… Something just clicked. It’s like the feeling when you know you’ve forgotten something, but you can’t remember what and you don’t even remember where to look for it, and then – bam – you find it, and a sudden wave of relief ripples through your body head to toe. That’s how I feel. Like I’m finally home.

The next "Survivor" series

Reposted from my sister's blog:

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.
Each kid will play two sports and take either music or dance classes.
There is no fast food.
Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of ‘pretend’ bills with not enough money.
In addition, each man will have to budget enough money for groceries each week.
Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives,and send cards out on time--no emailing.
Each man must also take each child to a doctor’s appointment,a dentist appointmentand a haircut appointment.
He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Emergency Room.
He must also make cookies or cupcakesfor a school function.
Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside, and keeping it presentable at all times.
The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.
The men shave their legs,
wear makeup daily,
adorn themselves with jewelry,
wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes,
keep fingernails polished,
and eyebrows groomed
During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, backaches, headaches,have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.
They must attend weekly school meetings and church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

They will need to read a book to the kids each night and in the morning,feed them,dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:30 am.

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks,and each father will be required to know all of the following information:each child’s birthday,height, weight,shoe size, clothes size,doctor’s name,the child’s weight at birth,length, time of birth,and length of labor,each child’s favorite color,middle name,favorite snack,favorite song,favorite drink,favorite toy,biggest fear, and what they want to be when they grow up.
The kids vote them off the island based on performance.
The last man wins only if…he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment’s notice.

If the last man does win,he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years,eventually earning the right to be called Mother!

be good. be better.

“Perfekcionistų gyvenimą gerai iliustruoja antikinis mitas apie stipruolį Heraklį. Olimpo dievų buvo nuspręsta jam leisti tapti pusdieviu, tačiau tik su sąlyga, kad Heraklis išmėšiąs milžiniškas arklides. Kiekvienas perfekcionistas gilumoje yra Heraklis, turintis ambicijų įsikurti bent jau Olimpo papėdėje.”

-- http://www.vmsi.lt/n/4/53/Kai-Reikalai-Auksciau-Visko

[Rough translation: The lives of perfectionists are well illustrated by the ancient myth of almighty Hercules. The Gods on Mount Olympus decided that they’d let him become a semi-god with the condition that he’ll clean out stables of an enormous size. Every perfectionist is Hercules, fostering the ambition to one day reside at least at the foot of Mount Olympus]

Firstly, I apologize for having gone missing for a while. Sydney has been quite overwhelming and I promise to write it all down as soon as it sinks in fairly enough to evaluate it. Cause now I’m just like “oh my God this is all waaayyy cool” haha. Not very impartial I’m afraid.

However, I am writing this post. And this is just because it would’ve seemed insane not to – a friend [let’s call her the Stewardess] wrote me on FB whom I haven’t spoken with for perhaps a year [and who’s leading an amazing and inspiring life at the moment] and basically just asked me why I’m not posting anything and then brainstormed a bit on the topic of perfectionism. Out of nowhere. This made me ridiculously happy because that was a direct proof that this tiny blog is doing it’s job – provoking to think, to ask questions and to discuss together, which is truly one of my greatest passions. Thank you so much!

Then, maybe an hour or two later, I completely accidentally stumbled upon this article: http://gyvenimas.delfi.lt/career/perfekcionizmas-xxi-amziaus-moteru-liga.d?id=14959020 [sorry to all those English speaking friends who are reading – this great article is written in the very cool language of totally cool Lithuanians]. Its title says: Perfectionism – the XXIst century disease for women? And it goes on to cover the topic in detail.

But it gets better. I’m skyping with my mom tonight and she randomly posts the quote that I’m using in the opening of this post. How odd is that? The universe has united on directing me towards this topic ;]

So. Perfectionism.

I do agree that it is the most malicious disease that contemporary women suffer from. We have to excel in everything – career, family, LIFE. It is seen as a virtue if we can cook and clean, and “hold the four corners of a household”. By nature (and by upbringing) I am truly not capable of that. I most deeply despise interior pampering with candles and flowers and what not. And numerous boyfriends have pointed it out with poorly disguised regret.

I am, however, interested in quantum physics, in failing economies, in various religions (purely for religion studies), in muscle cars and a solid glass of the old fashioned at the end of the day. Yet none of these interests are seen as a virtue as far as I’ve noticed.

A brief jump of thought – I just received another letter regarding my babysitting services poster in Denmark. It’s a third one I’ve received and what I find interesting is that all of them were written by men. Sometimes countries of deep-rooted feminism bring such joy to my heart ;]

Back to the topic. I’d have to agree with the Stewardess that perfectionism causes drinking problems above all things. When one no longer knows how to let go of days work, or how to seek relief from all surrounding pressures, she may start abusing alcohol.

Another thing perfectionists are prone to – depression. When you’re stuck in the vicious circle of never being good enough – how can you possibly enjoy life? It is the highway to apathy, dissatisfaction and anger management problems.

My intention is to ask you to share your thoughts: why do you think we become perfectionists? Are you one? What’s your story? Is it about the upbringing and if so, what do parents do wrong? How to balance it out between caring for the child but yet not pushing him too hard; between inspiring him for greatness and giving him all the tools but not depriving him of simple joys? Do you fight perfectionism or do you give in to it? How do you give yourself a break from it? How to manage it and adjust it to work in your advantage?

These are my questions for you today, so please, drop a line or two.

“One needs to learn to ride without waiting for the stables to be cleaned” – Daniel Casriel