Note to self: use more often

I’m sorry, but you must have me confused with somebody who cares.

March 18th, 2010

Spring has finally arrived in Berlin. Nature is still dead. Only the colonies are in bloom with the first pink flamingos of the year. Everyone is out, still boasting full winter coats. Thin ice. The public park is still closed, because a big book in city hall says so.

The most noticeable change is the silence. Winter is silent in a muffled way, the snow acting as the walls of a recording studio, drowning all ambient noises. Voices seem excessively loud and disruptive. Crunching footsteps make it impossible to walk around unnoticed. Spring’s, by contrast, is filled with ambient. Singing birds. Children’s screams. The crunch of a stroller on gravel.

I feel more involved with my surroundings today. The lethargy of my fellow sun worshipers is infectious. All the greens have a brownish hue, and there is a smell of damp earth. Things slowly but surely are changing, without anything we can do about it except align ourselves.

Never again

For those of you who would be wondering, yes, it’s still snowing in Berlin.

7 minutes

Max put both of his hands on the railing of the balcony, and straightened his shoulders. As usual, he was amazed at how unnatural it started to feel, but he instantly felt the dull pain in his left shoulder decrease. His bare feet quickly started to get cold, but he never found the need to put on his shoes for the short intermezzo’s he spend here.

Burned by the last drag of his cigarette, he realized he was smoking it too fast, again, and started to pay attention to his breathing. 3 breaths, one inhale, one slow exhale. Use the left hand to spare the other side.

Max was pleased about himself. He spend the whole day thinking cleanly, not too many relapses. He was less productive than he wanted, but more than expected. He hadn’t quite managed to reach the level he had reached a couple of years ago at his last job,and while he couldn’t pin down the exact reason, he was pretty sure he knew most of the contributing factors. Lack of social control. Infinite time. But then again he also was more productive than he had been there a few months later.

Max caught himself smoking right-handed again, and switched.

But then again, what does it mean to be productive. Although Max was convinced he was spending his time as well as he could, he still spend a lot of time doubting his ultimate goals. But then, it was easier to convince himself about the urgency of his current project, than the urgency of figure out his goals. He had accepted it was a “more than a lifetime” thing long ago, and he hadn’t seen any evidence to the contrary yet. Best not too go in circles right now anyway. It’s scheduled for summer.

He deposited the last of his cigarette in the tray, wondering why the collection of butts reminded him of empty batteries.

The click of the water boiler reminded Max of … what? He nearly broke his neck tripping over his shoes as he entered the kitchen.

On Identity, pt 2 / the power of Why?

Preamble: this will be a longer post about personal identity, more or less a followup on this post from a while back. As always, don’t expect a conclusion at the end.

I recently met with a close friend that I haven’t seen for over a year. As with all my close friends, the long separation with no news only served to make us enthusiastic about the amount of new insights and narratives share, rather than an indicator of declining interest in each others lives. In any case, we had a lot of catching up to do, and we did exactly that.

Now, I’m not always a nice listener. When I hear somebody relate a story of his life, I’m very interested with the intent of a certain action, and the events that afterward took place. A lot of people, however, tend to only tell me a sequence of events that happened to them. My company is doing good or bad. I visited such and such city. I bought the new iThing. So how do we get the information we’re looking for? The passions, dreams and perhaps a confession of sheer luck that have given rise to these facts? Well, one simple question of course. Why?

When I was asked my friend this exact question, I noticed it’s a tricky one. While you might ask it out of sheer curiosity, the person on the receiving end might perceive it as a challenge. Isn’t it obvious to you why I did this? Are you telling me it’s not obvious? Are you implying you would not do it in that way, and therefore want to know my reasoning? Maybe the person doesn’t want to admit the reason why he did things, because with the benefit of hindsight, he saw it was the wrong decision, and being wrong is not always an easy thing to admin. Or even the most socially unacceptable reason of all: it just happened, and I didn’t resist.

Explaining the motivation for acting or not acting is probabresly difficult, because we are afraid our conversation partner will judge us, more than if we just stick to the facts of what happens. And this is exactly why it interests me more: I feel closer to the person I’m talking to. I often think " I wouldn’t have done that given my options", but I rarely think “I don’t understand why he/she made that choice”. In daily life, I’m quite solitary, and I have many interests that are difficult to share directly with people (programming, writing, reading). But it bring me immense joy to talk to my friends about life. Just a few hours of reflection, respite of having to move forwards, sharing doubts and encouragements. And I noticed that this is not the case for everyone. Some people like to share everything, some people seem never to share their doubt about fundamental issues. I’m happy to start realizing where I stand more clearly as I get older.

Blueberry pie

Her friend often made fun of it. She would prefer to sit in front of the greasy oven on a small pillow, unable to tear herself away for even a minute. From loading the loaf in the preheated oven, with a small handful of water for some added steam, until she judged the moment ready to release it’s trapped heat she would sit there. No conversation, movie, or accidental bump resulting from other people’s kitchening could dislodge her until it was time.

I would like to say she was reasoning about her knowledge and intuition of the craft. Predicting the sourness of the flavor from her new flower-to-yeast formula. Guessing the thickness of crust. Worrying she had gone a potato too far. Cursing herself for eyeballing the salt again. Forming a mental model from previous observations and experiences, and trying to validate it with the colour of her creation.

But I asked her yesterday.

“Once, I put croissants in, and a blueberry pie came out.”

NY, pt 7 (found objects)

MOST Serene, Serene, most Puissant, Puissant, High, Illustrious, Noble, Honourable, Venerable, wise and prudent, Lords, Emperors, Kings, Republics, Princes, Dukes, Earls, Barons, Lords, Burgomasters, Schepens, Counselors, as also Judges, Officers, Justiciaries and Regents of all the good cities and places, whether Ecclisiastical or Secular, who shall see the patents, or hear them read. We make known, that the master of                         appearing before us, has declared upon oath, that the vessel, called the                 of the burthen of about                    tons, which be at present navigates, is of the United States of America, and that no subjects of the present belligerent powers have any part or portion therein, directly nor indirectly, so may God Almighty help him. And, as we wish to se the said master prosper in his lawful affairs, our prayer is, to all the before mentioned, and to each of them seperatly, where the said master shall arrive, with his vessel and cargo, that they may please to recieve the said master with goodness, and to treat him in a becoming matter, permitting him, upon the usual tolls and expenses, in passing and repassing, to pass, navigate, and frequent the ports, passes and territories, to the end of transact his business, where, and in what manner he shall judge proper : Whereof we shall be willingly indebted.

James Madison Letter of safe passage for the brig Prudence

the Museum’s collection ranks among the most important collections of the arts of the Islamic world in the United States

Sign at the Brooklyn Museum

** Asian Peoples **Sign at the American Museum of Natural History

Trampen mit Adolf

Since I was young, I always had a preference for association than of imagination. When I read a book, I would immediatly pick a person out of my direct environment after reading the first couple of descriptive lines introducing a character into the narrative. It could be a close friend, family member, or just a random face from the street that somehow got stores in my subconcious. For some reason, it made more sense to my subconcious to reconfigure my past experiences that to invent new ones. In any case, this could lead to some unfortunate circumstances. I remember I associated one main character if a popular Stephen King novel with a faint aquantance that I would see once a week, tops. As the story progressed though, I felt a totally one sided shared connection with him grow. We had been through so much together, and when he was killed off in the end, I felt an urgent need to buy him a beer and relate this story to him. I felt it as an opportunity to get closer to him, and I also felt as if I invaded his personal liberty as I did not allow him to exert his own personality. I forced on him the character of the book. As you can guess, he is still completly oblivious to his adventures in my mind, 10 years later.

I had a similar experience hitchhiking to Belgium on Monday. I was waiting with a German truck driver for the depot to load up his rig with high-tech audio equipment, and we were already there for a couple of hours. We were talking about unemployement in the east of German, economical reprecussions of the fall of the Wall, etc. And then my driver triggered something. He told me that we shouldn’t ignore the good things the Third Reich did for  the German economy, like constructing the Autobahs.

Barring any political, moral, or personal emotions, his utterance had a big effect on me. Suddenly, his moustache and haircut morphed a bit, or perhaps caught the sunlight at a slightly different angle. And I found myself sitting in the cab of the truck with Adolf Hitler, feeling as uncomfortable as when I last saw Das Untergang, alone and in the dark. And Adolf Hitler continued to talk about his girlfriend that lives in Prague, the time he tried to start a hot stone restaurant in Berlin, or his opinions on parenting. I spend another 10 hours talking to him until he dropped me off at the border. I decilined his exceptionally gracious offer of spending the night with him in his cab, as it was already well past the last train home.

I was shook out of my reverie by a Belgian Turkish truck driver/body builder, with whom I discussed at length the quality of “les meufs en Marseille”, and arrived home in time to be served breakfast by my loving father.

Berlin-Brussels. 20 hours. And this time I was trying to avoid adventure.

NY, pt 6

Left and right. Going fast and slow. Some of them damn fast. Some in groups, some with small ones, some with none. Some take the A, some the B. Others take J until Penn Station, and then the Z. There’s English, French and Dutch. There’s Russian, Spanish, and it’s too much. Book readers and chicken feeders.  Break dancers and musical prancers. And they all talk to me. I’ve missed the express already 3 times now.

Traveler's delight

Jacob woke up with a startle. Automatically, his left hand reached for his backpack, and his right for his wallet. Finding them still there, he contemplated opening his frontback to double check the big wad of cash. But he did that about an hour ago, and he decided against it, to avoid suspicion. Jacob looked anxiously out of the train. Only white. He waited impatiently till the next announcement came, but it was all garbled because of a broken speaker, or maybe because he never managed to commit himself to German. Damn, he would have to ask again downstairs, to the only other guy. And he had already done that three times. Not that he cared, wasn’t he great at the stupid tourist trick?

One hour to go to the next transfer. 2 transfers and 6 hours to Berlin. Better not fall asleep again. No desire to get stuck around Magdenburg again. No problem though, he was arrogant enough to trust on all his experiance and his equipment, carefully bought and scavenged over the years. 75 liter backpack. 2 person 3 season tent. Sleeping bag to freezing temperature. Hitchhiking atlas for all of Europe, the Falck one that all the ones in the know use. Garbage bags. Thermal underwear, just in ca.se. Raincoat. Merino layer. Rainpants, no need to take off shoes. Gloves with detachable finger piece. Acer netbook. iPhone. ; Condoms. Money clip. Digital camera, with heavy insurance. Mosquitoenet. Head-light with double set of spare batteries. That one saved his ass a couple of times before.

Suddenly, Jacob went pale. He wasn’t sure anymore if he packed it after he used it to find the toilet at the last place. He checked the obvious place. Nothing. He started unpacking his ; frantically, although he knew exactly how everything fitted. When his backpack was entirely empty, he felt the empty husk. And there it was, in the pocket between the raincover and his tent. Why the hell was it not where it was suppose to be? What was he, a damn amateur?

Traveler’s paranoia. One of the 7 signs you need to go home.