consumerism

Not only consumers of mass-producing and mass-polluting products have we become, but consumers of thoughts and quotes we barely understand or dare apply in our overly ambitious yet desperately impractical lives.

A fine illustration of the above is demonstrated in the way we broadcast wise quotes on social networks, often for the sole purpose of keeping up with fellow broadcasters or in order to satisfy fellow social-network consumers that reward us with dopamine-triggering self-gratifying comments, likes and the like.   

Spare a moment to think of what you post, why you do it and what significant consequences will it have. Consider instead picking up the phone and calling someone you care about, consider booking a train and paying them a visit.  Consider mailing your government about things that may improve your country and eventually the planet and its inhabitants...

I write this note as a reminder for myself (as well) to take such a pilgrimage and in a way be thankful for all we have. 

To the cowards fearing the end of the world

To the cowards fearing the end of the world, I dedicate those few thoughts, to those hypocrites that life is a commodity they cannot live without, to those selfishly unaware of victims of wars, hunger and poverty, to whom life is rather a burden they can barely live with, to those disturbed by heavy rain or a late train while others suffer in pain... I ask them gently to fuck off!

Spontaneity

Do not trust what we write or record for it is the least spontaneous of human expression. What we engrave does not concern the present. It is marked not to perish and therefore it addresses the future. It implies in a way that we might even betray our present beliefs in order to express projected future ones that we consider more rational but might not be as heartfelt or fully embraced. Whether it is an e-mail, a text message a facebook comment, a tweet, or ironically, a blog post, as rational beings, we are eventually accountable for what we publish. Contrarily, our now-so-rare face-to-face communication, that nears extinction and begs for modern definitions, is much more authentic to an arguable extent. Nonetheless, my readers, I just thought of this today and wanted to share it for all that has not been said or written! A caveat rationalitas latently prepends every published text, audio or video so beware of our future intentions every time you read us. 

L'hôpital

Cette vie est un hôpital où chaque malade est possédé du désir de changer de lit. -- C. Baudelaire

L'hôpital est un des lieux ou on peut vraiment apprécier les moindre gestes de la vie comme celles de pouvoir respirer sans douleurs, marcher sans tomber, et sentir ce qu'on a envie de voir, manger et écouter. Je travaille dans un hôpital et cet élément d'appréciation et d'être reconnaissant, m'est renaissant tous les jours. Je me nourris d'une quotidienneté riche d'âmes tumultueuses et douloureuses soit pour sois ou pour d'autres qui n'ont même pas eu le choix d'aimer. Telle enquête n'est guère une d'un schadenfreude qui s'amuse au misère des autres mais un enrichissmenet qui nous poser des questions comme: Comment serait notre vie sans une personne qu'on aime bien ou sans la possibilité de voir...

Au hasard de ma navigation cybernétique sur google maps, j'ai lu les meilleurs reviews (commentaires) sous mon hôpital, la pitié-salpêtrière ou la majorité avait commenté : "Cet hôpital m'a sauve la vie...". En revanche, je me demande, ceux qui ne sont plus parmi nous, peuvent-ils toujours laisser un commentaire?

...and 1 USD

A couple of weeks ago, I find myself urgently in need of change and a man in a metro station persistently tries to help until he finds me 9 euro coins and 1 us dollar bill for the 10 euros I needed to break. I graciously accepted his help and embraced the 1 dollar as a good luck, not that I believe in any of this...  A couple of days later, just 5 hours before my plane leaves to Portugal, I drop my wallet as I was biking somewhere between the 5e and 13e neighborhoods of Paris.... (5 hours not worth going over) ...Miraculously, I make it back and forth between  Paris and Lisbon. My hopes in finding my lost wallet in a Samaritan form of a letter from the police or some lost-and-found authority did not fade with my empty p.o.box ever since I left Paris, 10 days ago. This Monday morning, I had a strong feeling that something must have filled my box. I asked the the girl at the front desk if I might have received any notice or mail during my absence. I even shamelessly insisted that she checks on today's mail (a 5-10 minute process of tedious name/number recognition) as she alluded to having just received all mail for the weekend. The very last of envelopes had a letter that read as follows (in french):

Dear Mr. ... we have traced your address from your ID to inform you that we have found your wallet with your ids and cards, 280 euros and 1 us dollar.

Non sum qualis eram, A new monologue about neophilia

I often hate myself, my kind and all that resembles me until I change into something else to eventually hate, out of neophilia.

I open the fridge for consolation by all these items therein that are unlike myself. I pick an apple that hardly resembles me in anyway though studies have shown we have more than 70% of our genes in bananas. Whether we can compare apples to bananas or to humans is of no importance since once I eat the apple, the apple becomes me. The rest of the apples would like to think vice versa. Nonetheless, that foreign body that I just ate became me and is no longer desired, the remaining apples are assured and may remain seated in the fridge.

I have nothing in common with chocolate but once it melts in my mouth we become one. I have become one with so many things that I am now many -- I think to myselves. The spell-checker annoys me to hell when it does not recognise myselves -- or should I rather introduce my selves, my very diverse selves?

The neophile keeps seeking novelty until neophilia ipsum becomes old. But what would then be the post-neophilia state?

The novelty of the novelty might be too meta for many yet many seek it whether they know it or not. I need a new kind of novelty, that similar to a second order differential equation in mathematics. I seek a novelty that can provoke my sense of existence, if any, and tickle my emotions and desires, if possible. It is like asking for a first-time heart-break but after having had many... Otherwise, is it too much to ask for the real-time visual perception of a fourth dimension?

Could lobotomy be the answer, I wonder to myselves. Perhaps auto-lobotomising one of my selves could bring a sense of renaissance to that old cranky mind of mine -- mind the mine.  Is marriage a form of lobotomy and to what extent?  For myselves, polygamy is more than justified. One for the artist of me, another for that scientist, and why not have one for that one typing this note... An accomplished Frenchman is putatively one with a wife and a mistress. Hence, wives and mistresses, it is!

Everly 28-ish-less-ly

2 years ago, I had to come up with a handle for this blog and I thought of 28-ish almost as a way to freeze time and be forever 28. But as time passed the 28-ish notion became 28-ish-less in that monotonic sense of more than 28-ish rather than less than 28-ish. Albeit my 30th survival of the 3rd day of every 3rd month, today, I feel 10 times younger and healthier than I remember being 10 years ago. Is it the big city distraction, the Parisian charm, the post light-at-the-end-of-the-(super-long)-tunnel checkpoint, the post doctoral stability promising and convincing effect, the fear to admit that one is growing old by wishful thinking and youthful entourage ...?

Abréviations Post-Electroniques

L’abréviation totalitaire se trouve paradoxalement avec les expressions (surtout celles de salutation) les plus longues dans la langue française et par conséquence dans tous les mails impliqués. Or je me demande pourquoi ne pas abrévier ces derniers aussi, par exemple:

Amicalement, Amitiés =>  Am
Cordialement => Co
Bien Cordialement => BCo
Bien à toi => BaT
Bien à vous => BaVs
Sincèrement => Si

Bonne soirée => Bs
Bonne journée => Bj
Bon Weekend => Bw

A plus tard, A bientôt => A+
A tout a l'heure => Att

Merci de bien vouloir accepter mes salutations plus distinguées, bien cordialement => BCo

Optimism

Today, I am having lunch with optimism and for the occasion I decided to jot a few words about it.

I dress up to the nines imagining I'm on cloud number nine. Indeed, I try to fly by being fly often on the fly though I risk flying with an unzipped fly that can be entered by any fly such as a fruit fly...

Albeit the cold gray skies that tint my fellow passengers, I radiate with less suitable colorful clothes hoping in a Voltarian panglossianism to eventually harvest my fruitful fashion and passion. This is the very optimism that I live every day.

Stendhal's promise of happiness is a subjective beauty, that in my eyes is more of a potential one. I am rather investing in the seeds than in the fruits, mostly because the latter is already harvested.

This boils down to a genotype/phenotype question that scientists have never ceased to investigate.

La tercera dimension de un mundo que no existe

Je suis cette chanson

Je suis un juif espagnol, je suis un grec armenien, je suis un juif arabe, je suis un creole francais, je suis un noir italien...je suis cette chanson. Je suis un etranger a Paris.

je suis cette chanson. Imaginez si on me la chante au metro de Paris en plus.

too thin to exist

Sometimes I spread myself too thin to a vanishing point. I divide into these particles that constitute air. I become transparent to many even to myself. That is my exit strategy when overwhelmed by endless tasks.

I would rather put up with suffering transparency when commitment knocks my door.

I would rather (drink) wine by my familiar self than succumb to thine.   

Venerdi il 13

Ieri, venedi' il 13 di gennaio, per quanto era pessimo per gli superstiziosi in america era contrariamente festeggiato per scaramanzia dagli superstiziosi in Francia per la sorte che gleli prometteva, possibilemente quella rubata dall'america.

Per me e' tutta una cagata pero' il mio ragionamento non scoraggeva l'idea di trovarmi in una festa praticamente dedicata a un dei 365.25 giorni e per l'occasione mi sono fermato ad un negozio per comprare una camicia.

E' passata la notte e anche la voglia di uscire e cosi' son rimasto a casa. Tuttavia, stamattina per caso ho notato che la marca della mia camicia era TREDICI.

La coincidenza e' probabilisticamente aumentata della mia presenza in francia a quel giorno e della mia conoscenza della lingua italiana a parte la necessita' di compare una camicia...