What have we done to ourselves?

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about a crowd funding project that if fully funded, it will allow me and the sponsors to participate in a unique exhibition opening at the Cannes Film Festival. I was stunned by how supportive some people were and willing to contribute for the VIP tickets knowing they would be fully refunded if the amount is not reached by the deadline of 8th of April. However, with the deadline nearing and the clock ticking, all the vows and wows are turning into bla bla, the very sign(ature) of insecurity that we are all prone to. And I'm not surprised as I have encountered that in my personal and professional life with people wanting to meet on Thursday -- for example -- but many unnoticed Thursdays passing by  and others excited to collaborate over a scientific idea or develop an artistic vision, eventually all burrowed under soils of endless excuses, that my aesthete organs cannot perceive or penetrate. I have been trained to see and make beauty that translates into truth and therefore I have no sensibility towards flakiness and bullshit. However, I am putting all this behind and moving forward for everything happens for a good reason and in fact, I believe I have a sponsor that will cover all the exhibit's expenses. Regardless, whether I make it or not is not the issue as I would still have learned a very precious life-lesson that I am already sharing with you. As of today, forgive me as it might take a few weeks or months for me to get to know you better if we have never met and I am sure as you read this you will feel the same and empathise. I just want us to be clear that I am not here to impress you or be impressed by you as I barely manage to please my own self, and I am not here for fake unfelt like-for-like or wow-for-wow bazars. The worst place in earth is a place that lacks communication and it's sickening how social networks have destroyed our communication and I do not wish to proceed this way. If you are minimally suspicious of what I am trying to communicate in this message, perhaps this video might change your mind and it is never too late https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ybt_Sjrp8 let's picnic soon, not the picnic app, a real picnic in the park!

Do you want comfort or happiness?

It might sound counterintuitive but you cannot have both. Once you are too comfy you loose the sense of risk and adventure, and you slowly vegetate into a lesser being, whatever that means. One of my favorite sayings "life begins at the end of your comfort zone" sums this up pretty neatly. On the other hand, "you have to eventually settle down" you whisper to yourself, and it becomes more of an ordeal with every trip and discovery until a week in one place becomes some kind of a phobia.

It is much easier to find comfort in happiness than happiness in comfort but I, along with other lazy and clairvoyant beings, have been more interested in the latter, be it for its assured long-term stability or for the challenges implied.

In parallel to my commitment to arts and sciences, I am trying to master, Greek, the 8th language as a challenge of neophiliac stability.

Languages are like people and countries that we revisit to remember and perpetuate great moments, especially those involving communication, putatively with other beings. When I am speaking a language I am nostalgic for the other ones I am not speaking (and ones I am not speaking to) just like being in a place and not in a myriad of other possible places. 

How traveling can ruin our lives!

I feel terrible but I am inclined to share a great article on how traveling can ruin your lives and I am not quoting any of it so that you read it all!

I would add another point analogous to the nomad's feeling of not belonging to any place. It is that of finding it hard to commit to a person or a relationship. We become very truthful to ourselves and to others about what we like and dislike that we cannot be reckless with our hearts or other people's. I have previously compared people to places and the more I travel and meet people, the more this metaphor makes sense.

Amor, ordem e progresso

A couple of days ago it was summer and I was in love with everything that caught my eye. I thought it was impossible to be awestruck as an adult but I was proven wrong. The magnificent nature breaths unimaginable exotic fruits and aromatic coffees with its tropical ecological diversity. This richness has invited immigrants from every corner of the world creating the most hospitable and generous men and the most beautiful and diversified of women that dance nonstop to any tune hinting to samba music from an audible distance. My good friend Deivison and I had witnessed and framed (see ALAgrApHY for daily pics) fabulous sunsets and beautiful people between Ipanema (with Marjory Lulu Julia ...) Copa Cabana Itacoatiara Saquarema São Pedro da Aldeia Arraial do Cabo Cabo Frio and finally in Búzios where we met Alfredo's family in a paradise that is in a paradise... There is much more and many more people to thank for making this trip memorable but much is owed to traveling with an open mind and a huge heart that Deivison and I had from the very beginning -- perhaps Portuguese is a must. We have found bliss even in the poorest of neighborhoods, in the most chaotic of places Lapa where some carnival rehearsals took place, in a scientific conversation and a future collaboration in data mining on the ipanema beach, in the sinful yet indulging self-service buffets....I am home sick where home is Brazil. I am a Carioca citizen of the world where Carioca is a state of mind.

Agora fico com muita saudade do que vi e do que nem tive tempo para descobrir, e para matar esta saudade, gente, se ter uma festinha de samba, uma capirinha com o 51, um acai o um suco da manga com laranja o maracuja, gente em paris, por favor, tou cheio de saudade! 

 — in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Happy Love Day Every Day

Being loved is one hell of a rich experience that no money, status or power can buy, no Chinese market can imitate or trade and no future or artificial intelligence can fake. I have been extremely lucky to have grown up in a loving environment of family and friends, with unconditional love and patience. In turn, this has made me a victim of excessive and overwhelming free love that has inexorably fueled my expressive artistic projects and quixotic search for like-minded people to love and support in their meaningful journeys and dreams.

Coming from a scientific background in a highly-on-demand and focused field of study, people question my decision of not having pursued a well-established 6-to-7-figure career (that I have been offered on a couple of occasions) and my answer follows: If I were to regret anything in my 50's or 60's, it would be that of not having loved or been loved profoundly, that is including all the bells and whistles of exploring the world with others and disputing with lovers. And I bet you agree with me, also considering the alternative of disputing with your own dying self for not having done what you really wanted. So why let fear yuck your yum and kill your time? Why not turn your cant's into cans and your dreams into plans?

I am having a fabulous day, today, and I am grateful to all the wonderful people sharing their vibes and love. They know who they are and how much they mean to me.

For the occasion, I am sharing this old experimental photograph, entitled with a literal sense "love is in the air" and painted with a remote control and an infrared filter with an SLR camera. This picture has been viewed 13000 times, downloaded 8800 times, and liked 860 times on deviantART.com while listed in at least 26 blogs and sites since Nov 2010. On the other hand, my most popular scientific article has been accessed 4500 times and cited 28 times since Sep 2008. I am grateful and fulfilled to have known both communities of artists and scientists and even contributed to both. Therefore, I am taking this leap of faith, that many have silenced with a big NO NO, to pursue an interdisciplinary career in arts and science, even if I will have to be the first.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves -- V. Hugo

Much love to all,
Al  



Love is in the Air by alahay on deviantART
pic url: http://alahay.deviantart.com/art/Love-is-in-the-Air-187377870

txt url: http://28-ish.blogspot.fr/2014/02/happy-love-day-every-day.html

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves -- V. Hugo

Le NeoSpleen de Paris

I have yet to meet a person who has not suffered a major/minor depression after having lived two years in Paris! Paris, the city of love, promises to many way more than it can offer sometimes creating in individuals a delusional acute state known as the  Paris Syndrome. Japanese tourists, dreamers, cinephiles, wanderers are only few amongst many susceptible to the Paris Syndrome. However, people that are destined to Paris for more than a couple of years experience the city and its people differently. At the beginning, Paris' inhabitants may experience an overwhelming child-like appreciation of the beauty of every street, cafe, or park, sometimes to the point of experiencing a Stendhal Syndrome. With time, however, this beauty fades as we cement our images of Paris,  even of the Paris we have not explored. We assume many places are reincarnations of others and we are so convinced that our perception is biased to prove our intuition right regardless of what new places might offer. This slowly leads to anhedonia, the loss of pleasure, and perhaps existentially and morally towards nihilism.  And based on our genetic and environmental predisposition to depression, this eventually leads to mild and long depressions, such as dysthima or major acute depressions that are all vicious and bottomless circles that are only curable with enough will power and support from family and friends. I shall call this last phase "le mal de Paris" which hints to Baudelair's "fleurs de mal" and almost every poet's and artist's "mal de vivre" althought perhaps I could just update Baudelair's "Spleen de Paris" by calling it  "le NeoSpleen de Paris" such that it accommodates a century of human progress or regress.

Le NeoSpleen de Paris, is contagious! You might get it in the metro when nobody is smiling, not even musicians as they play or kids as they don't. You might get it on the streets whether from the homeless beggars or from fellow inhabitants that have so much convinced themselves of being busy to avoid the void, or you might as well get it in restaurants when your waiter does not expect to be tipped or rewarded and has been already suffering that NeoSpleen for years!

It is only after the second year that you become aware of the NeoSpleen epidemic and the options to cure it are expensive and limited:

- You are suddenly convincing yourself that alcohol/drugs are inevitable to calm you and many of your alcoholic/drug-addict "friends".
- Your friends have talked you into medication for depression or seeing a shrink
- You decide that Paris is not for you and pack your bags and try to settle elsewhere
- You spend the money you would have spent on alcohol, drugs, medication, or shrinks, traveling back and forth to always see Paris as a child sees candy, and I am talking about forbidden and rare candy!

I am guessing you have already made up your mind. If you happen to have chosen the last one, I might see you tomorrow in RIO de JANEIRO!

 

Volatile memory extension nostalgic excitement and freedom price inflation

Yesterday, I had a skype call with a good friend, who is reading this today. He mentioned me citing a quote in this blog, but having forgotten about it, I came back looking for it and checking the context in which it was placed. It is not surprising that I have forgotten all about it since I write to forget. In fact, writing is analogous to freeing your volatile memory since you can always refer to an extended memory to chase down your fleeting ideas and develop them at later stages. But it happens that the extended memory at hand is an ephemeral blog of volatile properties and decentralized servers in unknown locations. The only alternative of quasi-ancient pen-and-paper writing techniques require tremendous amounts of indexing and localization that are costly and can only be stored in our volatile biological memory which beats the purpose. One of the fleeting ideas I could vaguely remember from yesterday's volatile conversation can be exampled by the following observation:

I have very much enjoyed my skype conversation yesterday which makes me wonder why was it not something I desired or demanded? Why is it not something I have anticipated with huge joy and high expectations knowing it is with a good friend I have not chatted for a while? How much must I have been betrayed by my expectations and my fluctuating mood that I have given up on anticipation, looking forward and projection? Is the very awareness of these factors a curse or the absence of unknown factors a blessing? Have I reached a certain point of involuntarily suppressing excitement fearing it will be followed by disappointment? Similarly, I have a wonderful thanksgiving dinner last week which brought back great memories from my past 8 years in the USA. I even dared highering my expectations and anticipating that thanksgiving dinner even though I did not know the host or most of the invitees. I then wondered whether I should seek more expats to revive the good old days.


Another fleeting idea concerns freedom that often comes at a high price, not only the price for owning it but also for maintaining it. When free one is paradoxically more a slave of whatever fears he has of loosing this freedom. The price for freedom has been inflated such that all can access it even if for a flavour of freedom or a mere sense of fake freedom. The market is overwhelmed with a myriad of freedom products that are all demanded and consumed. Many live in the deception of freedom often symbolized by a big mansion, life insurance... but rarely are the conditions of mortgage or the quality of life questioned.   Is freedom of fear the ultimate of all freedoms? How can one master it? Is the fear of freedom the very opposite of freedom?

quand manger et avec qui

Je me sens coupable car j'ai l'habitude de manger tot ou tard pour eviter la queue (aux rythmes gausiennes) en sachant qu'en attendant et respirant l'odeur de la bouffe mes glandes secretent un acide tres fort qui me brule secretement pendant l'atteinte, en outre, la retroaction de telle conscience s'aggrave au point de l'envie de l'ignorance des autres ou ma solitude.

50 people, one question: What is your biggest regret?

Most people regret not having lived their life to the fullest or so they think. They might as well think so even if they lived an extra inch further, but how could they tell if this never happened in the first place? As for those with no regrets or funny answers, are they just running away from life and its meaning? Are they fully convinced? That's a very personal question and it's hard to tell if what is being said is heartfelt, acted or even staged.

What is your biggest regret?

Suicidal Rythms of Life

I have been "homeless" for the past 23 days while awaiting to move into my apartment desperately, tormentingly and most aptly, adventurously considering the couches of undetermined owners I often shared with unknown people and the sleepless hostel nights spent calculating the weight of the stranger above me and the consequences of his fall on me, my family and the insurance company... day after day, phone call after phone call, signature after signature, until I was home YESSSSSSterday! As soon as I settled, a myriad of projects on hold suddenly resumed and I thought to myself:

We are always getting ready to live but never living. - Ralph Waldo