Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Take it easy يا عزيزي

Just before imploding with lament and lack of self-fulfillment, before being consumed by another reflection about my actual mere existence, I flashed back into my blissful and irresponsible childhood that I faintly remember and wished I could stay there forever...

I was reminded by a conversation I have repetitively had with friends. It was usually a follow-up to my laments and a compliment to my talents. According to my peer, I seemed to be doing very well. I refuse however, to let this observation indulge me.

Tomorrow, I will cross the Atlantic for a rendez-vous with Lisboa. Muitas saudades! More poetically, vou-me embora pra Pasárgada.  I will be there with a fresh mind and an open heart with my primary focus on research and my dissertation, oxalá.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Chronic Heartbreak Syndrome

CAVEAT: not for the fainthearted!

Ever since my heart was shattered due to amorous mis-encounters, my meaning of life nullified for failing to prove or disprove anything meaningful and my career incorrigibly confused consequentially, I have been feeling a mild yet endless heartbreak, as if the burning wounds from the past heartbreak have not fully healed. It is very similar to dysthymia, a chronic mild depression syndrome, that I unsurprisingly also suffer from. The suffering is however lamentably bearable enough for me to live with. Otherwise, I would have rebelled and lived differently. But very lazily I seem to vegetate towards the lowest forms of energy. Analogously, a frog accidentally jumping in a pot of boiling water might survive thanks to its fast reflex unlike another frog unawarely heated in a pot of water.  This is what I call decadence. Decadence as I am.  I am not playing the victim, obviously since I am the only reader of my blog and I seldom unveil my desolation in public. I hide it effectively with intensive sarcasm and black humor. I am a seeker of truth and I know that things are best studied when diseased or perturbed. But when will I be done studying my very miserable self? When will I give in to a mundane 8-5 job or a simple wife or a big family? When will I surrender to time? Will time tell? Only when I surrender, time will tell!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Deadlines

I almost wrote this in Italian -- let's see how long I car resist in this blog monolingually. Yesterday, everybody was in a rush, packing, moving out, graduating while I was strolling down Kirkwood Avenue in the early postmeridian, and for the first time I felt I was dead. The death feeling was so intense and realistic that I anticipated waking up from an eerie dream in that same room I have inhabited the last semester. But I did not wake up and little did I care! I wondered whether by not fearing death one is more alive or vice versa. Is it possible that everybody is distracted from life by these deadlines or is it these very deadlines that make life what it is. Death is the last deadline. I questioned my passions, goals and even raison d'etre, one more time, but little did I conclude or care to know.  I hate to prematurely jump to the conclusion that when one is fearless of death  he has already passed all deadlines and is ready for the last one.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

4D

On a rainy laundry day, Abbot and Burger opened my eyes to a 4th dimension like never before. I admit that Flatland was nothing new but Sphereland was food for thought. The visits of the sphere and supersphere to the lower dimensions were very inspirational. I immediately imagined my superself visiting myself from a higher dimension and telling me about my nethers. I am not sure how he would be projected into 3 dimensions (perhaps as a 3D Julia fractal) but I would love to witness something as trippy.

I was thinking all night about a way to see 4 dimensions. If we project a 4D object twice into two 3D adjacent objects with the one to the left slightly rotated on the 4th axis, we can cross our eyes and see all 4D. More impractically, we can have two extra eyes above our two eyes and cross-eye twice (horizontally and vertically) to have 4 images rotated on two axes render an object in 4D.
 

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Greenness

I like to think of myself as an aesthete who is equally interested in the function of things, especially that explaining their beauty. Perhaps a restless reflective aesthete seems to empathize with my kind. I am greatly puzzled and often tormented by what my heart desires and this inexorable passion has lead me to unimaginable places. I wish not to deprive my future from the unexpected, nonetheless, an intimation about my following passions and consequential vicissitudes could bring comfort to my restless soul and mind.  Blaise said: "Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point" but how much of his life did he dedicate to love or reason and what made him jump to this conclusion? Sour grapes?

As a photographer, I experience a constant urge of self-improvement and readiness for "the" perfect shot! That shot is most often ephemeral and requires high skills, expensive equipment and immediate action.  Paradoxically, I am unsatisfied by attributing a lot of my self-fulfillment to a shot that is heavily based on chance. On the other hand, it must be utterly frustrating to have the perfect shot but lack skill or equipment. So is life, opportunities come and go but importuned are the inapt!

Spring has spring and Bloomington has bloomed! I had an epiphany inspired by spring's ethereal greenness. A week ago, I identified with my naked eye at least three shades of green in most plants and trees around campus. Lighter shades of green colored the peripheral newly sprung leaves while the center was dominated by a darker shade of green, regardless of the light. In photography, a similar ethereal effect is created by a technique known as high dynamic range (HDR) often used to add depth and embellish photography. Upon such an observation, I can only conclude to myself that nature feigns this and similar surreal visual effects to the eyes of the aesthete, commiserating our constant lament and endless search for beauty.