Monday, November 25, 2013

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?

Monday, November 18, 2013

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?





Friday, October 25, 2013

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

Monday, October 14, 2013

probriqueza

O paradoxo do rico/pobre manifesta-se outra vez duma riqueza evolvente. A ultima vez foi quando com um bilhete de 500 euros fiquei com fome. O que pode ser mais evolvido do comprar uma casa e ficar sem casa? Mais esquisito e ter todas as camas da paris como possibilidades nocturnas com toda a gente que pode ficar na mesma casa, curato, cama ad nauseam.  Fui numa festa com um amigo e outra gente que nunca conheci, fiquei ate as 6 da manha ate o fim da festa para "dormir" na sofá com um desconhecido e a patrona da casa que conheci na festa porque a sua cama já estava cheia dos invitados estimados que nem pediram a permissão da invasão... Hoje soube-me pouco.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

The reason behind my dis-contempt

I woke up early this morning feeling a certain emptiness that neither friends nor family can fill. I looked around my studio and thought of the mediocrity of its spaciousness. I thought I should either move into a bigger space which can accommodate and entertain a larger potential or trim down the space and in turn my expectations therefrom. On a similar note, I questioned the extramural city size and concluded similarly. I should either keep striving for a quixotic stability in Paris or accept to dull my life elsewhere. In a previous post, I had compared people to places, hence, analogously, I can keep striving for Mrs. Right++ quixotically or give in to a Mrs. Smith (or Madame Dupont) and settle accordingly. The dis-contempt arises neither from choice A nor from choice B but from the very indecision and tentative instability.  

 

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Introspective physiology

I have observed that my life can be reduced into long and empty intervals of time separating heart breaks. I have equally observed that during those heart breaks, my body can be reduced to a few organs, namely a nose, a larynx and a heart that Biology must have always confused with lungs.

I am vaguely aware of anything besides the air entering my nose and flowing to my lungs or heart through the larynx as I breath my present existence. More precisely, I sense an infinitely thin thread puncturing my larynx all the way to my heart. More than a piercing in my heart, I feel an entanglement possibly by the very thread therein.

An invisible weight hibernates at the bottom end of my heart as if chained with and suspended from the thread entering my larynx. No matter how hard I inhale or how much air I try to fill my lungs with, I feel a lack of oxygen as if there was a hole in my lungs (or heart). While the hole hypothesis is ridiculed by science, I adopt the alternative hypothesis claiming that my lungs must be filled with tiny men breathing my oxygen into their own lungs, that are perhaps filled fractally and recursively with tinier men and so on and so forth (see below). The lack of oxygen induces an inner pressure that is often unbearable and analogous to an ever-going implosion.


Heart breaks are not only the product of  personal relationships but a myriad of existential events and encounters such as personal, professional, and intra-personal achievements, disappointments and life-decisions. Personally and professionally, I have put my heart on the (thin) line separating arts from science and that very life-decision, with all its bells and whistles, exhibitions and conferences, ups and downs, breaks my heart chronically.

But how much worse are those long and empty time intervals with pointless invisible walls and no notions of time and space? When not heart broken my perception is perhaps more pathetic as my self is extended and contained in all that I see. I become all I see with my eyes and imagine in my third eye that is including the people, animals, places..etc around me and those not around me. The latter might defy the laws of physics, however, it is known to science and to most men that we are all made of atoms and more universally even sung with a twist of wording towards us coming from stardust. All this empty wholeness makes me feel as if my heart was floating in liquids of unknown substances and unpredictable properties. This puts me under more pressure and makes me anxious to the point of desiring what is to eventually break my heart, over and over...










Sunday, May 12, 2013

Love letters to Anhedonia

Dear Anhedonia,

Please understand that my desire for our relationship to end in this last letter I write you is not dictated by my own passion that you have slowly and coldly sucked into what defines you and your friends of the DSM jargon. You have inspired in me a sense of satire that has eventually ridiculed my own thoughts to embrace ones of nihilism paired with a desperate search for the impossible.

Not that this really matters, but I have never betrayed you with your cousin, Dysthymia. You both come from a wealthy Greek family but I have no interest in your Greek names nor in your submissive games.

Forgive me if my admiration for the dead languages ever gave you the impression that our affair was one to outlast me for your own sake of shining amongst my family and friends.

Good bye,
Al  

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Friday, April 19, 2013

Missing

I miss many people but most of all myself. I have been missing for a while. Please report me or the misuse of a transitive verb!

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

je m'en voulais pas assez pour te mériter

Je me suis bourré la gueule, arraché les yeux, et bouffé le nez afin de t'en vouloir mais hélas je m'en voulais pas assez pour te mériter. Je ne te cherche point, mais l'amour qui te rendra belle et rendra hommage à ma recherche de temps perdu...

L'amour est aveugle pour que les amoureux ne puissent voir les douces folies qu'ils commettent . - William Shakespeare.  

I am the Mother of Artificial Immune Systems

I am aspiring to a postdoc in Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) at a warm and gay coastal resort such as Brazil, needless to mention that the founding father of AIS, Leandro De Castro, is Brazilian and lives in Brazil. However, to a great disappointment, he quit academia and science for business, thus making the field of AIS he fathered an orphan! The funny irony or pun is that I adopted AIS in my doctoral career before it was abandoned by its father which makes me and all those in the same boat, mothers of AIS. "Mother of artificial immune systems" is a title I have long held and to a certain extent bared! it allows me not only to celebrate Mother's day but be proud of my artificial immune system that was the basis of my dissertation, that was my baby, no pun intended!

Thursday, March 14, 2013

No one is me(rri)er than me but am I who I want to be?

I don't know to what extent cognitive dissonance, in particular sour grapes, is influencing my daily decisions even those of writing this blog. I don't know for how long I will be haunted by the comfort zones that I have learned to build so effectively wherever I settle yet misprize for the sense of adventure and vigor that they slowly suck off my mortal life. I don't know whether I should be eternally grateful for what I have become or more grateful for all the things I have not become. No one is meer than me but am I who I want to be? 

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Alas

Alas, I have cloyed you too!


Indeed, but I had no other choice as I have been cloyed myself until serendipity guided me towards you, a needle in a haystack. .

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

extra-extroverted

A man walks into a train scanning all the faces therin as if looking for someone but he does that everytime he takes a  train. I realise I am this man and I am looking for nothing more than inspiration.

There are days when I wake up jumping out of bed, experiencing an exquisite joy of being myself. By the time I have my morning shots of "ristretto", I am skipping steps as I climb or descend stairs, dancing as I wait for the train, greeting and conversing with strangers, that are ultra-vulnerable to the human connection as we individually share public space and time ...

Moral of the story: Try greeting strangers more often, even with just a smile.


Tuesday, February 26, 2013

On carpe diem and deferred happiness



Dad was a very ambitious artist and theater director until he married mom. Mom was a very ambitious student but had to quit school after she married dad. I seem to have inherited all of their ambitions that channel through arts and science but hardly find enough time or space in my life.

"The misfortune of my life is perhaps that I am interested in far too many things and not decidedly in some one thing; my interests are not all subordinated to one thing but are all co-ordinated." -Soren Kierkegaard


To gild the lily or add insult to injury (yet to be revealed), I have authored my own ambitious to do list that grows inexorably at astounding rates. You might refer to it as a carpe diem syndrome with bipolar outbreaks around birthday and new year memento-mori deadlines. Contrastly, with my longing for a eutopic stability that can be diagnosed with deferred happiness syndrome, I am nuked in a catch-22 situation that I have always characterized by the dilemma of "depth or breadth search" i.e. "master or jack of all trades"... I am left to choose between spreading myself too thin, or stuffing myself too thick.


So, should I elaborate further or move to a different topic et serait-il en espanol o in un altra idioma #%$?%??





R E B O O T