Why I did a Cherry Ice Cream?

Today, I did a cherry ice cream to kill time, because the person in charge of my application for a work visa was absent,  because she saw pictures of her friends on Facebook enjoying their vacation and that made her ill, because she kept postponing her vacation for lack of ideas or desire, because fear taught her not to desire, because of negative consequences and social constructs, because when she was young she was bullied, because she was fat, because she binge ate cherry ice cream. 

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

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?