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.

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!

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.

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.
 

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.

On friendship and kinship

If the envading markets of iPhone, Blackberry and iPad have not consumed you already, prepare yourself for the release of a new consumer, the social phone, Kin . If you are thinking, WOW, I must get one, then you are being consumed as we speak, first your time and eventually your money. Once you own a kin, you will feel obligated it to use it for the amount of money spent (arguably wasted). The new microsoft "social" product runs the slogan: "Are we really friends with our 'friends'?". Obviously not! Because we are so sucked into these virtual social networks that reduce our human emotions and interaction to bits and bytes, pokes and the likes... How would you like to remotely create virtual children through future gadgets and conclude your life with a GAME OVER? I say it's already GAME OVER whether you kow it or not!

Would you like to have a life?
[1] Yes (Free of charge)
[2] No (Cost of new gadget, the amount worth living)

Enter amount : $ _

To work or not to work, what is the question?

Out of all working definitions of "work", the following is my favorite: To work is to exert oneself by doing mental or physical effort for a purpose or out of necessity.

Never in my whole life did I apply for a job or experience the anxiety of job hunting, except vicariously. Alma mater has nourished me and sheltered me my whole life. However, time has come for huge decisions dictated by self-fulfilling purposefulness and stable economic necessity.

Reasons behind my quasi-eternal PhD phase can be attributed to my fear of pointless graduation and post-graduation, that will expose me to a whole new plethora of job opportunities, impartially related to my PhD investment.

From an economically driven perspective, the following chart illustrates the average salaries (USD) for job positions that appeal to my interest or qualifications. 

Average Salary of Jobs with Titles Matching Your Search

In USD		25k 50k 75k
associate/full professor	$69,000
researcher	$62,000
freelance photographer	$40,000
novelist	$48,000
freelance artist	$46,000
postdoc	$41,000
assistant professor	$49,000
adjunct professor	$49,000
translator	$50,000

Of course, the academic track following PhD usually debuts with a post-doc (~$40,000/year) and then trifurcates (splits) into three tracks: Adjunct, Researcher and Tenure. Adjunct or visiting professors are more easily hired on a short term contract. Researchers are dedicated to full-time research while professors, very competitively, climb up the tenure ladder, at best tri-annually, from assistant professor (~$50,000/year) to associate professor (~$60,000/year) to full professor (~$80,000/year).

NB. The minimum wage in the US is $13,920 for full-time employers under a $7.25/hr. Dishwashing salaries start at $8/hr.

I decided to look at job postings for the selection of jobs that I would be interested in pursuing or find myself qualified for.

While freelancers are commitment-free gypsies, flexible to accommodate almost any creative activity, they are not offered social benefits. I still ask myself, how can I ever self-sustain myself when I despise prolonged sustainability? The paradox of commitment to indifference holds no answers for my future so far.

I will end this with some work related quotes (in French):

"Travailler dur n'a jamais tue personne, mais pourquoi prendre le risque?" (Edgar Bergen)
"Le travail est pour moi la chose la plus sacrée !!...... c'est pour ca que j'y touche pas !!!"
"La liberté commence dés qu'on a deux chefs."
"L'homme n'est pas fait pour travailler, la preuve c'est que cela le fatigue" (Voltaire)
"Le travail est l'opium du peuple et je ne veux pas mourir drogué" (Boris Vian)
"Le 1er mai, c'est la Fête du Travail. Mais pourquoi a-t-on congé alors ce jour-la ?" (Proverbe communiste)
"Si tu as envie de travailler, assieds-toi et attends que ca passe" (Proverbe Corse)

Finally, man can shit decently

On April 2nd, 2010, toilet paper was depleted in our apartment thus limiting my excretory trips to foreign public services, since I could hardly imagine the terrible consequences otherwise. Today, I bought a 4 pack of toilet paper giving the excretory opening at the end of my alimentary canal more freedom to deuce unconditionally. Finally, man can crap decently.

Speaking of which,

did you know that Daoism is a religion of the Han people of China that practiced eating excrements, sacrilegiously?

did you know that there is a shit fetish; I dare you to google it. Warning: not for the faint hearted.

An arguably optimistic citation from latin reads: "semper in excretum sum sed alta variat" and translates to "always in the shit, but the depth varies".

Synonyms and related words:
BM, crap, defecation, discharge, dung, excrement, excretion, fecal matter, feces, feculence, flux, go to the bathroom, manure, number two, shit, stool, waste, buffalo chips, bugger, ca-ca, coprolite, coprolith, cow chips, cow flops, cow pats, creep, cur, defecation, dingleberry, droppings,  feces, feculence, guano, manure, movement, night soil, sewage, sewerage, shit, stool, turd

How many words are synonymous to book? Which is more useful? One can argue that the term book is not offensively useful in a savage world described by Hobbes' Leviathan.

Joke: The blond, for lack of enemies, immediately stops eating his shit sandwich all disgusted upon encountering a strand of hair therein.


Do you ever feel like your head is going to blow up, while taking a crap, but just before this happens a glorious assistance from the bottom releases the pressure and during this fraction of a second you experience the most amazing frisson (tingly sensation)? I tend to cite freudian thanathos (death wish) when it comes to defecation mainly due to the fact that one is suffering and willingly loosing it in a couple of senses. I find it entertaining to question when does the apple you eat stop becoming an apple and start becoming you. Similarly, one can wonder when does his excrement cessate from being him to form an independent identity on its own or thanks to the excreter in charge. You might have heard of the nutrition book, "you are what you eat" but have you come across "you are what you shit"?

Apologies to my readers who were shocked by this post; it was meant to break the formal tone of the blog and spice it with some humor.

On Materialism

I come from a financially fairly relaxed family to struggle my way financially towards a fairly relaxed family.

I think of myself as highly creative yet I can hardly imagine materialism as anything other than a masquerade with consumerism being a superstore of masks priced according to how impressive these masks are. Events and occasions are simply places were people like ourselves meet. Many of these people are new to these places and sometimes to the other people sharing the space.  Strangers are examples of people we do not know. Classmates, colleagues, roomates, partners, family and friends example people that we know but only to a certain extent that varies with places and other people sharing them.

In general, people are much more familiar with the superstore mask than with each other. In unfamiliar places or with others barely recognizable by names or faces to have them as friends on facebook or myspace, people are compelled to purchase the best possibly affordable mask and not one that is adequately representable. That is mainly because most people are more ignorant about the others (also with respect to spaces) than they are aware of and confident in themselves.

What most people do not realize is that by putting on an a disguising mask (neither pun nor redundancy intended) around these unfamiliar spaces and people, they are missing the whole point of spaces and meeting and knowing people.  They are better off staying in spaces they are most familiar (home) with people they are most acquainted with (family). Otherwise, they are fooling other people by misrepresentation and themselves by erroneous feedback from others contaminated by their misrepresentation. Hence, one can conclude that interaction and communication are unreliable when either of the people involved are misrepresented.

We are often tempted to wear these heavily impressive masks decorated with precious stones and colors, unaware of others' greed and envy. We give our best shot for the first impression, and let the fooled desire us for what we are not, and fool us in return. We think we have conquered, in a game we call the chase, while we are being conquered by self-deception and vanity. Yes, vanity is what I define as the money and effort spent on a fake mask in vain to impress friends we do not have. We feed off vanity and feed it to others in a world of others we (think we) know enough to interact with, but not enough to (dare to) know better. We are ready to steal or even kill to push "affordability" to "feasibility", reducing "morality" to a reminiscence of a term we once feared in the past. What has become of us but monsters fighting for the most deceptively impressive mask that only feeds our vanity making us more monstrous ad infinitum.

My fellow sufferers, I comiserate with you when turned down by your (prospective) soulmate. I condole you when death takes your lovers and I hear you when heart broken by your (future) wife/husband and mother/father of your children. It is tempting to think that your mask was not good enough but what do we know? It is easy to judge and blame it on others but how so if we barely know ourselves?

Know thyselves, before knowing others. Wear no mask and fear no other. Eventually, you will end up going to unimaginable places with natural and earnest people like yourself, there for the same reason. Interact sincerely! A new world with no lies will unfold many truths about yourself and others. You will loose interest in all material world and materialists which will be around but can be avoided (or helped out in hopeful cases).  It might be hard to follow this path in places corrupt with brain- and identity-washing brand names, deceptive commercials, and societal fads, trends and craze, but it is never impossible.

Parents lavishly pampering their kids with all goods they can afford should think of how hard it will be for their kids to grow into affording these goods independently some day and how harshly life will contrast against their will. Grown up victims of such indulgences should practice resistance and learn to appreciate everything by earning it in real-world-like scenarios. Nouveau-riches should practice patience and modesty or give their money away if they cannot otherwise.

The next time you consider buying a new car because your older one doesn't look as good or a new phone because your friends have newer phones, ask yourself, why on earth should you listen to someone who would judge you by your car or phone? How could such a person be your friend? Thinking that you are doing it for yourself and not for your friends is a self-deception unless the upgrade is very necessary. Even if you were capable of affording the fastest car and slickest phone, you should avoid being judged by mere appearance and invest your money elsewhere (education, traveling, helping others...). That way, you can learn about your virtues and vices through others' sincere feedback and improve yourself to eventually find the right friends and Mr./Mrs. right that match your qualities. Material comes and goes while your only onle life is going...

"Do what you want and say what you feel because those that mind, don't matter and those that matter, don't mind!" -- Dr. Seuss

Inspirational Message to the World

Have you ever considered, out of all odds, your chances of existing?

Biologically speaking, your chance of "being" is much less than one in a million. Roughly, 20 million sperms are ejaculated such that only one sperm, you a priori, unconsciously, would fertilize an egg and grow into your current being with whatever genetic code that victorious sperm has to unfold unto and into you.
Of course, that is assuming that your parents and their parents, etc, already existed. Otherwise, each generation would multiply the previous generations with the father's sperm fertilization chances 1/20 million, with the joint probability of the father having met the mother, 1/6 billion x 1/6 billion, which roughly amounts to 1/10^16 less per generation -- i.e 0.00000000000000001 less per generation.

Your existential probability will approach zero at an astounding rate that you won't even make it back to your first ancestor. Your existence after a few generations is less probable than your winning the lottery and being struck by a lightening on the same day assuming that you were alive that day. What does that zero probability mean? Do you really exist? Are you miraculously here or just an outcome of a random generation? Is that just your perspective or that of the other 6 billions -- or more. The answer might be as epistemistic as zeno's paradox.
Nonetheless, 9 months before you were given birth, "you", however unconsciously, were the fastest and strongest amongst millions of competitors in the toughest of endeavors. Even more retrospectively, "you" (a priori a priori) were a sparkle in your father's eyes, with the potential of manifesting into your current self, if not a genetic mutant of you. Your current existence is not to be taken for granted, neither it should be a sufficient reminder of a lifetime victory. Do not compare your self to others for there will always be better and worse and what are the others other than equally probable beings. You could be thinking about how lucky (or unlucky) you are to be here but you should be thinking about your about how meaningful life is and you MUST cherish every moment of it with all you have and all you can give. "One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure its worth watching".
If that is not convincing enough, the following testimonies and speeches MUST make the difference:

Randy Pauch's "Last Lecture" summarizing his life after it was claimed by cancer. Al Pacino's "Inspirational Speech" to the football team he coached. Rocky Balboa's inspirational speech to his son. The exceptional counter-intuitive inspirational report from SSCBS. Roberto Benigni's inspirational guidelines to poetry, if not his movie "life is beautiful". Paul's and Susan's motivational and goosebump-jerking clips. Max Ehrmann's elucidating poem. Baz Luhrman's sunscreen advice. Antonello Venditti's song. And finally Badgett's positive testimony.

"Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy — the joy of being SalvadorDalí – and I ask myself in rapture, What wonderful things is this Salvador Dali going to accomplish today" -- Salvador Dali