-gamy

My windowless room in Lisbon is irrelevant to the topic of this communication and would require a fully dedicated study of its own perhaps with a psychological analysis of previous survivors.  In fact, that could be an introduction to a series of posts about this mystical house that I have unawarely visited a month ago when my colleague inhabited it but all that I will spare for another procrastination. Instead, I will discuss a more existential situation that is induced from this very house of mainly windowless rooms and unexpected visits -- I will discuss marriage!

Last week, I find myself sharing this house with two married couples. Suddenly, my unbearable lightness of being (in a windowless room, to add insult to injury) is united and aggravated by four additional unbearable lightnesses of being, particularly in the form of unbearably being together or coexisting.

Slamming doors, screaming spouses and sobbing wives is nothing compared to the psychological feeling of guilt  induced either by being single and not sharing the agony that these couples are going through, or by being around and thinking I might be suppressing their natural instinct and behavior that could have easily gone to the extent of homicide without me.    
   
In other words, I am somehow unconsciously and involuntarily transported from agamy to bigamy and sometimes tetragamy (polygamy) skipping through monogamy, and the possible benefits of getting a passport out of all this mess, Gamoto!

El Viaje Del Elefante

I went to a FNAC bookstore in Lisbon to buy myself a book, or a train/plane companion, as I like to call it. I suddenly remembered how much I wanted to read Saramgo in his native language when I could only find him in French, a couple of weeks ago at a bookstore in Lebanon. My excitement was soon to vanish from my face and melt into a disappointment as the price tag became legible ---19 EUR? And I thought 17 USD was a ripoff for the French translation but I must have known too little about ripoff. Anyway, the book seemed pretty bulky and heavy for the amount of literature it contained, especially, when to my surprise a much lighter alternative edition of the same book came to compete for my decision making and anxiety. The alternative edition offered the same story for only 9 EUR, but in Spanish! Suddenly, I thought of how much I need to improve my Spanish dismissing the whole point of wanting to read Saramago in Poruguese. I could hardly justify my economically biased turn of events that gave Saramago -- may his soul rest in peace -- the unanticipated role of a Spanish teacher simply because learning Spanish happens to be cheaper these days or at FNAC. Or was I subconsciously thinking of reading Saramago and learning Spanish at the same time?

La Cuccagna

I have been trying to post this for a while but the catatonic stagnation I suffer from was extremely overwhelming. Perhaps the DSM conceals a syndrome synonymous to such a level of laziness describing my current mental, emotional and physical states. But alas, the effort I might need to invest in  unveiling such a terminology might be fatal, needless to mention how vain and insane can a diagnosis of this nature be.

It was never clear to me why my home sweet home was ironically sour (no pun intended) for lack of better word or judgment. I must  have at home everything I could ask for from gastronomy to astronomy. I might not even need to dream, imagine or think for all is taken care of by the loving family. It took me many meditative hours to realize how such love can paralyze a restless soul, and make any excursion from one's oasis unbearable, until depletion. I finally understand how paradoxically devouring is the land of plenty and any attempt to escape it after a certain time results in more agony ad nauseam.  Ode to Pirandello's ephemeral beauty that is beautiful as it lasts and ode to the ignorance of my innocent childhood that is now irreversible and tomorrow more so.

La cuccagna (cockaigne) is a mythical place where people are paid to sleep and punished for working. I recommend Luigi Tenco's only cinematic appearance in "La Cuccagna" for an intimation about my nation.

On Tourism

The ill-defined term of "tourism" has often perplexed many tourists and people living abroad. More ambiguous was the question of when a tourist stops becoming a tourist in the country he inhabits.

Etymologically, for most latin languages, a tourist is one who tours or travels around. Some dictionaries nonchalantly spice the definition with being away from home and most controversially, traveling for pleasure.

In greek, an alternative synonym to tourist (τουρίστας) is περιηγητής which means sightseer, which I find interestingly tautological when I think of a sightseer being one who sees things to be seen. Natural and historical/cultural landmarks are what we agreed upon as worth being seen. Does that make a seeker of beauty that is native to many countries less of a tourist? I wonder since I no longer seek beauty specific to landmarks unique to certain places when traveling.

In arabic سائح literally means wanderer or roamer. Doesn't that contradict the very definition of a tourist who's tour is often planned before he starts touring and guided by illustrated books and internet resources if not by tour guides? I personally prefer to vagabond when traveling, inviting adventure and surprise to my random walk. A while ago, I definitely used to plan my trips and follow the flow. Things change a lot.

In some languages, the variation of excursionist is still common. Etymologically, it derives from the latin ex cursum which means exiting the current/journey. I find this definition as the most accurate for a tourist's vocation especially one seeking a vacation to escape his daily routine. In some aspects, the current routine/journey could mean home, reinforcing the definition of tourists traveling away from home.

Surprisingly for many optimist tourists, not a single language mentions anything hedonistic in reference to touring or traveling. A significant number of these innocent touring optimists end up being robbed, ripped-off and humiliated when traveling, although you might argue that their intention was none of the above. It is not easy to generalize with masochists and masochist-ish adventurers around, but in most cases, one invests his capital on hedonistic escapades.

Cumulatively, we can agree that a tourist is one who escapes his routine to wander around sightseeing, whether he likes it or not.

From my substantially-diverse traveling experience, I have come to resolve the ambiguity between inhabiting and touring a place only after having experienced both for the same place. I have "lived" in Oeiras, Portugal three consecutive summers but I often felt like a tourist when in Lisbon regardless of my proficiency in Portuguese. I lived in a dorm by my research institute and went occasionally to Lisbon. My lifestyle converged very rapidly to a routine with the few social, food and entertainment options neighboring my dorm. Vicinity to work made it almost impossible by human nature to adopt a path besides the shortest one between home and work. I must have suffered from this laziness syndrome unconsciously.

This summer, I visited Portugal for one month with the intention of inhabiting the heart of Lisbon and so it was. It took me a couple of weeks to tour/sample most nearby and en route restaurants, coffee shops, and other services. Finally, I seemed to have found my favorite restaurants, coffee shop and meeting point thus putting an end to my tourism in Lisbon (extensively Portugal) and my excursions would necessitate my departure from Lisbon or to a certain extent, Portugal. Back when I lived in Oeiras, going to Lisbon almost always promised novelty and adventure but now only the virgin peripheral terrains of Portugal might appeal to my neofilia.

In other words, I felt like having finally lived in Portugal in contrast to visiting it, although the former required much less time than the latter. I have come to conclude that living in a place is not a function of time but rather  of options and services one has to experience and select from for his inevitable routine, especially when tailoring a certain schedule imposed by a regular job.

Another factor that disambiguates between touring and inhabiting a place is that of speaking the country's language and knowing its locals and their customs. All this helps one converge easier to a bearable routine that does not require a lot of random walk, mishaps, and learning through trial and error. For instance, I claim to have lived in Italy for less than two months in more than 15 different places, since I speak the language fluently, I "lived" there almost a decade  vicariously through friends and media, and I imagined very effortlessly a routine I could converge towards in most of the 15 places I have visited.

Trans-océanique

Crossing the ocean is suddenly not as fun as it used to be! Its mysterious nature and promise of the greener grass was what defined traveling. But alas, once the mysteries are unveiled and the neighboring grass has been harvested to a point of depletion, the best one can get from a transoceanic flight is some peace of mind for effective intro/retro/pro-spection and soul searching.

While Baudelaire and Pessoa struggle for the elsewhere, Berndard praises the intra-where:

Basically, like nine tenths of humanity, I always want to be somewhere else, in the place I have just fled from....he truth is that I am happy only when I am sitting in the car, between the place I have just left and the place I am driving to.  I am happy only when I am traveling; when I arrive, no matter where, I am suddenly the unhappiest person imaginable. 

Along these lines, one can argue that Schopenhauer and co. are in favor of the nowhere. This is how in our human nature we tend to relate to places, and what are friends and lovers but places we visit or inhabit... I believe that at some point in a man's life, his well-being becomes independent of his geographic location and vice versa. Nonetheless,  man shall never stop blaming it on his location, hoping that the elsewhere that he is ignorant of will unravel joy, perhaps eternally. That is the very bliss defining ignorance that we tend to loose as we grow older or abuse with alcohol and drugs. The modern man will eventually resort to these mind altering means and more severe and irreversible ones when he is finally convinced of "the unimportance of his location" which can translate to "the vanity of his existence" with a less materialistic tone. 

Bon Voyage!

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.