Evelyn: Don't worry about 'why' when 'what' is right in front of you. (The Shape of Things)

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Driving... home

I drive to school. Everyday, almost. And I listen to music and sing along. I speed, usually. And... think... but today I had a flashback.

I remembered when I was really little, and our family would be back home from whatever we went to see (countryside, sea, mountains)... and I remembered that road home, the curves and sights and I liked to look out the window of the car and see... what? What was there to see?
Not much. But that was everything. They all looked so familiar "We're almost home!" I and my brother said, we were... close enough. It was that strange sense of warmth and... and... places... full of memories, thoughts, little things that only kids notice. Things like some strange plants hanging outside a balcony, or the way a street curves left and then right like a snake, or the library with red lights on one corner... or some traffic light that always had a weird green color. Aw, man!
We had a really old car. But it had a name :)... Bianca. Yeah, that was it. And whenever dad put gas in, it'd smell really bad inside, and my brother and I hated that smell. We always wanted to stop on a long journey and breathe some fresh air. All that stupid gas made us dizzy. Yeah.

The way home... who would've thought that my short 15 minute ride home today would bring back those memories. Different country, place, no highway mostly... Oh, gosh. Does it mean I feel at home here, now? Does it just mean that I miss home?
Anyhow, I'm now definitely nostalgic about it...

Ah, childhood memories...

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Badiou on the Immortal singularity of man

Badiou speaks about why man is more than just an animal...

An immortal: this is what the worst situations that can be inflicted upon Man show him to be, in so far as he distinguishes himself within the varied and rapacious flux of life. In order to think any aspect of Man, we must begin from this principle. So, if 'rights of man' exist, they are surely not rights of life against death, or rights of survival against misery. They are the rights of the Immortal, affirmed in their own right, or the rights of the Infinite, exercised over the contingency of suffering and death. The fact that in the end we all die, that only dust remains, in no way alters Man's identity as immortal at the instant in which he affirms himself as someone who runs counter to the temptation of wanting-to-be-an-animal to which circumstances may expose him. And we know that every human being is capable of being this immortal - unpredictably, be it in circumstances great or small, for truths important or secondary. In each case, subjectivation is immortal, and makes Man. Beyond this there is only a biological species, a 'biped without feathers', whose charms are not obvious.

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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

amintiri paralele

--ea-- (12:35:27 PM): ce frumoasa si ce blanda ar fi viata daca am avea doar amintiri placute....
--ea-- (12:35:53 PM): amintiri care sa ne readuca zambetul pe fata cand suntem tristi...

--ea-- (12:35:58 PM): :)
--el-- (12:36:14 PM): ar fi un vis frumos dupa altul...
--el-- (12:36:15 PM): :)
--ea-- (12:36:26 PM): da....
--ea-- (12:36:35 PM): pacat ca intervine si realitatea...
--el-- (12:36:58 PM): poate n-ar mai fi asa de frumos visul daca ar fi numai el
--el-- (12:37:07 PM): poate ca dualitatea face ca totul sa aiba rost
--ea-- (12:37:12 PM): eu stiu...
--el-- (12:37:18 PM): :-< desi chestia cu sensul ma cam enerveaza
--ea-- (12:37:22 PM): eu tot ma gandesc ca insasi viata e un vis...
--ea-- (12:37:41 PM): sau cosmar, mai bne spus....
--ea-- (12:37:45 PM): pt unii...
--ea-- (12:37:46 PM): :D
--el-- (12:37:49 PM): :D
--el-- (12:38:06 PM): un vis intrerupt de noptile in care-l parasesti pentru realitati...
--ea-- (12:38:20 PM): :)
--ea-- (12:38:29 PM): realitati pralele cu aceasta
--ea-- (12:38:30 PM): :P
--el-- (12:38:45 PM): :)
--el-- (12:38:52 PM): poate sunt
--ea-- (12:39:05 PM): hmm....
--ea-- (12:39:10 PM): greu de crezut....
--ea-- (12:39:32 PM): eu nici in realitatea cotidiana nu prea cred...
--el-- (12:39:33 PM): pana la urma realitatea pare aia de care nu poti sa scapi pana mori
--el-- (12:39:34 PM): :D
--ea-- (12:39:40 PM): :))
--ea-- (12:39:51 PM): posibil....
--el-- (12:40:17 PM): :)
--el-- (12:40:18 PM): :))
--ea-- (12:40:30 PM): ;)

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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

it's been so long, and yet he said stay far away

Song from the past
I'm a bitch I'm a lover
I'm a child I'm a mother
I'm a sinner I'm a saint
I do not feel ashamed
I'm your hell I'm your dream
I'm nothing in between
you know you wouldn't want it any other way

He sent it and then wanted to take a shower. Turning on the water, he could almost remember every time he cried his heart out in here. Last year. So many times. So many stupid fucking times.
But no, it wasn't going to be the last time. It's never going to end. And, surely, he didn't want it to. He just wanted to cry. Again. Probably the longest crying shower he ever took, so far...
He's still crying.
Why?

Because it's been so long.

Since what?

Since anything... and, even worse, since everything. All he wants to do is cry. Cry and let it out. And forget... It's no big deal, nothing's a big deal... it's just a few minutes of his life. It's no tragedy...

Sometimes, he wishes he could go back in time. Other times he wishes to go forward. When was the last time he wanted to just stay? DUring a test, maybe, and not even then for too long...

What's with the song?
A long, long time ago (sounds like Madonna's beginning American song)
...
she was there. He wasn't. She used to listen to this song. Well, no, actually, she just quoted it on her status, one day. But he read it. He cried so much over these lyrics. He was jealous. He was lost. He thought she'd been gone for someone else. He couldn't have been more wrong.

Why are you crying, then? our narrator asks.
Too many.

Too many reasons to even say.


Maybe because I should've cried 3 months ago, when I lost something that might not ever be back.
Maybe because I should've talked to him. To her. Maybe because I shouldn've fought more. Because I should've stepped off of that subway and not go to that stupid party on Tuesday, and stay with her. Maybe because I've been a horrible person for so long, that now I have to cry for all the past months' worth. Maybe because I just plainly don't know any other way out of this...

And that song's with him every step of the way. He wants to run away. He wants to stay. He wants to do things right, this time around. He just wishes, for once, things could be simpler. He wants strength, motive, the power to move on... but he wants to learn, he wants to take it all in and deal with it. He doesn't want the easy way out. He never did.
Most of all, he wants her. And he wants it right.

He wants it all. And maybe, just maybe that's not possible anymore. Maybe he doesn't deserve it all, maybe he never did.

I'm sorry, world! He says.
I'm sorry I let you down.
I'm sorry I let myself down.
And if you're reading this although I warned you not to, I'm sorry I ever hurt you.

He thinks too much. Wants too much. Does too much. When does he ever relax?
Why doesn't he just relax?

Cause life isn't the way he wants it. And, for the past year, it has rarely been. Could it ever be again? Should he even hope?

Well, why doesn't he just take it as it comes, just leave all thought out of this, and make it easy for himself, and for others. Just deal with everything as it comes along and stop looking at the big, sad, fucking picture for so long. Carpe diem, small steps, little by little and he'll know which way to go, right?
Why don't we all do that?

Because, sometimes, all he wants to do is cry. Cry, cry, cry...

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Socrates' Apology

Quotes from the Apology. I always choose what means most to me... hope you like them.


You remember Chaerephon's character - how impulsive he was in carrying through whatever he took in hand. Once he went to Delphi and ventured to put this question to the oracle - I entreat you again, my friends, not to interrupt me with your shouts - he asked if there was anyone who was wiser than I. The priestess answered that there was no one. Chaerephon himself is dead, but his brother here will witness to what I say.
Now see why I tell you this. I am going to explain to you how the prejudice against me has arisen. When I heard of the oracle I began to reflect: What can the god mean by this riddle? I know very well that I am not wise, even in the smallest degree. [...]
I went to a man who was reputed to be wise, thinking that there, if anywhere, I should prove the answer wrong, and meaning to point out to the oracle its mistake, and to say, "You said that I was the wisest of men, but this man is wiser than I am." So I examined the man, but this was the result, Athenians. When I conversed with him I came to see that, though a great many persons, and most of all himself thought that he was wise, yet he was not wise. Then I tried to prove to him that he was not wise, though he fancied that he was. By so doing I made him indignant {like a gadfly, how my phil teacher called him :D}, and many of the bystanders. So when I went away, I thought to myself, "I am wiser than this man: neither of us knows anything that is really worth knowing, but he thinks that he has knowledge when he has not, while I, having no knowledge, do not think that I have. I seem, at any rate, to be a little wiser than he is on this point: I do not think that I know what I do not know."
[...]
From this examination, Athenians, has arisen much fierce and bitter indignation, and as a result a great many prejudices about me. People say that I am "a wise man." For the bystanders always think that I am wise myself in any matter wherein I refute another. But, gentlemen, I believe that the god is really wise, and that by this oracle he meant that human wisdom is worth little or nothing. I do not think that he meant that Socrates was wise. He only made use of my name, and took me as an example, as though he would say to men, "He, among you, is the wisest who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is really worth nothing at all."


When the generals whom you chose to command me, Athenians, assigned me my station during the battles of Potidaea, Amphipolis, and Delium, I remained where they stationed me and ran the risk of death, like other men. It would e very strange conduct on my part if I were to desert my station now from fear of death or of any other thing when the god has commanded me - as I am persuaded that he has done - to spend my life in searching for wisdom, and in examining myself and others. [...] For to fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to a man. But men fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?"


Even if you acquit me now, and do not listen to Anytus' argument that, if I am to be acquitted, I ought never to have been brought to trial at all, and that, as it is, you are bound to put me to death because, as he said, if I escape, all your sons will be utterly corrupted by practicing what Socrates teaches. If you were therefore to say to me, "Socrates, this time we will not listen to Anytus. We will let you go, but on the condition that you give up this investigation of yours, and philosophy. If you are found following these pursuits again, you shall die." I say, if you offered to let me go, on these terms, I should reply: "Athenians, I hold you in the highest regard and affection, but I will be persuaded by the god rather than you. As long as I have breath and strength I will not give up philosophy and exhorting you and declaring the truth to every one of you whom I meet, saying, as I am accustomed."

He is condemned to death.

I have been convicted because I was wanting, not in arguments, but in impudence and shamelessness - because I would not plead before you as you would have liked to hear me plead, or appeal to you with weeping and wailing, or say and do many other things which I maintain are unworthy of me, but which you have been accustomed from other men."


Although some of Socrates' arguments are reductive, the famous wise man described by Plato is highly regarded as one of the most notable figures in philosophy (not to mention ancient philosophy). The Greek system of laws and judges was amazing :)

So, what do you think?:)

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Sunday, October 07, 2007

facing ancient philosophy


By explaining generation and destruction, if not all change, in terms of mixture and separation, Empedocles sought to reconcile Heraclitus's insistence on the reality of change with the Eleatic claim that generation and destruction are unthinkable. Going back to the Greeks' traditional belief in four elements, he found a place for Thales' water, Anaximenes' air, and Heraclitus's fire, and he added earth as the fourth. In addition to these four elements, which Aristotle would later call "material causes" Empedocles postulated two "efficient causes": strife (Heraclitus's great principle) and love. He envisaged four successive ages: an age of love or perfect mixture in the beginning; then gradual separation as strife enters; then complete separation as strife rules; finally, as love enters again, a gradual remixture.

How romantic... :X Four elements + two causes of everything, babe.

Anaxagoras taught that everything consists of an infinite number of particles or seeds, and that in all things there is a portion of everything. Hair could not come from what is not hair, nor flesh come from what is not flesh. The names we apply to things are determined by the preponderance of certain seeds in them - for example, hair seeds or flesh seeds. Like Empedocles, he added to such "material causes" an "efficient cause" to account for the motion and direction of things; however, unlike Empedocles' two, Anaxagoras added only one "efficient cause", which was mind, in Greek. The introduction of mind led Aristotle to hail Anaxagoras as the only sober man among the Pre-Socratics; yet Aristotle found fault with Anaxagoras for not making more use of this new principle to explain natural events.

Could Buddhism be a li'l related to this concept?

Atomism accepted Parmenides' idea that being must be one seamless whole but posited an infinite number of such "one's." According to Democritus, the world is made up of tiny "un-cutables" that move within the "void" (corresponding to Parmenides' non-being). These atoms combine in different patterns to form the material objects of the observable world. Democritus applied this understanding of reality to human beings as well. Both the soul and the body are made up of atoms. Perception occurs when atoms from objects outside the person strike the sense organs inside the person, which in turn strike the atoms of the soul further inside. Death, in turn, is simply the dissipation of the soul atoms when the body atoms no longer hold them together.
- about Democritus
And death is always so romantic, no matter how you put it... Did you ever think about that?

I think that...

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Saturday, October 06, 2007

Quizzing for (my) destiny...

(my) because maybe destiny is not anyone's. "What you're destined to do", sounds like such a cliche. Perhaps a better way to say it would be "what you feel you should do", so that we avoid all that destiny crap that's so arguable...

Quiz 1.
What career will suit your personality?

You would be very happy in a career that utilised your level-headedness, and allowed you to work mainly on your own. You want a career that allows you to be creative, without having to be involved with lots of people. Some careers that would be perfect for you are:

* Artist
* Historian
* Banker
* Novelist
* University Professor
* Photographer
* Vet
* Paralegal
* Graphic Designer
* Online Content Developer
* Webmaster
* Producer
* Managing Director
* Nutritionist
* Advertising
* Nursing

You like working and being alone. You like to avoid attention at all costs. You tend to keep to yourself, and not interact much with the people around you. You enjoy spending time with a few a close friends. You like to listen to others, but don't like sharing much about yourself. You are very quiet and private.

You are very practical, and only act after thinking things through. You don't like being forced to answer quickly. You have to evaluate the situation completely. You make decisions based on what you can verify with your senses.

You like to be deeply involved in one or two special projects. You like to be behind the scenes. You are very logical and fair. You feel you should be honest with others and protect their feelings.

You trust your gut instincts. You are easily inspired and trust that inspiration. You are very innovative. You analyse things by looking at the big picture. You are concerned about how what you do affects others. You worry about your actions and the future. You tend to use a lot of metaphors and are very descriptive and colourful in your choice of language.

You are very creative, and get bored easily if you don't get to express yourself. You like to learn new things. You don�t like the same old routine. You like to leave your options open.

So... erm... I disagree with working all alone and avoiding all attention. I do like to share things mostly with a select group of friends, but I don't like being alone. Working alone, perhaps... I'm quiet and private but only when I'm not in love or really excited about something (which is more often than likely) and I'm optimistic. I don't see a lonely person as being optimistic. But I love some of those predictions!!!

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joke

Conversation between two students:

- Hey, man, how do drugs feel like?
- I don't know :(, I don't live on campus...

This related to the fact that campus people tend to, kind of, erm, well... let them tell you what life's like on campus :)

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