Don't Fear the Reaper

Every day I receive the about.com Classic Poem newsletter. The poem today was funny and got me thinking :)

The Clod and the Pebble
Poem lyrics of The Clod and the Pebble by William Blake

"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."

So sung a little clod of clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet;
But a pebble of the brook
Warbled out these meters meet:

"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."

Hey Eugene, stop worrying!

Flashes of light like the Pink Martini concert in Bucharest last Saturday make up for even the longest nights staying awake to work. The silence as the ensemble were performing classical music, molten with South American or Japanese music (“Taya Tan” was unbelievable!), all sounding so European, so continental, made me love the “Portland, Oregon” band even more. It was not only the music that thrilled me, but also the atmosphere – they were there to entertain, and we all could feel that. They sang with such passion and longing, that the music touched us all and made us feel warm inside.

My thought for the evening was that, if we all would be as passionate about what we do as Pink Martini about what they are singing, perhaps the world would really change starting with us.

PS: I saw Dr Strangelove yesterday. Must see for crazy people who like odd comedy movies.

Hey Eugene do you remember me?

Im that chick you danced with two times through the Roofers album Friday night at that party

(Pink Martini, Hey Eugene)

I really love my job ;)

A few days ago my boss reminded me he was reading my blog (and enjoying especially the song lyrics... :) pfblaaa). So should I be asking for raises and such online in future? :D

There's no rule that says you have to wake up. Fishism

Complicated things make life more complicated than it is, bring a lot of pain and headache. So I usually try to keep stuff as simple as possible - both in my professional and personal life. That is not to express avoidance about more complex situations - they can also be split down in more simple ones. Remember how you eat an elephant? By pieces.

This morning I was reminded of Ally, the famous emotionally wrecked lawyer of my highschool years:

Ally McBeal: I like being a mess. It's who I am.

Renée Radick: Emotionally, you're an idiot.

Georgia Thomas: Ally, what makes your problems so much bigger than everybody else's?
Ally McBeal: They're mine.

Ally McBeal: Maybe I'm happy and I just don't know it.

Ally McBeal: Maybe I'll share my life with somebody... maybe not. But the truth is, when I think back of my loneliest moments, there was usually somebody sitting there next to me.

Ally McBeal: There's no sin in loving men. Only pain!

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now
(Vonda Shepard, Vincent (Starry Starry Night))

Cet obscur objet du désir

You told me that you had seen too much of the world to see the world inside me. And yet, perhaps the worlds you hadn't found yet were filled with what you were searching for.

I have educated myself to behave - and to respect the wishes and covets of others in such a way as to keep them happy and safe. However, respecting the dreams of others to the extent of disregarding your own is something I would not recommend. It leads to a heartache that bites more into you than fulfilled wishes. It so comes that that we store past relations that did not work or brought us pain in secret little drawers in our hearts and minds. The random occurrence of memories then intensifies gradually a feeling of indifference we choose over pain or anything else, because it soothes us. Sometimes it is not indifference, it is hate, or violence, or revenge... but I am quite sure of the non-usefulness of such emotions. Besides consuming us, they only bring negativity, not comfort, which is what our souls are seeking...

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
(F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)

Let me in, I want to be your friend

I like writing this blog because there are some of you out there who enjoy reading it and also telling me about it. And also because it's fun :-)

During the day, there are so many things that happen. I sometimes wish I had a printer in my head, to print out all the thoughts that go on, the images that are born every second. As that is impossible right now, I just write some words about it – and it gives me that feeling of security you have when storing the cheese in the refrigerator: you know it won't rot :-)

Anyway, keep reading and I hope I will keep on writing... for as long as there is life, there will always be something to say about it.

Baby this town rips the bones from your back
Its a death trap, its a suicide rap
We gotta get out while were young
'cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
(Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run)

Everloving

Wishing what you wish for can dig holes in your soul, because people are not to blame for your emotional storms. Even if we always try to set the blame on others, it is still a matter of self consciousness how you treat those emotions, how you let them flow and how you direct them in order to keep others or yourself from pain. People cannot be held responsible for your reaction to their behaviour. It's all a game that is played in your mind.

There are times when the voices inside me beg for a scream, and all I have for you is smile and warmth.

Lord God Almighty let me tell the news
my head got wet in midnight dew
great God i been down on my bended knee
stalking to a man from galilee
michael spoke and he sound so sweet
i thought i heard the shuffle of angels' feet
He put one hand upon my head
great God Almighty let me tell you what He said
(Moby, Run On)

Vienna: Die Stadt gehort Dir

Writing about Vienna is like writing about my home, or about about a past life as a Viennese. There are few places where I have felt like home, and one of them is Vienna. I had the joy to visit the city again in the past weekend, together with a friend who had never been there before. Besides the pleasure of seeing some familiar places again (like the Stephansdom, Hundertwasserhaus and the Belvedere palace), there were some new ones we discovered and enjoyed.

Saturday morning was quite chilly, as we started strolling on the Mariahilfer street, well-known for being a shopping paradise. A short U-bahn ride brought us to the Naschmarkt – an antiquarians meeting place combined with a market selection of wines, soaps, meat types, vegetables and fruit from all over Europe and the world. Chinese, Turks, Greeks, Italians and many others mingled to form the most colorful blend of food and customs in the city. Later on, we had real schnitzel for lunch in what must be the temple of the best schnitzels in Vienna, called the Schnitzelwirt (Neubaugasse 52). Besides the immense portions, the service was irreproachable and the waiter grinned merrily at seeing us two sweat with the effort of devouring the meal… In the Griensteindl Café (a literary café close to the Kohlmarktgasse and the more famous Café Demel), I had the best cappuccino in a long time, to go with a chocolate-free slice of Malakoff cake. A night walk to the Danube brought us to the Hundertwasserhaus and then, to contrast it, to Vienna’s International Centre. The place was obviously built as a home to office and governmental buildings and I assume it looks like a termit house during daylight. When we arrived there at 9pm, it looked as empty as a deserted world after a Resident Evil raid. The evening ended in Pandora’s Box, a local pub with diverse music, enjoyable beer and funny Austrian guys; we entered because we heard The Doors inside and left when they hit the reggae disks.

Sunday was the cultural day – I satisfied my art appetite after two modern painting exhibitions – one taking pride in Monet and Picasso at the Albertina gallery, the second displaying Cezanne, Matisse, Toulouse-Lautrec, the Fauves and even Brancusi at the Lower Belvedere galleries.

The funny feeling on returning was that there was a life that waited for me to come back here. Unlike other times, when returning felt like going through a tunnel of glass paper to adapt to the old habits, I felt happy and relaxed. Now I know that Arcadia is close :-)

I'm coming home to you
I'm alive I'm a mess
I can't wait to get home to you
To get warm and undressed
There've been changes beyond my dreams;
Everybody wants me to sing
There've been changes beyond my grasp;
Things I'm sinking in

Nothing falls like London Rain
Nothing heals me like you do
(Heather Nova, London Rain)

Uber-non-problematique

Along what I have been wondering about in the past days (and, if you have been reading this blog for a while, you must know I have many curiosities :) ) is why we are passionate about different things. Why we wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning to see someone we love to the airport. Why we stay up late at work and find pleasure in a good solution to a database problem. Why it is so thrilling to listen to a Moby song you haven't heard in a while. The reason we gleam with enthusiasm when we start working on a new project – and why we enjoy it so much. Why we crave and cannot help telling all our friends about a new bar or restaurant, and eat there as if it were the honey of gods. Or why I can't wait to blog about something that has stirred my mind.

Where does all this joy and this passion come from? This is not to say that all of us feel it, not by far. It is yet the kind of feeling of wholeness that gives a lot of energy and push into the day. Some only talk about it – or even overdo it... but passion cannot be faked. At some point you still get exhausted and tired like a consumed candle. How is it then that you find your balance – and more, the energy and power to smile and bring not only yourself up, but also the people around you.

A possible answer is love. If you love – and have the warmth and generosity to share it – not a conditional act, but just give it away, freely, there is more return than you will manage to contain. Another answer is mental self discipline: being an inspiration or a desolation for yourself and for others is a matter of choice. In my favourite training I insist on Passion leading to Focus and then to Attitude. The inside fire burning transforms itself in self-fulfilment and to an attitude that then inspires others.

Hey hey I saved the world today

Everybodys happy now

The bad things gone away

And everybodys happy now

The good things here to stay

Please let it stay

(Eurythmics, I Saved the World Today)

The complicated me you cannot see

We do not like people who pull long faces. We like to be around others who seem to be healthy, nice, funny and a pleasure to be with. Because we cannot remember jokes, we like other people to tell jokes – or to say funny remarks and make us all feel good. Whenever somebody starts telling us about his / her troubles, we prefer to stay put and appear indifferent, although there are many things that we have experienced and we could be talking about, but we feel it is better not to say anything about it, in order not to upset the others.

Some days ago I felt quite under the weather and consequently was not exactly fun to be around, as I spat some fire and had a very gloomy look. A colleague with the unfortunate luck of being around me felt some undeserved sparks and got me out for a cup of tea. People do not have time to see beneath your surface on a bad day, he said. They will only absorb the joy of you, if you feel like beaming it on them, and will subtract the times you are in a bad mood. The result will be your desirability in their eyes. But then, I retorted, do we not run into the risk of never getting to know anybody as he or she really is? And he then looked at me smiling and said, that only matters for very few. For the rest of the world, the analysis of the other is not an option any more.

If he were a color
He'd be a deep dark forest green
If he were a car
He'd be a long stretch limousine
With room for all of humanity inside
Cause he is so giving
And he is so wise
If he were a number
He'd be a five cause he has such a brilliant mind
If were an animal
He's be an ass cause he's so stubborn sometimes
(India.Arie, Complicated Melody)

Didn't we almost have it all?

Tell me what you are yearning for. Is it life, is it your job, your family, friends... ? Is it your dog? Does it make you happy, to yearn for them? It should be, as these are all things you can have, that you can touch. You can be them every day. And yet, most of us do not crave what we already have - though it would be the most logical solution, wouldn't it? Yeah, sure, wanting what we cannot get has become such a cliché that writing about it has become tasteless. I was wondering, however, about what someone told me in a meaningless conversation today: that simply talking to me was his bliss. Nothing more was required. Although I did not reciprocate, I admired him for wanting what he had got – be it the nothing it seemed to me.

So I remembered countless times when moments containing essences seemed to elude me. Our mistake must be not that we do not see these moments – they are too many to be ignored – but that we choose to think it can become better and better. We yearn for what we cannot touch not because it would be better than what we have, but because it isn't there, and because we choose to occupy our thoughts with how it would be, instead of how it is. One other proof that we live sequentially and forget to absorb the beauty of life at the exact moment we have it.

Watch “Closer” for more details regarding want and lust... and loss.

Seeing the world through imperfect eyes

The underground station provides – besides the eternal stress of jumping in the hot and crowded train wagon before the others do – lots of opportunity to observe the people and to learn the discipline of waiting. While waiting, you can do lots of things. Starting with the thoughts on how the day will look like, on to impossible fantasies such as teleporting to work and a general strike against the underground union, you can picture everything. There are people who are so sick of waiting that they wander around and talk to themselves (hoping to be heard by others) about the inability of the government to regulate public transportation. Then there are some fancy looking and important seeming yuppies who mainly study their clothing in the mirror. Most of them have a very preoccupied and at the same time hollow look about them. There are women in their thirties who look so tired and unhappy that I always get horror images of the life they must be leading, lacking in beauty and excitement or so beautiful it can't stand up to the grey underground station.

The only thing that unites us in our total carelessness towards each other is that we all are tired of waiting – for the train, for the day to come, for the future to arrive. For some, the hope has not vanished and the hungry eyes still devour every new frame they discover, for others the film is repeating itself endlessly, and their perfection lies in being ideal paranoid androids...

So long, Jimmy, so long.
Though you only stayed a moment,
We all know that you're the one.
Singing,So long, Jimmy, so long.
Sure we're glad for the experience,
We miss you now you've gone.
We're just swimming in your soul 'cause,
We all wish we wrote this song.
Life goes on.
(James Blunt, So Long Jimmy)

Piece by Piece

I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken -- and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.
(Margaret Mitchell)

J'ai envie de vert

The colour green has never really appealed to me. It always reminded me of unpleasant things and I preferred not to have it around, or on clothes I wore. Yes I love nature, but the colour green in there is organic and you do not perceive it as being a colour. It is rather a state of mind when you are in the woods or near a lake, and so you do not react to it. It is yet different when you wear it – or when you see others wear it.

Imagine that, under these circumstances, I have started to fancy and to wear green in the past year. There are green clothes in my wardrobe and there are green jewels that I have got myself. Wherever I see green, my feeling is of bliss, and the nuances startle me. I wonder what has grown inside me to make me feel like this.

A quick googlesearch says that: “Green is the color of nature, fertility, life. Grass green is the most restful color. Green symbolizes self-respect and well being. Green is the color of balance. It also means learning, growth and harmony. Green is a safe color, if you don't know what color to use anywhere use green.
Green is favored by well balanced people. Green symbolizes the master healer and the life force. It often symbolizes money. It was believed green was healing for the eyes. Egyptians wore green eyeliner. Green eyeshades are still used. You should eat raw green foods for good health. Friday is the day of green. Green jade is a sacred stone of Asia.”
So I guess it's good news.

PS: Last night I went to the Muse concert in Bucharest and it was awesome! I loved the music and the atmosphere, the show was flawless, Matt's voice one of the best I have ever heard in a live concert, perfectly matched with the music and so psychedelic. My veins were flowing Muse-blood when I left there.

Everything about you is how I wanna be

Your freedom comes naturally

Everything about you resonates happiness

Now I won't settle for less

Give me all the peace and joy in your mind

(Muse, Bliss)

The unnecessary effort

Happiness always catches us offhand. You turn away for a second, and there it is, beaming back at you with green eyes, neon flashlights or a palm tree hanging over a sea of blue. Being so dazzled, you forget it really is happiness and in the best of cases walk on by, photograph it and then forget it in some old picture chest, from where you only dust it of from time to time and get reminded of it as if it were an old heart ache you never managed to cure. Then you move on and look for it wherever you go - and fail to see it again and again, because it keeps hiding from you, afraid you again will not recognize it.

Sometimes you realise that this really is happiness, just stretch your hand and catch it. You then feel as if you have reached a star, you gleam all over and wish that it may never go away, because you have suddenly grown wings, and the light inside you beams -- and you yourself become happiness.

You, soft and only

You,lost and lonely

You, strange as angels

Dancing in the deepest oceans

Twisting in the water

You're just like a dream

(Katie Melua, Just Like Heaven)