Windshield

A Distinction of Otherness: Relational vs Confrontational

2011-12-29T03:14:00.001-05:00

in a film discussion on Goddard we talked about 'the other' and how it shapes us, and we shape it...I left a bit early but I couldn't help thinking how there's another notion of the other that is not so 'opposed' to us confrontationally (like the other in Hegel, or Heidegger) as the notion of the other we discussed. Let's think about the other, like a 'neighbor,' a member of your community, a colleague..., this concept of other as 'neighbor' exists too (like the one in St.Paul or Levinas.) Like the confrontational one, this concept of other too defines you and you define it probably even more so than the former notion of other that sits in opposition to you.

but then who is our neighbor today? Is it our occasional friends? is it people in our e-community? if I were religious would I have to check 40-facebook walls to the 'right' and 40 facebook walls to the left to make sure no neighbor is hungry? as the Islamic hadith says about my neighbor...!! (i hope the anti-religiously prejudiced folks out there don't take knowledge of religion as necessarily conditioned by religion bias...cuz it's dam annoying)

Now one may confuse this latter 'other' with the former if they see it through atheist lens that only asks "Does it contain any science ? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but religion. Through this lens the former notion of 'other' is a mere subset of the confrontational 'other' and not a deviation from it. If one looks beyond this lens, making the distinction between what is can be perceived as moral and what can be perceived as religious, one can see how the relational notion of 'other' allows for an definition of self in regard to the other that is more accepting and more tolerant towards the existence of other. In the relationship of self with the relational 'other', the self does see it necessary need to put itself in confrontation of the other to define itself...here understanding the other through self-definition becomes a responsibility of the self instead of a deterministic incident that just happens to the self.

In the oppositional 'other' as is defined in war or gaze of the 'other', it is the other who is forcing you to define yourself. Whether you act on your own will to change yourself in opposition to the other or 'the other' coerces you to change in opposite to itself, the self does neither initatiate nor encourage the relationship between your agency (i don't wanna use the word consciousness) with 'the other' . In this oppositional relationship 'the other' encourages biases and actually encourages it...the 'gaze' for example penetrates through the soul as if it's naked and defines the self as Sartre writes like an eye looking at you from a keyhole.

In the more 'relational' other that I think there's more tolerence...That notion allows for' interpretations of the concept the other that act like a neighbor. This neighbor to whom you're responsible to show open-ness in order to gain understanding. You're ultimately responsible to remain open towards the other in order to understand it, instead of 'the other' defining you. In this case the agency is not encouraged to create a bias...it's encouraged to act to remain open and keep open till an understanding dawns on it.

now one may argue that the relational notion of the other is too romantic, too idealistic and the confrontational' notion of it is more realistic...and one may well be right, after all who am I to argue against how sartre demonizes 'the other' in his definition of love, creating such a perfect power relation between lovers. The confrontational other may well be the more realistic one!...but allow me to argue back!...he who views other in enmity and in opposition is the impractical one for what is the vulgar life without ideals that facilitate learning...the thinker who describes the the relation of the other (in love for example) in friend-enemy discourse depends for his/her definition on the ideal relationships that actually exist prior to self-reflection of the thinker on the relationship...so guess who's the unrealistic one here lol. This could party explain all the paradoxes that Sartre defines life with...the paradoxes in notion love, in thing one is and thing one wants to be and many more paradoxes that seem to drive our life.

Collection of Prof. Jahanbegloo's Lecture on Iranian Green Movement

2011-03-05T17:22:00.004-05:00

Story of Their Lives

2011-02-10T22:52:00.001-05:00

They were all in a room. One of them said let's go live even more. One of them said I will go home. Another one said, it's too late I have to go home...Most did go home. A few went on to live more. The walked out and walked far, they got to a playground. There was a slide. It wasn't a normal slide. There was very long ramp that could get them to the top of the slide. One of them said, there is a ramp. The other said, it's not steep, and he quickly start climbing up. Another one commented: what's the point, you go up and you just come down from the other side. We may as well stay here. Finally, some decided to just sit by and lay back anyways, after all it was just a slide. The rest started climbing after. The commentator climbed too with a sigh. When the first climber got to the top he yelled back: come on, it's amazing up here, there are walls here and other stuff. The rest climbed up. The slide was not too far from the top of the ramp. Yet there was a field of grass with scattered sort of broken walls. They looked like there were the few remains of tall walls that circled round and round to block a wooden bridge that connected the field and the top of the ramp to the slide. When all the climbers reached the top, one of them said: the slide is right after the bridge. It's not too far. The first climber replied: of course thanks for saying the obvious, let's get to the bridge. and he started running. Some said, the bridge looks dangerous. We rather stay here on this solid metal ramp and maybe even a little bit further within these walls. The rest crossed the field by the walls. The field was already getting dark. By the time they got to the bridge it was night, and the stars were out. On the bridge some looked at the starry skies and said, we're just gonna stay here, on this hanging bridge and look at the stars. So they too stayed back, and few others pushed for the slide so that they could try it before it gets too dark, but when they got to the top of the slide, they saw the sun was at the bottom waiting to come out.

2011-01-14T17:25:00.003-05:00

Redefinition of Ignorance: In Response to artilce in Economist called:
"tyranny of choice."

In their Xmas special, economist had an article about how the
tyrannical force of having too many choices in our lives could
decrease our happiness. The thesis was basically this: how having more
choices does not bring about more happiness.
Now, that thesis one very obvious fact that is, in fact
too obvious once you read it more carefully. The assumption is that we already do
believe that more choices make us happier. But no we
don't. Many of us already know that we don't need a lot of choices and we don't want a
lot of choices too. Having a lot of choices is a FAD that is the result of
an unsustainable propperity that westerners have enjoyed so far with
their unlimited needs and ostensibly unlimited resources to supply those needs, just like any other FAD. The article assumes that people who are not enjoying many are ignorant.
Well that is not generally true, because a person may have only once choice, but also be mindful that all the other choices are irrelevant for the purpose that he/she intends.

-Sent from a Wireless Device

Paradoxes revisited

2011-01-10T23:54:00.004-05:00

I wear a beard...occasionally. At my work in the office everyone's shaved clean. I like to have a beard going on. Back then in highschool, as soon as the firs strand of hair grew on my face I was awaiting for my ugly looking mustache to pull itself down to the soft teenage hair of my chin, so I shaved the young skin harshly with my father's razor. It bled most of the times, but to me that was a sacrifice well worth it. At university, when I was my own supervisor, I had the Darvish's beard going on that made me look like a drunk homeless dude on trying to put himself on the right path of life. I don't look like a homeless dude I used to look anymore, but my hesitations to shave or keep the beard every night tells me that I still haven't found the right path.

I used to think a lot about the paradoxes that compose our lives for us like a symphony that sounds foreign to your ears. There are ups and downs and both are equally well worth it. Once the notes play you, and series of rhythms pass there's no going back. Now that I am actually living those paradoxes I am not sure if I can really view them as worth while anymore. I just view them like anybody else...happy moments and sad moments. In other words, moments that I rather experience more of, and moments that rather experience less of.

For instance...I didn't have my phone today on me for the whole day. It meant, no reading the e-magazines on the way to work, or no funnies from my jokes application. It meant no podcasts on the way back, and no music either. It meant no Grand Theft Auto when in the washroom, and no singing to the tunes in the shower. Instead, I realized how I had missed the time to actually contemplate the stuff I've already read and listened to the days before. How I had missed the time to search for my own music myself. Instead of trying his or her playlists here and there on YouTube.

or let's take love...slowly but surely I am coming to realize the control/compromise game I had come to see as the derive in a relationship is not actually that pleasant. Whether you're only in it for the sex, or to create something out of it that would last a lifetime, it all seems to boil down to the same thing...there's nothing new...it's always about how much of YOU is left after your compromises! You fall in love with someone because of specific character traits but then you stay in a relationship only to calm and tame those very traits that attracted you in the first place. You walk into a relationship to complete yourself, only give up many of the things you thought you are without even knowing it.

When you meet a friend, or a potential partner, or a new boss or a colleague you want to impress, you unintentionally start promoting the best version of yourself to the other person. Then if you are persuasive enough for them to take your mental image of best of you as the normal you, they would treat you as if you are indeed the best version of you. They would compliment you as if you are the best version of you. They would support you in your ups and downs as if you're the best version of you. Slowly you would come to believe the [let's be abruptly honest] lies you told them in the first place while deep down you know you can not live up to the image. It wouldn't be mental image if you could have lived up to it...and so you become a sad little story.

And now I am still wondering if I should shave for tomorrow or not...I am writing all this, by myself, smoking, drinking wine and reading Hafez. And funny the last part of the first poem I just read was:

ترک افسانه بگو حافظ و می نوش دمی

که نخوفتیم شب و شمع به افسانه بسوخت

Hafez, stop talking about the myths, and drink some wine for a moment

because we didn't sleep the night, and our candle was burnt by the myths [we kept talking about]

Secluding a little bit

2010-10-30T13:45:00.003-04:00

Decided to take some time to myself and travel this weekend, but the weather was not permitting and couldn't. What do I do instead? Usually I would have stopped using my cellphone...then to let people know I would leave a facebook status saying, I don't have a cellphone or cellphone lost or something asking people to connect me through email...but everyone would connect to me through facebook which is even more annoying than my cellphone. Pretty quickly facebook would become my only means of communication to the point that I had to have to check it on my Cell all the time to be responsive to what's going around. So today I instead deactivated the facebook. Can't be too bad. After all I still have my cell.

FIFA World Cup

2010-08-10T14:23:00.003-04:00

We were having a family discussion over entrepreneurship, and my brother said "you never hear the stories of all the 95% who failed" and I thought "so that's why we keep dreaming about winning all the time." but the truth is more than what you can change by simply get used to losing or failing...think about the world-cup and all that winning and losing. Some very good and qualified teams make it to the very last rounds but lose in the end. The reasons are always a very wide range of stuff, and many of them actually contribute to the loser's dark fate. Like a key player missing the game for being double-carded or injured or Goalie's broken up with the Girl Friend the night before the game, and the girl friend is actually behind the net teasing him up or something, or the Referee keeps missing moments of the game in favor of the opponent. In the end though...after the games are done only one thing matters...no body cares if Messi is crying in the change rooms, or if Zeidan's got red-carded b.c. his sister was called things. Nobody will ever remember that Torres dived in the game against Chile and that the Chilean guy was red carded instead! Only one thing will remain in the end...and that's who won the game...it's very true what Churchill said..."History is written by the victors" and the loser is doomed to forgetfulness of the observers no matter how noble, how talented, and how well-deserved to win they were.

Ayatollah Motahari's existential phrase! (reposted from a draft I wrote during summer)

2010-06-27T02:28:00.006-04:00

شهید مطهری: «مپندارید که شهدا رفته اند و ما مانده ایم بلکه آنها مانده اند و گذر زمان ما را با خود برده است.»

The quote above is from one of the most renowned religious scholars and intellectuals of the Iran. His views are closer to hardliners than to others but nevertheless his deep understanding of the religion is praised by advocates and opponents alike. The phrase above is about martyrdom. It means something around the lines of:

"Never assume that our martyrs are gone and forgotten, and we are left behind. It is them who are left behind [in history] and us that are gone and forgotten in the passing of time."

There's something so pleasantly existential about this...funny I should notice it now...

I was just at a party, and things seemed so banal to me...until I had conversation outside of the crowd with a fellow I knew. We were conversing over jobs and how they become routine and repetitive no matter how exciting they seem when you start...and how they constrain you (if not stop you) from following up on what you used to dream about through short-term incentives - I call them cookies - like paid education and funny promotions...and at one point I told him: "All this is bullshit...and you and I put up with it, because we want that shirt [he was wearing Lacoste], or a nice car, or that house." So more time passed and I never even stepped into the party...just chit chatted to people who were to warm and came out to get some fresh air...

Now, I come home, and check the news, and someone's quoting this from the very conservative ayatollah...and I think about what I used to think before... I am going to be forgotten in the passage of time, do I live a life worth being remembered? or even worth being repeated? In most cases probably not! Dam that conclusion does not help my grim mood at all!

Whopper Day

2010-05-19T13:25:00.003-04:00

It's Wednesday whopper day. and I just had a fat juicy whopper which is quite unusual for whoppers given out on whopper days. As I was grasping the tastes of the meat with pickles and tomatoes (some of these items are usually missing on whopper days, but not today) I thought about death. I thought I am dead the first thing is that I wouldn't be able to taste this whopper anymore. then I thought about how people talk about death, saying when/if 'I am dead' then such and such. People take the all-powerful enabling notion of the 'I' and attach it to the all-powerful disabling notion of the 'death.' If you are dead then there is nothing the I would be doing. There would be no 'I' to experience the 'deadness' like there is an 'I' to experience coldness or happiness in 'I am cold' or 'I am happy.' In I am dead...you are simply no more...there's no further meaning that you can possibly conclude from that phrase about yourself. I think people often (even always) forget that even in the face of death.

Another Fragile election...another proof on a fragile legal structure

2010-05-08T13:49:00.003-04:00

The first time it came to my attention was in the 2000 Bush-Gore elections. I thought to myself, this is democracy. The loser gracefully steps aside, despite strong conviction that he's not been the user... Of course little I knew, that 'structure' seem to only hold when people are indifferent toward politics enough. Second time, when I grew much more skeptic towards the 'structure' was much later in June 09 Iranian elections, and later the elections in Afghanistan....You vote, if there's a majority, the majority rules and the minority just steps aside and prepares to fight back in four years (in Iran's case 8 years.) The results must be always close enough, otherwise you are not reflecting all opinions. But if it's close enough, no one is actually ruling...and there fights, the minority is strong enough to stop all legislation, to hinder every action and to call on their base of support. Other times, disputes break out right after the elections endless negotiations with political parties and with power brokers (a.ka. Lawyers.) Disputes can take the form of maybe even on the streets protests on be half of one side against the other.

Just found a note, i wrote back in 2005. It's So abstract and without specifics...

http://thedeepvision.blogspot.com/2005/11/hypocrisy-of-democracy.html

Beer commercial: The Most Interesting Man in the World

2010-05-02T04:14:00.006-04:00

How should the guy who is named the most interesting man in the world look like?

He appeals to your dreams as a child to become a doctor, a hunter, a warrior and a hero all at the same time. As a child you didn't just play these characters, when you were in your game, you actually were these characters. As you grew up more and more you narrowed down your interests. You let go of your interests to become a pilot, because well it was not doable/possible/fun anymore. But nevertheless you still liked the idea of being a pilot, and probably you still do now. Add to this, being a doctor, explorer, archaeologist, zoologist, astronaut and much much more. The most interesting man in the world is a person who has apparently achieved a level of experience that is impossible to achieve in a lifetime...and that's what appeals to one most. Its his being the jack of all trades that appeals to the best of you! It's that fantasy that we all have...what if I could have study/teach philosophy and improve on my status in the financial center while I maintain my network of friends and the lifestyle that it brings! Dam...that ad does get to me everytime! and the guy is so kool about it too:

"He once had an awkward moment just to see how it feels" LOL!

Another take on Music - Introducing 127 Band as they Do in Khal Punk Album

2010-04-28T01:19:00.005-04:00

When I fist saw their video, it was a clip in an art shop for a music called: "My Sweet Little Terrorist Song" It was original amazing and most of all very Alive. They had couple of other good pieces too. I searched YouTube every where and couldn't find that very old video like I made me grow fond of them. So I am going to start this introduction differently.

In their Album Khal Punk they have a song by that name that just introduces the name...there's no music just a lady talking with an accent. I think what she says in the clip is so descriptive of the feelings you are supposed to get when you listen to their music. Here's their Music Page on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/127band

Here's the script, trust me you may need it:(though you must listen to it to get the full effect) a seemingly young voice starts speaking with what seems to be Tehran-like street noise in the background:

Well I guess if it's necessary to spell khal (read like Fall, replacing F sound with Kh sound) in English, it's going to have start with a kh. every one know that .....(what!) sound when there's too much Flem in their throat and they need to spit it right out. Then following that there is along a sound right. So how do you emphasize that. I guess you could put to a's. Or maybe you can use one of those a's that has a line over the top of it like the flat sailor's cap. But if you spell it with one a, I think people would just say 'khal' (read like Gas with G replaced with Kh) which is a bit khaz (khaz: refers to state of jadedness.) Even worse if they can't get the Kh right it's gonna come out as 'Kal'

What does Khal mean anyway? My dictionary says: spot, dot, mole, beauty spot." Maybe khal is the beauty spot that lingered down below Marlyn Monroe's chick. Or maybe it's the sun's black spot. it could be the unevenly freckles on my right hand upper side. Or the pips on a set of playing cards. It's the motley spot place half-hazardly on a lepped's coat. unevenly spaced and shaped but fitted together with complementary colors like a jig-saw puzzle place into blue plato. A dabble , speckle or motto, any one of the numerous array of blemishes that give a new character to person or object.

So what the fuck is khal punk then? It's really just this bunch of motley kids, playing a motley style they've created from their motley surroundings. This grey, smoggy, lego city, with a flat roofs and dapples of color speckled out randomly.

So You are set out to Make more Money!?

2010-04-25T06:18:00.003-04:00

Sure...just remember this:

A very small percentage make more than 100K$ in Canada. You are living in Toronto, a city that is best to do than almost all of the other Canadian cities...it's not the best rated city to live in like Vancouver, but it has more affordable real state AND more career opportunities. It's people are not as lively and fun-loving as Montreal, but friends you make are often ambitious enough to be opportunistic and apt enough to be competitive while managing to be maintain a healthy work-life balance unlike their U.S. counter parts. It is better than most cities in the U.S who are constantly ravaged by political and corporate ad campaigns. At the same imt, the big government here still taxes you less than most cities in Europe. ...This is a city where you can do whatever you want, and still make a manageable living (for one at least.)

Considering what other cities and continents are left, and considering how people in Japan fight for a place to live, how people in Europe bend under taxes, and how people in Middle-East and Africa break under oppression, and lack of resources, Toronto residence are very well to do.

Consider the whole history of Human Being (as far as we know) where man has always fought for survival against nature, and against other men except for very brief periods where peace and prosperity has lasted for a very short while in a small part of this Earth: Athens, Rome, Beijing, and some other cities had these brief periods of peace where citizens in big cities did not even scratch their own butts. Because of the luxury and comfort established, new horizons of knowledge was explored, and new depths of understanding from human nature was achieved in philosophy and sciences....This is that time now, and if you are in Toronto, you are probably at one of the best locations.

Would you still see this, and go join the rank of those 1 to 2 percent of people among the itself very small fraction of the whole total population who want to make a wealth that is above 95% of average Canadians? Or would you play a more historical role, doing yourself and the human beings a favor and put your thought to some work other than aggregation of wealth!

The Most Interesting Man in the World

2010-04-25T05:27:00.004-04:00

Happiness is what we try to define our lives with, but we fail to notice that a goal that abstract is in fact no goal at all. Why is it not a goal at all if it's abstract? Well to me at least, the reason is that if something is too abstract you can redefine it and derive whatever you wish to label yourself as happy when in fact you may not be necessarily happy.

You may defend by saying that one is thinking of a definition of happiness that is indeed all encompassing; a definition that could include helping others, development of self alongside financial achievements. And you may even add that on top of all that, one will be content...and in that contention one can shelter a continuous state of happiness that is not too costly to maintain to cause that person any unhappiness. In this case you may argue, the happiness can be achieved from variety of sources where a criteria for happiness is defined and is further supported by an act of contention that insures its continuity.

I would argue that all that categorizing and seeking criteria is good, but what sort of happiness is this happiness that you have to be so content about? Maybe if you have to use 'contention' to suppress the urge for things that are providing your happiness, then those urges should not be the urges to bring you happiness in the first place.

To me happiness is about two phrases: balance in ideas of living, and experiencing the most you can. I could go on explaining why, but I'll just make some quick examples...one should be content to lot of things that are outside one's control, but not so much that it would kill one's ambitions. one should pursue a life of financial prosperity but only to the extent that one's pursuit would not constrain his further experiencing life's other aspects.

Needless to say by new experiences, I mean new projects, and plans that you undertake in your life, otherwise literally speaking you are experiencing different events everyday. What I mean is like a second degree in something that you like, that is not related to your success at work. Things that get you to live more...lol! funny how that keeps reminding me of that 'Most Interesting Man in the World' commercial. These marketers definitely know where to hit!

Here are two of his videos..."People hang on every word he say, even the propositions! lol!"

----

I just noticed that I had written a post a while ago similar to this:

http://siavashj.blogspot.com/2008/12/in-case-u-wondered-my-life-is-composed.html

Who you ARE and who you WANT TO BE

2010-04-24T05:42:00.003-04:00

The distinction between 'who you ARE' and 'who you WANT TO BE' is because these two don't fit together very coherently[1]. So when you assume that you need 9 hours of sleep every day, insisting on this would affect what you aspire to do during the coarse of the day. In this case you were defining yourself through a fact, instead of mixing it with your aspirations. You could also ignore facts through your hopes/fears, and become full aspirations, like a 30 year old who aspires to be a Olympics gymnast, or the fundamentalist zealous fighters for a promised land whether in communist ideology or among radical Zionists in Israel. You cannot put an stress on one while ignoring the other...

Sartre's story is more interesting: he looks at the waiter in Parisian cafe he is writing in. And sees him with his straight body, sharp turns, and says that the waiter is trying to be a waiter, he is lost in the facts that define his being a waiter. Another enlightening examples is the homosexuality and those who are hesitant about their nature despite their obvious homosexual desires. What Sartre says is that the homosexual will if, confident enough quite justifiably , conclude and call himself/herself a homosexual however the mere labeling based on a series of facts is going to close to the person the choice of not being a homosexual anymore.

Think about relationships. This makes so much sense over there too. If people would have allowed themselves to be guided by the mix of their honest feelings and aspirations, then I bet most relationships would have worked out...problem is, the proper ratio is so hard to achieve...and Sartre recognizes this too...b/c most people want to be the person who they ARE while at the same time be the person who THEY WANT TO BE...but this is something that only a God-like creature could do...because it is only a God that is omnipresent so he is all he is, and at the same time all powerful so that he can be all that he wants. For the rest of us, we just have to sit back and take it eazy and deal with it!

------------

[1]

One way you can characterize individual behavior is through what one is at a moment, and what one aspires to be.

What you are in a moment, is the part of you that is composed of facts in your life. It is constituted of your past and present, in the sense of your now unchangeable past and present experiences that are the facts that happen about you. Examples could be your birth, your family, the fact that you were with black hair. The fact that determined your gender. In present, the facts are like what you are doing, like me writing right now, and more generally writing occasionally, and working during the week and trying to enjoy company of friends at other times. This constitutes part of what I am.

There is also another part. It which is what you aspire to. This is like your dreams, and aspirations to overcome the 'facts' of your life and go above and beyond them at least so far as you are looking to your future.

In other words, as Heidegger puts it (Pg. 483, Being and Time) 'Present is the result of the past, and is pregnant with the future.' Heidegger believes this in a very 'passive' way...where it is almost your future that shapes you are put in it...for Sartre things are more personal...more romantic maybe! This is what he says in Being and Nothingness [apparently in respond to Heidegger's insistence that consciousness does not have intentionality, it is just there...as Dasein:]

"The For-itself (or what Sartre loosely sees as consciousness, or self) cannot be 'pregnant with the future' [as put by Heidegger] nor 'expectant of the future' nor can it be 'a knowledge of future' expect on the basis of an original and prejudicative (prejudicative means here: so unbiased and nonjudgmental that is in fact before any judgment can start to take form), relation of itself to itself."

For Sartre, the who you are has a relation to itself and that is coherent with the fact that it can bear the responsibility of creating its own future. So "if you want to be lawyer, though you are currently not now at present, your plans and your possibilities in future are characterized as such. Sometimes these possibilities are there and I deny them (or ignore them) nevertheless what I want to be define what I am right now in a very profound and obvious way."

Almost Against Fact-based Skepticism

2010-04-20T21:34:00.006-04:00

Two quotes first:

#1 Soroush in an interview with BBC: "What defines a democracy is not only the ability to elect someone, but also to deny someone power. and that is what happened in this election, where many people supporting all different candidates just did non want a candidate to continue as president."

#2 Kadivar in his speech on the commemoration of the 40th of martyrs of 25 Khordad: "It is not up to us to prove that the elections was fraud, it is up to them to prove that it was sound. Since people have the legitimate power and the right to ask and criticize, the burden of proof is on the government, not us."

Now one assumption...I have assumed the underdog in a campaign is always supported with more voters and sympathizers.

Contrary to what I liked, in last year's elections in Iran, the candidate for the reformists did not become the president. The election results were seen as fraudulent, but there was no hard evidence ever offered. Mousavi's headquarters were raided, so were the houses of most of the people close to him. It is possible that every shred of evidence have been stolen, hidden or destroyed. It is possible that we would never know for sure if there was a full fledge election fraud or not! Wait...

The phrase:'we would never know for sure if there was a full fledge election fraud' would not 'in fact' be true, because all the remaining factual evidence point toward the 'fact' that there has not been a fraud, despite the smaller flaws here and there. So, it seems, the conclusion is that the election was not rigged. It was a fair election, without any major fraud. Now...there are two questions that come to mind:

1) What if we look beyond facts as evidence? what if a collective emotion, or attitude can be taken as evidence? What if the public joy, sadness, disappointment or any other emotion can be taken as an evidence to evict or free someone just like any other evidence that justifies the law to take into affect? This is not something too far fetched. Think about it. What happened after the Canadian Hockey Olympic final. Is it not 'illegal' for people to block the Yonge and Dundas intersection? It seems to me that public outbreaks of an emotion are already a form of law. They produce exceptions to the enforcing of a law. Keep in mind the quote #1 from Soroush above. A democracy is a system where you not only give power to someone, but as people you also have the ability to take power from someone. I don't want to expand on this further, but as a student of Karl Popper, Soroush is saying that a democratic nation should involve themselves in falsification of their past choices, just like how an unbiased individual should commit the truth of his ideas to process of falsification. If this is properly embedded into a legal system (A big IF in itself, but at least somewhat plausible in theory!!) then at an outbreak of an emotion that is large and decisive enough, some branch can legally yield to popular demand and ignore a law. In the Iranian case, the authorities should have caved in to ignore the election results that were nonetheless at least so far as the [remaining] hard facts are concerned seemed right.

2) Let's ignore all the countless small and big number of problems and errors in the election process and do assume that the election was sound. What if the opposition always sees itself in a position to object to the results and accuse the other side of fraud! I was thinking about all this while ago in the summer of 09 when Afghanistan was holding their elections right after Iran's controversial elections. There was already talk of fraud going on by NATO, or by Hamid Karzai corrupt government. I was thinking that after what happened in Iran, whether the opposition manages to disqualify the election or the the incumbent gets to enforce it, a paradox in democracy is revealed in practice. The opposition groups, whenever close enough to the incumbent, can cry election fraud, and since 'obviously' they were not the ones organizing the elections as a natural underdog they would have at least support of their own base of voters, and maybe even sympathy of the rest of the voters. But think about the #2 quote by Kadivar: the burden of proof is always on the incumbent...logically at least. What if the public emotions are not turning in favor of the opposition...what if as the person who the does have the burden of proof the incumbent plays the underdog. In the end, in a more normal context which would be unlike that of Iran, to maintain the integrity and security of the community it is best if one of the politician to step aside, or just follow the procedures existing in the law whether that law is right or wrong. Otherwise, democracy would not be able to maintain itself.

I can still argue further against either 1) or 2) here, and interestingly enough each of them seem to be very contradictory to the other one.

You got to have a sparkle...

2010-04-17T21:15:00.001-04:00

Something bigger than yourself that's trying to get out of your being.
-From "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" Scripts

Yet Again on Death

2010-04-16T01:57:00.002-04:00

When I talk about my past I feel the connection between myself and the person those events happen around; as when I tell a story in a bar of camping in winter or when I explain my experiences in a job interview. If somebody asks me what were you thinking camping in the cold, I can reflect back and either tell of how cold i had felt, or how I enjoyed the other aspects of spending the day and night out of town in nature. Whatever my response, I will be very clear, at least to myself, about how I initiated a feeling, thought or mode of action. There is sense of ownership in my perception of any series of past events which are more or less vividly related to me like the camping memory, or which constitute part of my character like the interview stories where I promoted a side of my character to an employer.

There are more characteristics and traits that we either see as our own. What most of these characteristics have in common is that we are so certain of them. In fact I want to make the claim that it is this certainty that makes us take ownership of some of the characteristics we have.

I think we tend to learn to deal with daily events through tasks that are part of our habits, or put more clearly, part of what we have learned. We tend to customize as we repeat them more. We add our own bits and pieces of methodology to these tasks based on our experience of works or what we hear from others approaches to the same task. These customizations do not necessarily make the task easier to do (though most times they do) but what they do is they make us feel that the task is what 'we' did. The customizations provide us with justification to take ownership and attach it to that thing that we take as being ourselves. When faced with necessities that call for a task, what we call upon is usually a habitual process that we unfold in the task with the understanding that the unfolding is created by us.

Facing death is a task too. Many times during our lives we hear about death as our loved ones pass, or as people talk about it. And though we are always in a sense in the presence of death, we never wholly realize it. We never take ownership, we never start a process to make it a habit. There are many events about which we are not as certain as death and yet we still prepare to face them by trying to learn new habits and tasks, like a new job, or a masters degree, or marriage. But there is a sense of procrastination, and forgetfulness when the necessities call for facing death. You could be a doctor and have looked at many being rushed to the hospital but not making it. Even then, you would not necessarily have to face this inevitable event in our lives. Because we can choose to ignore, and forget, and not learn nothing, and that's precisely what many do. Even if hearing about it, and facing it would have managed to become a habit, without getting fancied with side-dishes and appetizers then it would be great. I think it's already too late though. There are companies running funeral companies that make very good money to provide a service that people who are facing death would have to pay for.

I have a very particular feeling about this, that I try to convey to people on their Birth Days. I have a feeling that there should not be that much of a difference between birthday, and the day you die. They are both events out of your control, expect that the date for the latter is unknown. But, which day would you rather celebrate the on the night before? The day that happens only once a year, on a fixed date and time? or a day that may as well be the next day of your life?

Something Horrifying - 'Romantic' Self Portrait

2010-04-13T00:53:00.006-04:00

First let me tell you again what kind of 'Romantic' I mean. I could have used the term 'idealized' or 'idealist' but I rather use the term 'romantic' because of the implicit connotations that the word brings in for the person for whom the word is used for. It is more than 'ideal', 'biased'. It is all that but it is all but ostensibly it contains more 'Good' in it that something prejudiced.

Now, what I want to write today about is just too trivial. I know I usually write about vivid and obvious stuff...but this one just takes it a step further. It is in fact so trivial that I fail to notice it all the time. Though I maybe noticing it now, I will probably fail to notice it soon after I finish this writing, or maybe even during the writing!! I was just thinking how as beings we learn something and establish it through habits. Some of the things we learn are ok, they help us commit to our daily activities and facilitate our living. Other stuff we learn though, when we put into habits, we fail to notice to rest of what is still unlearned, maybe like a photo of a tiny flower, or a little girl that invites you to think about what is in the framework of that photo. I know this may apply to critique of technology as a whole, but I am not going Heideggerian on you today. What I was thinking about today is much simpler.

I noticed that I just like how I learn about stuff surrounding me, I also learn about what and who I am. What induced horror in me was that most probably, just like how on countless occasions my knowledge of my surroundings was prejudiced, my view of myself too must be prejudiced in one way or another. When I thought harder about it, I noticed that though it sound horrible, it is something very trivial. We tend to ignore our prejudices of our self because first of all they are so close to us, it's hard to see them. They are like stains of dirt to lenses through which we see and learn about the world...we fail to notice them because things 'go on' and 'get done' with or without them. It's probably very nice to be able to clear your lenses, and learn about your self so well that you would start seeing the world as you, yourself would see it.

Think about it though, have you ever has those thoughts of passionate love for someone, who maybe you only met a few times, and be so sure of it too, only to find out a few days later that it was just a fluke? Now this next example is so prominent: procrastination; have you ever organized an elaborate plan to commit time to your studies and then just failed to do it? As you can see your sense of yourself, and your capabilities can be quite different from what you actually are. I had to make examples of things you plan ahead for; things for which you create an image of yourself in the future. You could also think of stuff that you thought you've been like in the past, talk to your close friends, and maybe it'll come out that you were completely wrong. There was an interesting sentence that I heard today that inspired this post, and I want to use it to end the post, since this is already taking too long for your ultra short attention span. I should consider myself lucky if you've read this far already:

"To find out who you are, you have to look back at tapes and videos of you life, and very often that picture would be very different from the perception of yourself simply from a momentary bit of introspection." R.C.Solomon

Reintroducing Namjoo - Artist's Ability to Reinvent Themselves

2010-04-10T17:10:00.005-04:00

I like to believe that I was among the first waves of Namjoo fans...Here are pictures of him from Kosoof dating back Oct 2006. At the bottom of the photos it read: "In the large crowd gathered to highlight the international day of HIV/AIDS, and behind the long lines of people heckling with organizers over the color of the free condoms, there was thin man of small stature in a corner playing his instruments. His voice and music was lost in the buzz from the streets, but care-free he could have made any music with that voice of his."

I sought his tracks from the darkest corners of Internet sometimes certain that I am downloading a virus. I pleaded friends in Tehran to the look around for it too. I was a fan before his Toranj, and Zolf Bar Baad became hits on YouTube only couple of months before those early months of 2007 when YouTube was still a small private firm no purchased by Google. Here take a look at this performance with Namjoo playing his own instrument, I like the whole song but if you want to see the early Namjoo singing skip ahead to 2:44.

Of course like many others, I discovered my enthusiasm/addiction to his style with the release of his Music Video for Zolf Bar Baad which was at the time at least a complete love song for me. But like many other addictive romantic [1] events that stimulate enthusiasm such as hyped up Iranian Green Movement, The LA version of course, or the Jaras poetic countdowns to victory prior to first days following the election events, this one too may be facing distinction.

The unique style of Namjoo's music provides an strong edge, but that style, like any other form of expression, would not change a piece into art by itself. The new style must be accompanied with a genuine sense of emotion, mood or feeling that the artist must have been acquainted or struggling with at the time of composition of the music or the lyrics. Let me refer you back to the feelings that the combination of music and lyrics in Namjoo's older tracks like 'Daheye Shast' (translated swiftly the Eighties) or Zolf Bar Baad track with its music video brought about Or the song Jabre Joghrafiai (almost meaning The Geography-dependent Destiny) that despite its strong message-oriented content also brings about certain impressions and feelings that communicate with the listener.

Namjoo started strong, no doubt there. He had a lot to say. His music was unique, his messages strong, and his image well suited to promote the new combination. When he moved out of Iran I grew a bit skeptical as to whether he'll be able to continue his work. After all, to me it seemed, that just as dictatorship uses the concept of enemy to define itself, Namjoo had relied on the general mood of Iranians inside Iran to create and recreate himself with his first couple of albums. How could he continue producing the same work, if he is outside of Iran, free and out of touch from worries and stresses of daily lives. Back then I thought his future work, if he wouldn't re-invent himself outside Iran, instead of relying on genuine feelings and moods that only living in Tehran could bring about, he would have to mimic his mere memories of similar events to produce music. I think I was right. His latest works are attempts at reinventing himself, working with Kiosk and Golshifte Farahani (all whom may be suffering the same problem by the way.) Not to bring down his new work. They are good work, I love the 'Hammash Delam Migire' piece and the rest of the tracks are soothing to listen to as well, but I can't help but notice that a certain lively-hood may have departed from his work.

-------

[1] I could have used the term 'idealized' or 'idealist' but I rather use the term 'romantic' for couple of reasons. First and most important that 'romantic' is to me at least, a word that sounds to settle much easier when talking about arts disregarding the implicit and possibly misleading meanings that it could bring about. Second reason is that the word 'romantic' is also applied to the time in the history of music where according to Wikipedia citing the Encyclopedias of Music "the sense that there had been a decisive break with the musical past led to the establishment of the nineteenth century as "The Romantic Era," and it is referred to as such in the standard encyclopedias of music."which is something that certainly applies to Namjoo's now style as a break with the past. Thirdly, I use the term because I think like similar 'idealized' or 'idealist' emotional events that accompany hyped up trends such as the Green Movement - the LA version, Buddhist fad in form of banalized Yoga classes, Namjoo's 'break' may be possibly in danger of extinction at least in the form that Namjoo presents it at the moment.

Take on Music - Introducing Gachpaj Jazz Band

2010-04-09T00:06:00.005-04:00

My last post was on photography. I got carried away though...and talked about everything, as if that never happens! Let me touch on music a bit...

I want to focus on a new band from Sharif University in Tehran. They only have a few track at this point. Let me warn you if you don't like Jazz, or Jazz fusions, you may not enjoy them. They are called G.CH.P.J (gachpaj) and they are neither professional, nor famous. There is one song though...Funeral...that just (Here's the link to download the music from their page.)

It's quite interesting the first couple of times that you listen to it...the lyrics seem satiric with a skeptical attitude towards life...the lead vocalist shouts: "Che Fayede, che fayede" which I guess best translates to: "Alas, alas, it's no use anymore. It's gone."

There is strong dry humor present seemingly from the cries, shouts and moans. It's in a recording room, but it's obviously a practice session. Still all that even makes it more real, more honest, and more into your face...It seems a lot like something that Namjoo would do (I got more on why Namjoo would probably never again do something as good, but that for later.) The tunes are catchy, and they get into your head...and in the few seconds after the last note is played the bunch shout and laugh loudly. There are countless elements of genuine feelings and impressions that you can get from this piece. It makes sort of connect easier with the artists's mood through their artwork.

There is another version of the same song, Live outdoor performance somewhere on University campus. This time, in the end of this version the lead vocalist says: "[we] dedicate [this song] to Amir, who is no longer among us."

Suddenly things 'make sense'...Notice the phrase I used here spontaneously...and quite carelessly. Things have started to fall into a logical framework when we found out that...all that general mood of frustration towards something that could not be changed that the track transfered the first time is indeed because the artists are frustrated at something that they can't change back. This is what I meant before when I said: "whether an art-form is about something or not, its artistic nature is not tied in what the art-form is actually about."In the case of former track, the emotions are strong enough, though the music composition is certainly not the best, that combined with the general mood of artists, and laughters after the practice, the piece conveys a feeling to you, it shows off, moving you slightly at least.

The song did make sense from the beginning, it's just that for a piece of art or music to make sense it doesn't have to be logical. It is just supposed to transfer its mood to you. It just has to show off to you its 'being' an art-form either with the mood of the original artist, or in the mood that your context of facing the art-form creates for it (Rap music track chiz is an example of this latter case, considering that it was made before the elections in Iran, but rose to prominence after when people started joking for Mousavi's lack of fluency due to his overuse of the half-word 'chiz.')

How do I see photography and why

2010-04-08T00:53:00.005-04:00

A piece of art, whether it's a poem, painting, play, photo or whatever that it is, in the end aside from all that it is, it is also an object that shows itself to you. My favorite medium is a photo mainly because of the rules of engagement that I think is only right to apply to them. When I look at a photo, I don't look at what the photo is about. I try to reconstruct the surroundings of that photo. I love how the focus of camera man on one point, reveals something about his decisive ignorance on everything else in that area. To me, it's those things that are not in the photo that make up the feeling that I would then take away from an image. If I look at something...and can't think of surroundings...I conclude that I am looking at a good picture since I am already in the surroundings...and it so happens that those pictures, no matter what camera, are most lively ones to me, and often times the photographer too.

People have a concept of understanding art. That's why there are phrases like "I don't get this painting", "I don't understand what this poem is talking about" or "what the hell that music is about?" It seems like when confronted with a poem or a painting or any other art, we first form a framework that looks at the painting as if it has be about something. Of course, many arts indeed are about something and that only makes them the more valuable. What I mean is that an whether an art-form is about something or not, its artistic nature is not embedded in what the art-form is actually about. The feeling of a poem is not in what the poem is about, it is about what it feels like. So what I just said is: The feeling of a poem is in what it feels like. It sounds trivialized...but it's actually not...

When you approach a painting or read a poem, you should actually put some effort to avoid from thinking in frameworks that limit feeling that painting. It takes mental energy, just like how that design question takes mental energy. The effort here is to keep an open mind, this time literally. Once you do care hard enough to put the effort of avoiding frameworks impose your own thinking on the art, any good art will quickly show itself to you through stimulating your senses. It may provoke a feeling, or stimulate an emotion, or make a memory vivid.

Accordingly, I see the role of artist as twofold. First is that the artist should develop his/her medium of communication so that once a genuine feeling, emotion worth sketching comes to mind the hands are ready to start working, or the words are ready to flow. In other words, artist must develop the ways to be able to express him/herself with ambiguity and quickly to be able to capture his experience of something in words/images as genuine as possible. The second thing is what an artist should not do, and this despite it's negative connotation requires more active energy and thought than the former one. The artist should not fall prey to developing the perfect tools of expression to impose awe. In my case, my most memorable poems are hardly ever the ones that is has the best structure. Even in my writing pieces...I wrote something in Farsi about our trip to Ottawa to vote. The text is overflowing with grammatical and spelling problems...but I had managed to refuse changing it, I like how the genuine frustration, and hopelessness feeling of the moment is further captured with the small error almost running everywhere as you read through.

Tale of two Wars: Children of Gaza, Satre, Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger

2010-04-06T18:26:00.000-04:00

Let me talk to you about series ordinary incidents that together composed an unprecedented event.

Event 1: A week ago, a friend of mine posted this video (I have put a 10 minute segment down here from youtube, but see the whole thing if you have the time)

on her page, recommending "Take 47 minutes of your life and WATCH this documentary...It is painful, but essential viewing." The video was hard to watch as she had hinted, but it wasn't your typical documentary. It was very informative, and though it was extremely emotional and one-sided due to the nature of the matter it was discussing, the conversations captured were very thought provoking too. The video depicts children, born in Gaza, who have to bear part a war that has been raging that region more than half a century... a war that not only them, but their parents too were born into as well. Further into the documentary, it seems to depict a picture that explains how these kids are easily recruited by terrorist fighters...and how wounds grow deeper and deeper so that they are finally deep enough to allow the hatred jump over from one generation to the other. The question that came to me was do these kids have any other choice that seems more 'right'? As for my friend who posted this, I sent her a quick response that I did not put a lot of thought into, but thought it is a good idea to share:

"It is intresting...cuz I was listening to Sartres ideas on responsibility today, and he talks about how you have no choice but to be free and make the right choices...he takes on Heidegger rather passive notion of self with this, because in Heidegger the self is just kind of thrown at the world within a fabric of whta Heidegger calls community... with no choices to make...it's sad...to think that a philosophy that comes out of world war II with all it's horrors to give hope and direction in the post-war era sort of fails when faced with realities of a war like the conflict in Gaza...when generations just get thrown at the stress, and fail to develope that's sense of responsibility in a quite plausibly justifiable way."

Event 2: With the coming of the new Persian year, the first day of Spring on March 21, I started wondering as usual about different questions like change, choice and new year resolutions among other things. I had started to revisit some of Heidegger's ideas on how we are all sort of born into our existence. A birth that is with no control over our cultural, social 'community' that we are born into. Heidegger's philosophy has a high degree of passivity...you are born into something...and when objects sort of show themselves to you in an 'open-ness' if you 'care' enough. At the end of the day...it is very much like a very passive, hermit Buddhist philosophy...and Heidegger himself admits that. Though countless philosophers criticized his theories for fascist connotations, while others adopted or modified his work to extract respect toward's others (Levinas) or responsibility (Satre) Heidegger always stated firmly that his work did not involve any moral implications and that ethics had no place in his philosophy.

Even 3: Listening to lectures on Existentialism and Satre by the one and only Robert C Solomon (RIP) who is so well-known in the field. To summarize in a nutshell Satre seems to believe in 'no-excuse' existentialism where humans are 'condemned to be free' no matter what condition inflicts them, or what veil of ignorance covers their eyes. He makes an extreme example, that even a prisoner deep in a dungeon, with hands and feet chained to the wall still has countless choices to make. Satre looks down at his French countrymen who comes up with excuses at the time of German occupation, excuses that almost all the time boil down to phrases like: "well, I had no choice." It seems to me that Satre takes the concept that Nietzsche refers to as 'laziness' and turns it into a 'responsibility' while using the help of phenomenology to justify an understanding of 'intentionality' that suits his needs. He uses the horrors of WWII to exemplify how morality, social activeness and commitment to freedom and responsibility are key elements of human nature. Unlike Heidegger, his philosophy is a very active one. In Satre the political issues is front and center, let alone moral ones, whereas in Heidegger you have this stubborn denial that ridicules even the existence of morality. During the days when my head was simmering with all these thoughts the next event happened...

Event 4: Ran into my Heidegger professor who works at Bay Street! Yes, it is true. He is also a financial guy. He is now also teaching Existentialism at the University of Toronto Mississauga campus, which is too far for me to go after work. Any how, we used to discuss all sort of questions that we had on existentialism and Heidegger after class with what he called a glass of liquid 'ereignes' (referring to the Heideggerian German word which is translated 'event' [of happening] but really just referred to Beer.) As such I recalled some of the highlights that are key if you want to distinguish between Heidegger and Satre...things like intentionality, and consciousness, and their differences in interpreting Husserl on these two philosophical concepts...on that weekend the final event happened that brought everything together.

Event 5: Camping barely off season. As I sensed the sun and breathe the pure oxygen of wilderness I began to really understand my own response to my friend...Satre's theory doesn't make a lot of sense, because maybe, and just maybe, he is without knowing, inducing a morality into it; and a rather extreme one too. Heidegger on the other hand keeps a safe distant from morality...because he believes the only 'ethos' that makes sense is the 'ethos' that helps in preservation of your open-ness to understanding your surroundings. Why would a child not be justified to take a gun or strap himself with a bomb if that is the condition in which he/she is born into...in the grand scheme of things, there are no right and wrongs, there are only do's and dont's...for that child in that documentary our don't becomes a do...and that is the paradox of morality.

Camping Season just started...

2010-04-05T09:08:00.002-04:00

Launched the camping season with a trip to Algonquin...

There are so many things to talk about. Things like questions on responsibility, not in the sense of being responsible for something, but instead in being responsible as someone...like when a person is responsible as a parent, or as a friend, or as a free man for a group of tasks, things, attitudes and what not. I have thought about art, and authenticity of experience, as you touch a leaf, or look at fire, or feel the cold Spring ice/water. I have thought about the answers people give to questions on gender differences and equality. I have answers (I think) to why newer experiences seem more original despite their apparent discomfort to the physique, and sometimes to the vulgar (vulgar in the Humean sense) mind. I have noticed things on sameness (or continuity) of person-hood and consistency of character as people like Hume and Locke recall them and people like Ainslie explicate them...so many thoughts, and it's hard to think of any of them in the details that they deserve being thought about. There are questions with speculative answers in my mind about nature of 'Calculative or Deductive thinking' vs. 'just thinking' (or what Heideggerians may like to call Meditative thinking which is different from meditation.)

ok... enumerated these since I'd like to get back to them soon. How soon? I don't know...specially considering that I haven't updated the pages on this weblog for a while now.

Anywayz...what you see in the picture is a 'tarp' and it's something that you hang on your tent when camping to protect your camping site/ camping experience from rain. When I wanted to set up a tarp, I by default decided to attach the four corners of the tarp to four trees with the rope I had. Obviously that seemed the most logical thing to do at the moment, with four ropes, four corners of the tarp and I just had to find four trees...but there are numerous other ways to look at this problem...because my tarp just like the when in the picture had small holes protected by metal rings where I could have tied something that still managed to keep it stretched. Unfortunately, I didn't think like that until it was time to untie the ropes from trees when packing up. I was amazed however at how my ignorance acted out here...This is something that people are thought in Engineering Design courses...to think outside of the box for new solutions, people are thought about this in many Art courses, and some science courses too. In Philosophy...overcoming this ignorance to notice your prejudices and mistakes in your thinking is THE key element to learning philosophy...I did study engineering...where the circuits, the programs, and the prototypes we designed were all mixed with boring lectures on how this should be a priority...I see the same train of thought happening as an economist, and business dude. Unfortunately though nowhere this is actually practiced in real life...and people forget about it after class...our prejudices on every concept from 'our happiness' to 'tying a knot' keep haunting us, making us more and more miserable. And it only seems that as we grow older and older we keep getting more and more attached and addicted to them...

Idealisms...?!

2010-04-02T11:40:00.001-04:00

Many people adopt theories to their way of life to provide orientation, purpose and direction to their day to day flow and short term and long term goals and ambitions. Back when Freud was popular many applied his theories to their lives ignoring whether there is degree of applicability or not. Some years later, people started applying [wrong interpretation’s of] Nietzsche’s Ubermench to their lives…today, what is popular is applying an interest-based theory of economics daily lives. A theory of life created based on maximizing utility (i.e. happiness or satisfaction) in a world of scarce resources.

A great deal of this theory as it applies to human life was developed much longer ago. It dates back to Smith and Bentham in the 17th and 18th century. Theories of morality and law based on these views went a long way, they even established some of the basics of natural law, and limited the power of monarchy in England. There's nothing wrong with adapting those views, but in our banal world of today where Smith is but a celebrity, you just adopt an ostensibly logical and simple theory of utility to your view of life, a banal-ized theory of what used be the basis for constitutions of nations. That's when your ignorance becomes radical, when it turns into a dogma.

Don’t forget though…this is not any dogma…it is dogma that you take and apply to your daily routines…it’s of the same dogma as dogma of that man who beats his wife, or that of an interviewer who denies the best candidate an offer because of ethnicity. It is an ideal or a purpose that you adopt, and it allows you to see many choices of action justified. Many means become justified so far as they would serve an end. As such you become maybe gradually but surely, the definition of what goes around for ‘bad.’ Like how smelling is bad, or smoking is bad, or killing someone is bad. You fall into that ‘bad’ category and you wouldn’t even know it.

If Nietzche was writing today, he may well have written Zarthustra as a Lawyer instead of a Preacher

2009-07-30T00:53:00.001-04:00

There was an article in the Economist that based on statistical research claimed that in the developed world: "In democracies [Economist's word for developed countries] lawyers dominate [the political scene.] This is not surprising the law deals with the same issues as politics: what makes a just society; the difference between liberty and security; and so on. Lawyerly skills-mashaling evidence, appealing to juries, command of procedure- transfer well to the political stage." (http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13496638)
And they seem right. The article compares lawyer leaders (US) to engineer leaders (China) and explores very intresting angels...trying to fit best sraight line within very scattered points.
Allow me to introduce another perspective on high concentration of lawyers among the ruling class. Oh shit...It's almost 2 am and I have to wake up at 7. Bad timing I guess. No worries. I'll point out to some similarities and leave the hypothesizing to you. This way we can both save some time.

Christian Morality = Humanist Morality
Rule of law imposed by god = Rule of law imposed by Basic Human Rights
Holy Bible = Bill of Human Rights (International Law)
Preists to interpret the word of God = Lawyers to interpret Human Rights

New Neo-marxists that was called, I can't recall, somethingism.

2009-06-15T00:56:00.000-04:00

I ran into a group that labeled themselves with an somethingISM that was supposed to be combining marxist and post-modernist. They had a way to justify wasting time on YouTube and Facebook and Twitter, and praised cyber celebrties for their originality. I asked them about alianation, and they told me they don't know what it is. I told them, your ism to philosophy, is probably more like scientology to religion than anything else.

Let's keep this one between the two of us!

2009-01-13T23:35:00.002-05:00

I like that there is a war, it works like a reminder to me. It should work like that to you too, and I guess it is already. I like to see my friends status bars, or their profile pictures dedicated to their morals. It's a very small contribution, no Palestinians but it's better than nothing. I like their passionate discussions on the war. I like my good friends. I don't like anyone I don't know though, I don't hate anyone I don't know either. But some people that I know, I think I hate, some parts of them at least. I hate war...but I don't know what that sentence is supposed to mean, because I don't really know war. I only hate the war as much as I can know about through news and reports. But, if you ask me do I hate the war more, or some of my friends that I know, I will tell you that I hate my friends more, especially if I know them well enough, or some part of them well enough. It's a sad little story...but one of my friends that I don't know very well told me that there is war because we each have tiny little demons inside us. I haven't seen that demon inside anyone, but as far as I can see inside myself, it has to be true. It has to be true for more people than me too. I used to know what good and bad was. I used be ashamed of doing something I held bad, and be proud of something I held good. It didn't matter whether the goodness, or the badness was imposed on me, or that I just chose it to be that way...it only mattered that once I held it good or bad, I would be ashamed or proud about it. There is justification now though to be proud of the things that I hold bad and ought to be ashamed of, and there is justification to be ashamed of the things that I hold good and I ought to be proud of. But some of you just let that justification be the thing you are...which so bad! I at least, question my justifications...always. I feel hypocritical having those justifications, and I know enough of myself and hypocrisy to know that I hate hypocrisy. I know that I have it though, I try to fight it, sometimes I lose, sometimes I win. But when I see you, and your self-imposed hypocrisy that is so justified, it's not a hypocrisy anymore. It's you, and when I am around you, I feel like I am smelling my own shit. It's disgusting, and yet it is so tolerable. Why? I don't know...but probably because, like my shit, in a way you are my creation too. You don't think about yourself much, while I do. But this means in our relation where you like me and I like you back, I am the creator, and you are just that atheist creation which I can only hate because I hate myself.

Come on, let's forget about it...

2009-01-04T01:43:00.003-05:00

In comments to my last note, I wrote, that my sentences are far away from being professionally well-structured, because of their lenght. Now, I've grown much more cynical ever since that note, and I think the naked truth is, some of the most professional philosophical writings are intentionally very hard to undrestand, not b/c they have long sentences but b/c they are filled with jurgons of terminology.

Prof. Roderick has a nice quote on this: "you can fit all the professors for a philosophy conference within a small boat, and if that boat sinks no body would ever understand what the hell they've been saying."

But why? You may say, well they need new terms to remove possible ambiguities in the language, and that would be right. But to what price? let me read an emotional passage of Kant in one of his most influential books Fundamental principle of the metaphysics of morals:

"...It is not only that this proceeding can never lay clam to the very rare merit of a ture philosophical popularity since there is no art in being intellegible if one renounces all throughness of insight, but also it produces a disgustingly medley of compiled observations and half-reasoned principles. Shallow pates enjoy it b/c it can be used for everyday chat..."

He's emotional, but today, a student (of philosophy at least) must use all sorts of terminologies that leave no room even for the most intelligent of writers to express some sort of attitude, or view outside those bounds. It's all as if, philosophy, very intentionally wants its readers to be a very selected few. So it organizes this complex language. Nietzsche and Hume wrote in the language,that was spoken and understood by people easier. The Greeks too, didn't have new terms for every new concept. Everyone could understand Plato, or Aristotle. Nobody ever thought that philosophy was a waste of time back then, b/c it was out of touch. It's easy for the philosopher to ignore all this though. When accused for being out-of-touch, he'd just say, as I have said to friends before myself: "Philosophy is in fact about the issues that you deal with everyday but are too much of a dam fool to really think about it as deeply as I do." and that's supposed to make you feel like a deep thinker. A lie you would inevitability, and eventually start to believe.

Alas, in this world where ignorance seems to be such an eternal bliss, that even the much anticipated candidate of hypocritical hope, the mr. president-elect has the audacity to ignore sending a blunt message to Israeli air strikes. Alas, if the harvard educated role model is like that, we shall just go and BOGH BEZANIM. (persian idiom meaning crudely that you're just better off doing nothing at all..or that you are condemned to a verdict of complete triviality)

And indeed, I am living in dark times. That's how I like to think about it, sometimes at least. I just like to forget, you see. I choose to ignore. I am unlike, many of my good friends who believe there is system of market capitalism, or a machinery that produces ignorance, or a (now more popular neo-marxist phrase) ministry of truth that defines the truth for us through images. I do think there are images, and alternative truths, but some form of truth is out there too, and you can't just deny that. In the end, we are the ones that decide to be fed with these alter realities or not.

At work, I can read about the air-strikes. I look at the now famous palestinian girl looking into the camera, (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/dec/28/gaza-attacks-israel-palestine?picture=341149884) and no matter what I say during my short-lived moment of sadness, I am just really saying: "Awww, this little girl is too cute to be stuck in that horrible world of terror that doesn't even exist for me. I just wish she was here." If I don't choose to look at the rest of the war picture, and read the rest of what is really happening, her image would be just an icon in my mind representing the war. Then I would conveniently walk in Eaton Center through all the busy shoppers on my lunch break, and nicole kidman, and charliz theron would become my icons of something stuff, and then the little girl is degraded and lost, along with all the misery, and pain that really does exist. Her image becomes dull, as I forget to remember her struggle for life. In all this, it's still me, and I know it's me because I consciously choose to get away from the grim news, b/c for me it's the time for celebration for the new year.

It's the very same me that chooses to write in harder to swallow vocabulary, that uses philosophical name-droppings for everything, and longer sentences to make everything even harder. All so that I can ignore You, my reader. So that I can feed my vanity, and forget you really existed as my judgmental reader in the first place. So you see, I think I do have a choice, and I don't make it the right way, do YOU?

Oh Please! You have the Intellectual's Malady!? really! Ok.

2008-12-20T04:40:00.000-05:00

Sartre had the intellectual's Malady, Hume had a long lasting depression. Nietzsche, some say, went crazy over it, Marx suffered from a chronic form which he ended up turning alienation into a philosophy. But please..don't tell me you have it too. I mean, I'll probably hang myself if something like that happens to you. Philosophy is not the 70s that you revive as a fashion! It's also not you looking like broke piece of artwork colored disproportionately shallow by paint and messed up hair. Philosophy is thinking...and thinking is the real deal...you can't pretend to be thoughtful, like you pretend to be an artist or 70s cooler, it just doesn't work that way. Because the manifestation of your thoughts is beyond your writing, and your work...it's in the logic, and the intuition that communicate with the common sense of a middle aged mom whose favorite show is Desperate Housewives (god I hate that show.) So please! Don't show me your confused writing and tell me you have intellectual's malady. You just have a malady. Get some pills.

In case u wondered, MY Life is composed of stories worth telling

2008-12-19T04:37:00.001-05:00

When it comes down to choice, we have too many of them, and our philosophers are just too happy to have to sit around talking/writing nonsense on how mind/brain perceives freedom that only 7 of their colleagues would understand. Soon, it'll all be over though, sooner than you might even think. Questions even as seemingly important as choice and freedom all will fade away like a fog, a ghost that never even existed but in your imagination when there is no choice to make in the first place. No wonder one of the peaks of philosophy was in ancient Greece, when food was already always on the table before you had to start thinking, and slaves were tools for comfort of thinker. It's even hypocritical in a sense, but that's not the point now, is it. When our choices of selecting what to need, and what to compose the essentials of our lives of narrows down, there is only one thing you can do, and that's the 'do' itself.

If the financial meltdowns continue, and if the markets keep collapsing like they are right now, if people continue keeping their money, and home prices continue going down while homeowners wait for the price to go up, and home buyers wait for the price to go further down...soon you don't have to make a choice between what is right and easy, there will be no moral questions left to deal with, just economic ones. After many years of non-stop prosperity, you are so used to HAVING things, used to confusing your needs and wants, used to planning vacations and buying expensive gifts, and feeling tap-on-a-shoulder-like about the child you supported in a faraway land in Africa (let's not remind you of the extent of your wisdom about the continent itself.) Soon it'll all be over. I am looking forward to a downturn in economy, it makes me HAPPY...really genuinely HAPPY, because that's when the real differences come out. Let me be the first out of my job. We can sit all day and discuss whether it's right to maximize happiness or instead do what is right in itself, but right now we would always end up either agreeing with each other, or find the question unimportant and the discussion irrelevant. Soon though all of our lives would be stories worth telling all if the recession comes, and even if depression follows of course.

Moral Relativism

2008-11-23T13:50:00.003-05:00

For the Greeks, something was a subject of study when it was orderly...also for the Greeks, a measure of a citizen was by his powers to settle an argument by providing the more convincing argument. That's was the difference between slaves and free citizens because Slaves could not argue their views, they had to obey. In pre-Socrates times, there is a general category of large group of thinkers known as Sophists (from Latin Sophia: Wisdom) who were very practiced in art of speech and arguments, and they offered their productive thinking methods in all aspect of knowledge: physics, Chemistry, Philosophy, Astronomy, Business, Policy, Law and more. These people educated others on argumentation and persuasiveness and received compensation in return, very similar to our own modern systems. Everybody is in it for something to ‘essentially make a living out of it’, and that phrase is supposed to make everything all right, it’s supposed to justify extending wisdom for compensation, instead of replacing wisdom for compensation.

In the midst of all this wisdom and wisdom seekers with their flourishing arguments for each branch of knowledge, one of the dominant arguments was the relativist view which was seen essential to the Athenian democracy and even today to our tolerance of each other within our own ‘democracies’. Because it seemed through relativism that two could reach the mutual respect for one another and their views, and that would I suppose probably require that both sides produce an argument that was flawless within its own setting. "Man is the measure of all things" Protagoras puts it. He means that every thing is relative so far as seen through the eyes of the individual, and even today this seems to the knock-down argument in a lot of cases especially regarding to arts. More commonly in circle of friends talking about a movies too when soon after a disagreement reveals itself between two arguing parties a third ostensibly more sophisticated points of view would come up and say very bigger brotherly:"Well…you are both right, after all, it’s just a matter of perspective, you like it, and you don’t."

True true: It doesn’t seem to be you can be saying anything at this point and still manage to fully respect your fellows. This kind of relativism does seems to be ultimate doomsday weapon against the dogmatist (any view-holder in this case) who brutally and stubbornly insists on his point of view, whether you are talking about Arts, whether you're talking about you liked a movie or not, or whether you're discussing a sensitive and controversial moral issue. In fact, who am I to call a Fool he or she who calls the Dark Night a boring Comic made into film, or Fight Club just another Hollywood violent motion picture? There is democracy in the west and I find myself committed to it and its general view of respect for others’ ideas. But please may I ask you to save me the bigger brotherly/sisterly bull that I should cool it down on my insistence on my points because 'everyone is right to a certain point, they have to be'. The fact that I see in myself and sometimes in others is that many people are wrong, and they are wrong to me, and they are even often wrong to themselves, and even more often they admit that they are wrong to themselves even though they might not tell it to anyone or even accept it.

So, it's true. I despise the pool of relativism that seems to have become the thinker-wanna-bes' comfort zone. and I despise it for the following reasons, where these reasons are not a product of my feeble mind but nevertheless series of thoughts that I recollected from what I have studied in the past:

1) Very early on in the history of philosophy...in fact where many hold to be the starting point of philosophy Socrates asked this question:"Is the sentence, 'every truth is relative', itself an absolute truth? or is it relative itself?

2) Let’s think about claims of relativism. There are three step to the harder to disprove version of the argument:

A. Different cultures differ in fundamental ethical beliefs

B. An action right in one culture may be wrong in another one, therefore there are no moral truths

C. It is therefore wrong to pass judgment on those with different ethical values

Apparently A follows B follows C. In order to have No Moral truths at all in Step B, we must have no single ethical belief that is wrong in all cultures as they exist today at least. So if I find an ethical belief that is wrong or right across all cultures today, I can claim that at least in our times culture relativism is not true. So here we go: “killing children for sport.”, or even less radical one: Righteousness of Truth-telling. But all cultures hold truth-telling right, or they wouldn’t even be able to survive passing information to one another. Another problem is that A claims a fact about moral values, but B claims a belief about moral values. Would it follow if from the truth of the fact that I ‘the world is flat’, the belief that ‘the world is flat’ proposition is right? Well! No. Neither is any other of my beliefs about non-existence of extraterrestrials. So it shouldn’t follow from the ‘fact’ that all cultures differ in moral values to the ‘belief’ that cultures have all different values. There might one day be the case that a moral value would be common across all cultures as there is the case today.

Even if A and B are true, and A follows B, transition from B to C is not true. This is the same as Socrates argument. B: No moral truths and C: Wrong to pass Judgment to those with different values. But isn’t C itself a moral truth that the relativist position would like to hold true. But the very holding of C as true would already undermine one of the presumptions that the relativist made to get to this cliam.

Now, I do agree with democracy, and I actually very easily submit to coherently logical claims of which I have no prior information of, because I respect the power of a sound argument, and I don’t care who and from what background says it. I also think that there are some values whose moral worth are different from culture to culture, but certainly not all values are like that. So, next time that you discuss X with me either agree with me, because you understand my reasons and think they are flawless or disagree with me and tell that this specific claim is relative to different cultures....but please don't tell me that you agree with me, because you agree with relativism and either of us could be right or wrong; that you think you are right too because everyone would have a perspective on the X. I put thought into what I believe is right, and that lazy position you take by stopping to think further on your own arguments would be an insult to my intelligence. Thanks for your considerations.

My Confessions: Flawed Logic raises you, only to smash you harder

2008-09-11T11:43:00.005-04:00

There is indeed, a problem with ever gazing into the depths of what goes for thinking these days; The art of questioning oneself. I feel sympathy towards Hume and what he called "the disease of the learned", how far would this disease motivate me to explore the boundaries of my world-view and thinking in general? I do not know! But one thing that has for some time now come to a resolution for me is that I may not be as smart as I've thought I am; not only in regards to thinking analytically, and creatively, but also in important matters that concern clarity of expressions of philosophical thought. And this would prohibit my explorations in to the realms of thinking whether I like it or not.

I've always thought that you would have to know a lot, once you find out that you don't know. This admittance to my own lack of potency however, despite its voluntarily nature, doesn't come close to solve the problem. What I mean is, in my case, being knowledgeable enough to know that you don't know is never enough. And So I am left wondering to myself, whether I belong to the lecture rooms that I attended every once in a while only now to psychologically soothe or suppress my post-confessionary expressions of self, or to my own private corner where I can content with fantasizing about the ostensible brilliance of my now limited thoughts.

There is still a bright side to all of this though. My anti-depressant is once again prescribed by Dr. Nietzsche. He quotes Heinrich von Kleist and how he falls down with the severe depressions caused by the 'disease of the learned' when Kleist finds out that his philosophically constructed reality of life is shattered by the beast logical Kantian critique of pure and practical reason:

"Not long ago," he writes [Nietzsche quoting Von Kliest] in his moving way, "I became acquainted with the Kantian philosophy—and I now have to tell you of a thought I derived from it, which I feel free to do because I have no reason to fear it will shatter you so profoundly and painfully as it has me. —We are unable to decide whether that which we call truth really is truth, or whether it only appears to us to be. If the latter, then the truth we assemble here is nothing after our death, and all endeavor to acquire a possession which will follow us to the grave is in vain. —If the point of this thought does not penetrate your heart, do not smile at one who feels wounded by it in the deepest and most sacred part of his being. My one great aim has failed me and I have no other." [Letter to Wilhelmine von Zenge, Mar. 22, 1801.]

Realizing how flawed logic can raise me by my pride, only to smash me harder to the ground, at least now when I have stripped myself bare of my pride and hopefully prejudices, I am conservatively safer from the the flaws that my own logic can inflict on my world-view. I just hope that I could find some sort of clothing before the busy winter of daily life consumes me completely.

Only Now I will understand

2008-08-05T02:04:00.012-04:00

Now, when you sleep, you can hear the clock ticking, When you are happy, you are quite, and when you are sad you are loud, and something is distancing itself away. When you are awake, you force purpose to lose a segment of its definition, and it takes all of your energy, and it withers you away, piece after piece you strip your heart with your mind. You are making your curves a square, and then if somebody touch you, just as if they touch a dry rose, you'll break into thousand tiny little pieces, and the wind would carry you. Nevertheless you still move on. You move on, and you're vigorous just to move on and feel vita, and control how you feel the way you do and so vitally so.
And all the while, it all seems as if a strong wall is pushing you to stop idly by, doing nothing, and things around you go faster and faster every second after second, you seem to stand idly while singing a song with the purpose of purposelessness. You find out in youth how easy it is to be an old man, to stare, and how everything the sun, the moon, and the stars all come together to make you stop moving.
Only then you would see that all the poets and poetry that eulogizes feverishness of youth hood and despises the stillness of age are nothing but common nonsensical blabber of lost opportunities. How easy it is to yield, to stop and take a rest. To become purposeless. Only then you would see, that You can find out how easy it is to wrinkle your skin and discover white hair in a matter of days. Only then you would see, that to lose your youth is more than loss of opportunities.
And then you will understand that you're old only when you stare, and think, just one thought for a small moment, then you look at your watch and the hands of the clock have mercilessly gone by for couple of hours. You will understand that you're older only when your memories circle around you like whirlwind, and you can think about them while forgetting them too. and Only when you stare, you stare at blazes of fire, you stare at the waves of the sea, and anything that moves randomly repetitive.
You think to yourself, it's so easy to waste time, to become an old man, and be stop and enjoy the little things...then every day becomes and hour, and every hour becomes a second, and you find yourself traveling forward in time to the future. You stopping and everything else just moving on. So you will know how it is to become old, and how you may start to search outside of your self for the change that should have been found within. and you may be content with anything that moves. Worse than the fellow who lost his keys in the dark corner of an alley and looked beneath the lamps in another corner. And how disgustingly juicy and delicious it must be for you, the red greasy meat of laziness, that lets you represent the change you once sought within, in the movement of something that transcends you far beyond your self, weather it's fire, waves, work, new relationships, people or gods.
How strong you have to be, to face your memories and problems head on, and stand, like a rock, against the waves of laziness, against all that soothing sounds that bewitches you to sleep. How meticulous you have to be to let nothing, not even a neuron of memory, to get away without your uninvited attention to lands where the neurons can amuse themselves with hours of work, or hefty books, and hollow relationships.
And all that strength, takes all of your energy in, and leaves nothing out, but nevertheless, you will stand. You stand, and you're strong just to stand and feel strong, and happy to control how you feel the way you do, and sad to be forcing yourself to be a polygon.

Under the Skin from Qom

2008-07-28T23:46:00.001-04:00

(respects to friends for whom I made this note milder)
The holy city of Qom is rumored to be the cit of "both pilgrimage and pleasure", as such poisoning from home-made alcohol and prostitution is unusually common in the city that also bears the holy shrine. BBC and Associated Press have confirmed some of these rumors. But to be there and smell the rotting of the pillars of a society you belong to in hypocrisy of Islam and all in the name of what is holy just makes your stomach twist and your heart ache, leaving you eating your insides even worse than how the disease is eating the society inside out. Here's an observation:

The Kashan-Qom-Tehran highway goes through the heart of the desert lands of Iran. Even if you have the luxury of a modern car with a strong air-conditioning, rays of the sun still manage to penetrate through the glass to heat up the surface of you skin. On your right there are ever-white wastelands of salted earth known as the Salt Lake that cut through the horizon on your right, and on your left greenless semi-tall mountains covered with sundry short bushes home unexpectedly giant vultures occasionally fly in large circles searching for stranded sheep from the herd.

Even if you would tolerate nature for the sake of nature, stopping in the rest areas would still challenge your patience, with flies, and washrooms with piles of shit waiting to welcome you as you try each room. But there is one rest area that doesn't. The most modern rest area in the whole country is situated in the vicinity of Holy city of Qom, on the Highway to the capital Tehran. There is a fast food section, there is a restaurant and there is a traditional tea house. The cooled area also hosts perfume shops, sunglasses, watches, and other classy luxury items at very affordable prices. Normal inter-city Buses are not let in, only Tours.

As you walk in several things attract your attention, first is the cool air, then the shops and the restaurants, and later the clean washrooms. But only if you look at some of customers covered with traditional 'chador' who gather in groups of 5 to 6 around the perfume shops, would you be able to recognize their heavy make ups and glowing eyes behind the colored lens. As they walk you could hear their high heels quietly but inevitably make contact with the marble-like stone of the rest-area floor going: dagh, dogk. The all look incredibly young, certainly less than 20 at most, and as they walk outside the rest area, the desert wind, pulls away the lower parts of the chador to reveal thin naked skin, or long boots.

They walk out of a rest-area and sit on the side-ways of the entrance visible to weary travelers who rush in to escape the sun. One of them, who seems older, and bears less make up answers a call, and as she talks on her cell she waves her hand to others sitting lazily in the sun. As they get up, they carelessly slip the chaodor until only the heels are visible, and they head up towards two cars that just arrived to the rest area, and a bus that doesn't seem to be a tour bus.

Under the Skin from North Tehran

2008-06-13T08:04:00.003-04:00

I was reading my favorite book. It was a very quite night, beside from me murmuring the some of my words the only voice I could hear were the crickets of the gardens surrounding the house. It was early morning too, late in night but still well before daybreak, when I heard engines of what was probably a weak motor of a small car trying to make it uphill to where I was living. My old, mediocre house in North Tehran was the second building from the end of the alley, and the old school yellow bricks that made it whole, distinguished it from the shiny white and red luxury condo on its left. She parked her small red car right in front of my windows, probably unaware that I was sleepless that night, busying myself with engine sounds that broke the silence of my night. She turned off the engine. There was silence again, but she didn’t exit the vehicle. If the car were yellow I would have thought, there is cabby looking for a location on the map. It was one of the common cars you thousands of in the streets. It was an old model too, and the color had worn off, but you could still distinguish the rare red color the car showed. It was probably one of the few models that had painted bright red back in the days when these cars were mass produced by Iran Khodro. I could not see her face from my second floor window. I could only see her hands moving on something quickly, going up to where was probably her face, and then coming down, and busying themselves once more. It was as if she was putting some make up. But I guessed that she was probably a party girl late for home, very late if you ask me, and was cleaning her make up in case dear daddy would be awake. I got bored and went back to my book. After what seemed like a long time, I heard a car door disturbing the silence of the night! I thought she should have been sure gone by now. I looked out of the window again. She had got off the car and was now turning around the car toward to the passenger seat to check the locks. As she faced me, I could recognize her tired but very pretty face, there was a very red lipstick, and some eye shadows but she did not seem heavily made up. She went to pick something from the back seat. As she went for what seemed like a bag, her veil fell off and leaving me facing her long brown hair with blonde highlights. She had her hair clipssed on the top, and seemed indifferent to put the veil back up again. There was no one in the alley, and there couldn’t be any cops around at this late hours of the night. I felt bad invading her privacy like that, but I couldn’t help wondering why she had not cleared all of her makeup. As she started walking toward the luxury condo at the end of the alley, I busied myself with my book again, but my thoughts had stayed with her. I wished her luck with her parents probably sleeping in their big fancy rooms in the luxury condo. They were probably of the strict type or else she would have had a much better car to party this late at night. There was silence again, except for the period for the early morning prayers where I could hear my favorite broadcast of Azan from the mosque closest to my place: “I swear to the one and only true God, I swear to the one and only true prophet, and I swear to the one and only true Imam.” I snorted at my repeating the words, as the harmony of the voice of my favorite Azan singer still hummed in my ear from the distance. After all, the book I was holding in my hands had been the one who first killed god.

Almost two hours passed, and I had sunk back to my book again. Ever since, she left, the night had gone darker before it goes for the daybreak. My room was getting more light now, and I could hear the birds starting their day. I went back up to the window. There was no sound besides the little sparrows and occasionally the big black crows placing themselves sharply on the trees above the red car. As I was looking, I heard steps, in a faster than usual pace, I waited and it was her again. Her vail was lazily covering her brown her, and the blonde highlights were streaming down from behind the vail on her back. Her lipstick was gone, and her bag-purse thing was half open. She looked even more tired but still She quickly put herself in the small red car, put the purse thingy on the passenger seat, and started the car. The engine didn’t turn on the first time, but when it did, she quickly left my sight towards the main street at the other side of my silent alley…and then, I understood, she was not going home, and she was not cleaning make up. She was putting it on.

favorite quote in context

2008-05-26T17:45:00.002-04:00

"Several years have now passed since I first realized how numerous were the false opinions that in my youth I had taken to be true, and thus how doubtful were all those that I had subsequently built upon them. And thus I realized that once in my life I had to raze everything to the ground, if I wanted to establish anything firm and lasting in the sciences. But the task seemed enormous, and I was waiting until I reached a point in my life that was so timely that no more suitable time for undertaking these plans of action would come to pass. For this reason I procrastinated for so long that I would henceforth be at fault, were I to waste the time that remains for carrying out the project by brooding over it. Accordingly, I have today, suitably freed my mind from all cares. Secured for myself a period of leisurely tranquility and am withdrawing into solitude. At last, I will apply myself earnestly and most unreservedly to this general demolition of opinions."

From Meditations on First Philosophy: Book I
by Renè Descartes

"... suitably freed my mind from all cares. Secured for myself a period of leisurely tranquility and am withdrawing into solitude. At last, I will apply myself earnestly and most unreservedly to this general demolition of opinions."

I am no Abraham. I'll keep the child and kill the god.

2008-05-24T19:14:00.007-04:00

There is a land far far away, where the sun like an old master painter paints blue skies with white clouds. In this land, man and woman-made structures dissolve in nature, and in their gardens branches of ever-green trees aim for the skies only to make up the extensions of building's curvatures. The land prospers with knowledge and, technology excels as hard-working people benefit technology and technology benefits them. This is a land where every other land is just a faint shadow of. In this land, young boys and girls bike up and down the streets, an parking spots hold newer efficient cars, or shining classic models. The streets are clean, and the population is young, smart and ever thriving. Every body is grown up, and yet still all push themselves towards more and even more sophistication and wisdom. Philo-sophia: of Love of Wisdom truly manifests itself and feverish youthful minds are committed to this manifestation and direct themselves at its direction. Their commitment extends the boundaries of dedication. Their minds swell with fresh ideas about the ideals they are helping create, and all the while structuralize their surroundings, and along with it, structuralize their minds' causal powers. In this far far away land, they tame undesired sharp effects of mental phenomena by whips of logic and bridles and saddles of predetermined rules that dictate the patterns of behavior. Raw feelings are baked with fried bacon and cheese, and different spices are added to it, so that feelings would taste as they should, not as they are. Political centrist is the political correct, and the political rebel is the fun-loving Robin Hood of his ego and the strict Sheriff of her Nothingham surroundings. Every piece of the puzzle fits, because if it doesn't ideas would create one that does. Emotional intelligence is measured, and manipulated to serve the mind and its well being. In the midst of all this, the no-child-left-behind program leaves every child behind, not because it doesn't educate children, but because too early children leave behind their childhood to become grown ups. This land is far far away for he who is a child in the mold of a grown up. Its borders are closed to she who has got rid of her childhood little pleasure-driven hedonist piggy, but still dares laugh heartily like a child would laugh and dares cry carefreely like a child would cry.
This land works on ironically true principles of selfishness that are nevertheless truly true. Every man for himself, every woman for herself, everyone for themselves. But all people abide by determined rules that undermine these very principles; rules whose mere existence is a disgrace to human want, and human desire, and the nevertheless-true-principles. I am telling you this, because I have been in that land, (or at least I thought I was, if the land is a fictional destination) and I have suffered from the contradictions that it suffers. Despite all of its glory, I just couldn't give up my childhood, but if you want to grow up it's the best place you could be at. But for me the choice was clear, I rather live on my own earth, laugh loudly, and cry whenever I feel. I rather ride my horse without a saddle, without whips and bridles. I had a little want-all brat piggy and got rid of it. Now, all I have left is a little feel-all selfish enough 7-year-old embodied in a man. I'll let the man, my man, want all he can, but in that I won't sacrifice the child, even if I have to sacrifice the rule maker.

How should Nietzsche-Kant dialogue let you feel...

2008-05-22T13:25:00.001-04:00

my steps have become smaller and my breathe has become shorter. My bodily muscles have deteriorated, and I have exempted myself from all activity. I do not eat, and I do not sleep nor do I take comfort in any comforting thought. I am constantly thinking of this war, and how I rather be with you instead. How I rather be at war with you rather than hypocritical smugglers of hope and life...
I rather be at war with you, where there are no dirty tricks...just the voice of reason, my reason. How I long for you. The more I search for you the more I lose my binds with my surroundings, with the people, and the environment, the more I sink into the depths of my loneliness, and the more I sink the more I know there is more to this abyss. One day I shall touch upon that which is there once again, and this time I won't let it slip away so easily.

Friendly or Grim

2008-04-02T23:15:00.000-04:00

Future is friendly or grim? It's all a matter of perspective isn't it, and in the midst of all this, Time is just an illusion anywayz.

And since when there's been a true perspective? Either Grim or friendly that you can fully convince me of? Think harder,

There you go! You know it as well as I do. Your best answer is no answer.

So, I'll just choose the friendly one and watch out for the Grim ones & in that choice my now becomes mine, whether I choose it on my own or the grim-ness causes me to choose it for myself.

For now, I'd just enjoy life....

2008-03-10T20:23:00.000-04:00

In at least one way I shall always look forward to my death. Finally, this darkness, this confusion, this anticipation for something so different would come to an end and all of my mind would light up in understanding in its most pure sense, even if it is nothing into which I would fully immerse myself.

Last Chapters: Death is only the Beginning

2008-02-28T23:23:00.001-05:00

The doctor told him that he had Exotropia, and by now he was old enough to understand that this couldn't be something good. The doctor told him that his problem was not uncommon:"It's often times seen in early infants, and in children of ages 6 or 7, it also appears in people with Brain tumors, but we don't need to worry about that last one." He did not care how common the problem was. Even if the disease was some kind of tumor it didn't bother him as much as he was bothered by the prospects that he would not perceive the world in the original sense that he used to do.

What was he losing here? What he sees would not be the same, and has not been the same for a while, and he had not been aware... He was curious to know more:"thanks, doctor, but what happens here? I would not be able to see things as before right?" The doctor seemed to have felt the worried curiosity, and said:"It's all a simple physical process. Your brain's ability to see three-dimensional objects depends on proper alignment of your eyes. When both eyes are properly aligned and aimed at the same target, the visual portion of the brain fuses the forms into a single image. When one eye turns outward two different pictures are sent to the brain."

"what about my mind though?" He left this thought in his heart. "there must be way that my thoughts that seem immaterial affect my material body!" As he was weighing these thoughts, thinking how his mind and body can interact. As he was sinking deeper and deeper into his thoughts the doctor turned around walked behind his desk, sat on his squeaking chair and started jotting down some notes on a prescriptions paper. He leaned forward to look what the doctor was writing, when it suddenly hit him. All those images, that he's been preoccupied with as a kid and even later as a young adult, all those duplications of lines of his handwritings, there were are nothing but problem with his vision of the world. All this time, and he had befriended them and had even named them. He had talked to one of them. All this parallel universe that he had thought existed but had learned to forget about, was not even there in the first place. The psychiatry clinic, how can he forget...he had been forced to forget, but was constantly reminded of the world had created for himself. He thought, how easily can his mind play the greatest tricks on himself.

The doctor made an attention demanding noise, that took him away from his thoughts. He suddenly noticed that he'd been quite for a while, not even as small a movement as a nod to the doctor's explanations. The doctor didn't say anything either. He just started mumbling the notes that he had took, while throwing him a glance to see if he is sinking again. Feeling uncomfortable, he looked at the notes on the desk and asked: "so is it serious?"

He knew that the doctor had recognized his anxiety. "I know you might be a little worried, but this is no serious condition. In fact, there is a very easy treatment" said the doctor.
He looked the doctor in the eye and impatiently replied: "I rather wear glasses than contact lenses, at least for now."

The doctor, looked at him and chuckled: "no, no... glasses would make your condition even worse." He could tell his eyes were widening in wonder. The doctor continued: "You see, there are six muscles that control eye movement, four that move it up and down and two that move it side to side. All these muscles must be coordinated and working properly in order for the brain to see a single image. These muscles like every other muscle in your body can get weaker or stronger. Now, your problem is that your muscles that should keep your eye in place, are not only too weak, but they've been so rarely used, that your brain has seem to lost control over them. Just like when you can't straighten up your ring finger, as you straighten up your middle one" He chuckled a little more at his own joke and said: "You are going to train your eye muscles. The instructions are here on this note. I've written for you an exercise, just do this 50 times a day, and after a month you eyes should become better." The doctor then stood up, and so did he. He took the note and said good-bye hurrying himself out of the clinic.

He was feeling better by now, after all, if there was an exercise that could fix him up for good, then he had no reason to be sad about his vision at least in the future. He opened up the doctor's note, but what he saw seemed to be directly written for him. The note read: "sit relaxedly, take pen or pencil and stare at it, bring it closer and closer to your eyes until, it gets duplicated. Then try to bring the second image into the first one. when done, take the pencil closer, and try again, until the object reached the tip of your nose. then start this all over again. Do this 50 to 100 times a day."

All this time, he's been trying to think hard to forcefully forget about all the duplicates that had constructed for himself, and now he had to un-think them all back. He had to unearth his abilities to create duplicates and this time face them and force them into one, instead of just forgetting about them, and so he did. He did the exercise twice a day, hoping to get his vision better, and meanwhile, unavoidably he gained a lot of control over his eye muscles. But before the first problem started to go away, his vision of the world seemed to have developed a new capacity.

After months of daily practice with the pen, and then with other objects, he seemed to have become capable of making duplicates out of anything and then make the disappear again. Laughing at himself, and his earlier memories, he now once again often looked at the mirror and said: "Hi, Fred, Bye Fred." and again and again: "Hi, Fred, Bye Fred."

He seemed to be in total control of what his mind had once posited on him by itself. He felt good, and nothing else was seriously bothering him. When he got to university, he decided to do double major in Computer Science and Philosophy. He liked what he studied, but post-secondary education was a whole lot different than any other sort of learning experience he has had. There was pressure, and there were deadlines. But besides all that, there was a more fundamental difference. University seemed much more like real life. Under the pressure of readings and essays and computer assignments, he noticed that he is always facing a choice, whether to do the best job that he can using his academic skills on his work to get the best mark that he can, or whether to best job that he can using his behavioral and negotiating skills on other's work to get the best mark that he can. There was always a choice for him whether to copy and assignment or do it on himself. But as the deadlines piled up toward the end of every semester, the second option usually ended up to be the more attractive one.

Now, he had been brought up, getting to know his smart older brother, and his mother constantly reminding him of right and wrong. he had grown up in a family where his dad would not stop telling samurai stories on their picnics and his brother would force him to confess his lies to his parents. He thought he had a sense of honor, and he felt at times that what seemed honorable to him contradicted, even hindered his values for social well-being and even academic achievements.

In university life, and later during his employment, he learned to unearth all those habits that he had while growing up, and compromise them, when he needed a better mark, or even better friends to hang out with. Later these skills, tremendously helped him with his job with bigger firms, and even with his philosophy studies. the choices were countless...he could have started his own business, become his own employee, but when he got a good offer from a big firm he changed his mind. His philosophy dissertation was a new work, focusing on mind after death, and how it interacts with the body, but with the suggestion of his supervisor he decided to continue the supervisor's work and instead get his dissertation done a year sooner than expected.

He did not compromise on anything though, he always said to his friends:"Some boundaries I shall never pass, and I don't care what's on the other side." He felt good, he felt good about how he has overwhelming control over his mental state, and the duplicates, and how that control is reflected in his real life. All was well...till that ominous day.

He was taking the subway to work. They had an important financial firm as their client, whom his company could not afford to displease. So, after a laborious weekend of debugging and integration of codes, he had planned to got up earlier than usual on that Monday morning. But he was running late, and he skipped breakfast. He wasn't used to the crowded subway transit of the morning rush. His job environment was relaxed, he often worked from home, and even if he did go to his office, he never left without having a long breakfast well after the rush hour was over. In the subway, he thought he had never seen this many people squeezed this badly together just to get to work, and seemed people were used to this because he could swore some of them were eating their breakfast in the train, or even napping while standing up, holding their hands here and there to avoid bumping into others. He did feel very hungry, he didn't remember having a big dinner last night either, and he did feel sleepy.

"Something is really wrong here. I can't breathe" He thought to himself. The train made a stop and felt his hand loosening the hold, so instead he tried to make his way through people so that he can lean on the doors. The sign on the doors read:"Do not lean on the doors." He'd never seen the sign, after all, when there was no rush hour he had always comfortably sat in the train, sometimes even stretching his legs. He felt weak. As he leaned on the door ignoring the sign, he faced a short lady in business style clothing. She was leaning on the door too, and she hold a muffin in her hand. "I'll do anything to for that muffin right now." he said to himself. He though of stopping at the next station to get something to eat before he collapses. But before he pictured the doughnut shop at the next station completely, he felt his back pushing less and less on the door. His legs went numb, he felt like he was collapsing on the ground. He moved his hands to grab something, anything, but there was none, he weakly whispered "help", as he fell down on his back. The last thing that he saw was the lady in front of him screaming, and the muffin falling off her hand. He then heard the train coming to a screeching halt, but at this point, everything was already dark.

He was still in the dark, and he started to feel pain on his back and on his cheeks. As he tried to open his eyes, he saw two big hands that were already coming at his right cheek, and a large black man's mouth fumbling something like: "Are ... okay?, the ambulance ... way."
"Ouuh." He said as the hands hit him on the cheek. "I am awake don't hit me anymore buddy." The man stopped his hands, but he wasn't listening to him, he was shouting at an Asian lady:"Get back, get back, I am a nurse, a nurse I tell you, and he needs air right now." The Asian lady was shrieking back in a worried voice: "I am a doctor I can help." But the man was persistent. In midst of all this, somebody was holding his hand, some random white guy with a rain coat and a tie, he thought he was the one that had tried to hold him while he was falling. So he squeezed his hand, the nurse was still shouting at people, and the doctor had already backed off to the front of the circle that people made around him. He was already feeling better. He tried to recognize the face of the man in tie, and he did see a blurry face at first. The face became vivid soon, but the blur wasn't what worried him. He was seeing two faces. He opened and close his eyes quickly, and turned to look at the black man. He saw two faces again. Everywhere things were in double. The black man turned to look at him:"okay, follow my finger with your eyes buddy?" As he started to move his fingers in front of his face he said:" I am Jeff by the way, what's your name?" He followed the fingers and said:"I am seeing double." The black man said:"Great, I think your brain is fine, you can move your body muscles and you can follow my finger. Lie here until the ambulance comes."

"I feel fine, I have to get to work right now." He tried to talk back to the black man's to heads. Just give me something sweet and I'll be on my way. "no way man, your pressure is too low."
He felt disappointed, and even worse, he was seeing double, everything now was double, In the midst of all this they had moved the train to the next station, and there were now police officers evacuating people from the train so that the ambulance crew can get in.

He gave up. He didn't care about his blood pressure. The ambulance crew came, he saw four people, with two beds, and four police officers pushing curious people out of the way, as the four people carried him in two beds. He saw two ambulances, and two old ladies starting down at him while he was pushed into the ambulance. In the ambulance he saw two ladies getting his blood pressure from his two right hands. He close his eyes at the sting of the two needles, and he kept them the close.

In the hospital nurses came, and needled him again and again for different experiments. All this time he kept his eyes closed. They took his heart rate with a what he could tell was a big printing machine with scopes coming out of it. Then the doctor came. The man's voice was deep and hurried but confident. He said: "The nurse told me you haven't open your eyes, and you've even refused to open them. and you're not talkative at all." He thought to himself: "easy for you to say."
"We are checking for brain damage, if your vision is blurry or anything else, we have to know. People don't faint for no reason you know." He then started pushing his hands and legs:"try to prevent me moving you arms...Ok, that seems fine, now you legs...ok..." The doctor worked almost every muscle in his body. He then said:"Everything seems all right, now, do you want to tell me what's wrong with your vision."
"I am seeing double." he said impatiently, still keeping his eyes closed. "Double? you mean you have binocular vision?" asked the doctor. "No! I am seeing double" he barked. He then opened his eyes, and pointed close to where the doctor was standing and said "I see you here, and here" while moving his fingers from right to left, where the doctor was actually standing. I see two of you Doc, I see two of this pencil you're holding, two of this nurse beside you. I am seeing duplicates." The doctor said in a surprised question as if he expected no answer:"Duplicates!?". "Doubles, I mean I see doubles every where. and they move and talk and do stuff." The doctor turned around and whispered something to the nurse, she then hurried out of the small room that he was in. "What did you tell her?" He tried not to yell.

The doctor ignored his question, looked at his notes and said: "There are many reasons one can faint, most of them are not serious, but some of them are, and if they are they tend to be very serious, cuz your brain doesn't lose hold of your body for no normal reason. If you are fed and the condition continues like in your case, we usually check for brain tumors. Now, I am going to ask you a question and you have to be honest. Have you ever had this problem before? this vision problem."

He thought for while: Have I EVER had this problem?! Oh I don't know. did I!?" He gave a smear out, and said: "Yes." There was a knock on the door, and the nurse came in, and he saw four other men following her into the room. The men divided to two pairs and stood by each side of his bed. He thought the doctor had become worried. He probably had become he had gone nuts from the brain damage, and might become agile, what else could these bulky guys be here for. The doctor nodded to the nurse and said to him:" Ok, you seem fine beside your double vision, so we're going to put you in another room, until someone comes to pick you up, and then you have to rest. We are going to scan your brain for tumors today, and until the results come up you have to rest."

He felt that he has to be there for a while. He closed his eyes again, and remembered how, Fred, his imaginary duplicated friend, had always disappeared when he had lost focus on him. "Are the duplicates losing focus when he had his eyes close?" He thought to himself. It was a long day, and the fact that he couldn't read any book or watch any TV, made it even longer. The experiments were long and boring, they put him in a bed like tube, that slided in to a machine that he could tell was CT-Scan. After the scan, the needled him again, and later in the late hours of evening the doctor showed up in his room again. This time he was carrying with a red folder in his hand. He was looking tired, a little grim too but still calm and confident. The doctor was waiting for something, and he thought it's weird, cuz he was the one who was supposed to the waiting. The doctor walked an sat beside his bed. He then looked at him and said:"I've looked at your scan results, and it seems that in your part of the brain responsible for vision you have a little something." The doctor sighed and continued. "I don't know if when this thing has popped up in there, or how old it is. We have assigned you a brain specialist and I've talked to him. We are going to move you to a different section, where he will diagnose you further."

He was expecting an straight answer. "I either live or die." He thought to himself. The doctor left, he close his eyes again to get rid of all the duplicates. He started thinking about death. He had lived a good life, up until now at least. Of all the things that thought he still needed or wanted to do, and his death would put a stop to all that, there was still something encouraging about death. There was something very promising to come. and he thought to himself again:"All this time, I've looked for something that I can be certain of, I've read books as a child, and I have made multiple realities in search of a promising truth. I've studied philosophy and I have worked on Artificial Intelligence in computer science. All my life I have devoted my self to what I thought would one day be the truth."

He thought of an Alchemist story he had read back in junior high. The alchemist was looking for one pure substance that would change lead to gold. he working daily in long hours, but in one of his experiments something exploded, and the harmful fumes of the experiment partially blinded him. He went to the best doctor in town, and the doctor told him that the alchemist must bring him 3500 gold pieces. His vision was his most important part of his life, and so he did all he could to find the gold pieces. It was laborious takes for a normal man, let alone for a blind one, but he pulled it off, and went back to the arrogant doctor. The doctor took the gold pieces, wet a piece of unwritten parchment, and put it on the alchemist's eyes. Couple of minutes after the doctor poured all the gold on alchemist and shouted at him: "This is Gold, This is Gold! This is the Gold that you created. and the substance is you. If you see this, you're blind no more." The alchemist had at that moment. He could see not with his eyes, with his heart. What the alchemist was searching for was always already there.

He thought of the story and how it had inspired him to what is most practical, to follow his passion, and search, and at the same time, to keep his grip with the reality. How he had tried to control his visions of the duplicates, and how he had made a good living for himself. He thought, how he has always seen the truth that he was looking for as something eternal, how he has thought even in philosophy the search is never-ending. But now, he was lying on his bed, with animated and un-animated duplicates around him whenever he intended to open his eyes. He shut his eyes even tighter at the thought of all this.

All this time, he has forgot, about one thing, and now that he could see it. How can he have missed it, how can all the philosophers and great minds that have come before him, that have made the biggest claims to the eternal truths, how can they have missed this. How can so countless methodologies to rid us off our biases and doubts to get the essence of something indisputable could have failed to see this. and yet he was seeing it here with his eyes closed.

Death is inevitable. It was always there, just like his inseparable shadow from light of the sun, death was there, the inseparable shadow from the clarity of his life. The clearer he had known the meaning of life, the cleared he should have seen the meaning of death, its inevitability and infinitude. Death as not being anymore. He thought about all the scientists, philosophers, mystics who had discussed death. But how can you discuss death...

He was not a religious man, but it didn't matter know anyways. Whatever kind of after life he believed in, death was going to stop his life, his being in this world that he knows. It was undeniable and undoubtable. Even if he had believed in an after life just like this one, with the same people, his being gone from this world, changed his life on this world in a fundamental way, and that change was so dramatic. Even if he could think of death as a trip from A to B where A and B are so similar, that they are almost identical, then his departure from A to B would make the difference between the two worlds. No matter how he looked at his death, he find it anything less than extraordinary, and to think how he had forgot about it all his life. One thing was for certain here, if he would die, his existence would change, and that change would be fundamental, whether it would be complete stop, or some transfer into some other life. His existence as he knows it right now would not be anymore. He would not be anymore. All of the sentences that would use him as a subject would have to have past verbs only, and he hated past verbs....there was unnecessary 'ed' at the end, or some irregular less lively form. 'was' was with 3 letters and 'is' with two. And he already hated 'was' the 'w' was so un-animated relative to the 'i' in 'is'. The conditional: "if you die, you 'are' no more" had to be true.

But it got even worse. Not only the conditional was true, the premise of the conditional was going to become true, at least if his tumor was deadly enough. "Or lively enough."He repeated the reflection of his words, talking to himself. He gave a smile at the irony. His tumor had to be lively enough for it to become deadly enough for him. He was still in alone in the room. Nobody could think he is crazy again, and so he turned his smile into laughter. The irony was even greater than he initially thought.

He remembered how he has celebrated his birthdays with candles and gifts and a few people he had known when he was younger and with music and large speakers when he was older. How he, like any other had celebrated cherished this life so forcefully to forget what shaped the horizon of meaning for it all along. He remembered his turning 20, and how had thought he is becoming old, he remembered graduating from university and thinking the same thing. He remembered his 30th birthday, and he thought at least the first stage of his life is well gone. But he had never so clearly compared these moments to reference point in the future. His preoccupation with life stopped that. 30 was a number starting form zero, and what other could it have been. But the truth was, the origin of his life had not been his birth, it was going to be his death and the date being unknown made it all the more extraordinarily meaningful.

All these thoughts...so brilliant and so new to him, he had to write them down and he had all the time in the world. In the course of the next couple of days he had to wait for the doctors to decide upon his condition based on their tests. Early on in this waiting game he called the nurse and asked for a pencil and paper. When the nurse came back his eyes were open. He had to get used to the double vision if he was going to write. The nurses handed him two pencils and he grabbed them with his two right hands. It was still very weird. he turn right to see who the second hand belongs too for the thousands time, but there was obviously no one there. He started scribbling down on the hospital bed's table which was designed exclusively for eating tasteless hospital food in an uncomfortable fashion.
Finally his door opened and the the brain specialist and his own doctor came in. He stopped writing. The doctors had their session, and it was now time to tell him the final results. It was his doctor and the brain specialist. The brain specialist looked more senior, his two heads had a some hair left but a few of them were still black. His doctor looked at the brain specialist. The specialist nodded towards him, and his doctor approached his bed and sat once again beside him he looked tired again, confident, but not relaxed at all. He looked at the specialist once more. This time the specialist didn't nod, he moved to the far side of the room where a chair was waiting for him. The doctor then turned to him and said:"There is no easy way to break this down to you." He moved in the bed to properly face the doctor, and before the doctor finished his sentence he smiled and said:"It's ok, just tell me how much time do I have left." The doctor was now looking down at his chest now, as if trying to summon up his powers to come up with the next words: "You have less than two weeks. I am sorry, we couldn't specify an exact date, but the disease would first make you blind, and then it would become painful." He smiled again, this time more to calm the good doctor, and said: "don't worry about the time, I actually rather not know about the time, is there anything you can give me to reduce the pain when it strikes?" The doctor was surprised. He could tell from his four eyes widening and then looking at the specialist, who had stood up at the what heard from him. "well, I know from the past, that some people in your situation rather leave the hospital, and do something they really want to do. hm...Sure." He lowered his voice. " I'll give you some strong pain killers, give the 911 a call when you felt you're going blind and then take the pills." He didn't want to have pain"Thanks." a little relieved. The doctor stood up, and walked said:"You can go when the nurse comes, let me know if there is anything else I can help you with." "I will" he replied. The doctors left, and he could bet he had heard the specialist telling the doctor:"see, it wasn't so hard, but you got it easy. It's usually much harder to tell a normal person that they are dying."

He didn't wait for the nurse to come. He knew what he had to do. He wanted to share what he has discovered in these moments with the world. He thought to himself about the consequences of his discovery, of how we ignore death, and it can help us live, and produce morals and ethics if we always remember death. He thought about persons, and what makes us human and not pigs. If all we do is what is most practical, then that is just what an animal does. He was thinking whether in his life he has been an intelligent animal, or an actual person. The nurse came, and brought his clothes. His brother had come to pick him up from the hospital. Nobody knew the news yet, but they would soon find out, and with it they would hopefully realize partly at least what he had realized. His brother was cool, he had the ability to swallow big news like this, and he would definitely be the first one to know. He thought he would make a burden on his brother to tell others about it. After all, he didn't want to waste anytime. In the car, his brother listened to him, he didn't cry or anything, but he turned down the music and remained quite for a long time. "he is taking it in" he thought.

He didn't waste anytime, he took out a tissue paper from the box that his brother kept in the car, and used the pencil from the the hospital to jot down some notes on the napkin:

The car stopped at his parent's place. He looked at his brother, his brother looked at him and said: "if we don't have a lot of time, we might as well start here, but I'll promise you to convince so that you can have this time to yourself." His brother was right. He did not have two weeks, he had two weeks in max. But he had no reason to be sad about anything, not that he was happy about it either. Everything was just normal, he just wanted to let the world know about what he has found out. They went upstairs...It was very hard for his parents, but his brother was really convincing, and his parents were very understanding. After spending some time there, he went to his old room. He felt sad now, his family was naturally very emotional about what was happening, but they understood and so did he.

It was here that he had started studying philosophy, here that he has written his first lines of codes. His walls were still full of notes from his essay, and quotes from his favorite philosophers. In one day, his life had changed, not because he was facing death, but because he had found death, and he seemed to have understood death. There was only one more thing he needed to write, and then he thought he can video himself speaking his notes, and put the video on the internet, and distribute it within his family. He would never be able to let the whole world know. But so long as it was his world that could know, it would be enough for him. He laughed again at how he could be so appropriately practical about his goals. He opened his laptop and started typing up the last scripts. This time he was talking to others.

"can u relate your values to your behavior, or do you relate your values to other's behavior and your behavior to yourself.

You impeach, people, whether they are absent or present, about what they think, and how they think it, or about people about what they do and how they do it. You hate some of others, and those who you hate, you can easily come to hate. And these others are those who you should be fearful about…because you don't know them…

You should be afraid of them, just as the small children are afraid of lonely old strangers in their neighborhood. They are the dam loneliest people, and small children are afraid of them, because when people are lonely you don't know what they are thinking about. When they are lonely, they are weird; they are outcasts in thought and mind. Yes you should be afraid of the ones that you do not even know, and you are afraid of the ones that you don't know. But sometimes kids are afraid of the old lady out of a respect for her elderly position, out of respect for considering all the things that she is, and they don't know because she is so lonely that nothing about her could be found out. But you could also be afraid of the old lady in another way…you could hate her and be afraid of her. You could hate her and be afraid of her…

So you would hate her, and you would be afraid of her…but times passes, and without knowing the old lady, you start to develop an understanding of her as though she is a black box. You plug an input into her, and take something out of her. You think you know her, you think that is all there is to know about her, and you start thinking that you are not afraid anymore. You would have the illusion of losing fear, and now only the hate remains. But because the fear is still really there, and because there is no bravery being replaced by it (bravery does not replace fear, unless the unknown becomes fully known in itself, which is impossible). So…the hate remains, and you start your exploitations…from the kid who was afraid out of respect, you become the kid who is afraid out of hate, and now that you seem to think that you have not anything to be afraid of, you become the kid, who hold the burns the old lady, as if you're holding one of your old dolls on fire. You torture her, and torture her, take her head off, as if it is you sisters’ doll’s head…."

As he was writing, something attracted his attention. His room had been left for a while, and over the years had become a sort of storage room by his parents, partly at least. He was so focused on his work, that he had forgot to pay attention to the parts of his past lying there. On the furthest corner of the room from him, was their old TV set, it was color TV, but had no remote control. He went to look at the two TVs. Beside it were some of his Mother's supplies, like their sugar, rice, and potatoes. What got him to the corner though was not any old memory, there was a small ant going in a tiny circle in an unnatural fashion. He looked closer at the two ants. They were upside down. The legs were moving wildly in the air looking for a grip. There was something wrong with one of the legs and one of the hands. They had somehow been twisted. The ant was shaking his legs so furiously that he could almost hear them both shriek. He tried to help the ant on to his legs with the tip of his pen. As soon as the ant's feet touched the ground, the movement changed, but it was only after he tipped the ant, that he understood the real cause of its misery. The legs on one side of the ant were straightened as if crushed by an unbearable force. The ant was dragging its legs. But because one of the hands was also injured it couldn't walk straight, after some steps, the ant would tip itself over.

He thought of killing the ant, to rid it out of this never-ending misery. But then he thought of himself, and how life has become so valuable to him in the face of death. So he tipped the ant back on its legs again. He then took out the napkin he had wrote his notes on in the car, and pushed the ant on them. The ant started walking, it was still suffering, the movements were confident and slow, but the surface of the napkin, now black and white with words of death and life, was not straight, and so the ant could not tip itself over. "Suffering is inseparable part of life." He thought. He looked around for another ant. There was one passing by the rice sacks. He tried to shake off the mesmerized creature off the napkin to where it could get some help from his own kind. As soon as the broken leg touched the ground, the other ant, starting running. "What the hell!" He almost whispered these thoughts.

He let to helpless ant up to the napkin again and took it closer to the other ant. The other ant again started running, with a speed that an ant could hardly be capable of. He getting frustrated, his blood reaching boiling point. Here he was at his final days, trying to make a very simple, doable good deed, and it seemed impossible. He felt anger, he didn't know why but he did. He pushed the other ant by force up the napkin. The two ants were no on the same piece of ground hovering in the air. At his point, The other ant was moving furiously, and the mesmerized one, was almost standing still. The other ant was at all times maintaining the furthest distance from his injured fellow, carefully scanning the edges of the napkin for a way out of this circular jail that lead him to where it was doing its best to avoid. "How the other one could be so unlike a person." He thought. He then quickly reflected:"A person would make reflections on what they desire. This ant though, undoubtedly run as fast as it can, it run by its instincts. There is no reflection for him but his survival. He has sensed approaching the danger zone, and the is running for his life. He is running for his life even when the broken-leg follows him."

He looked at the four ants...and took them beside his laptop. He then gently let the furious ant off the napkin, and he left the broken legged creature where was. He thought of people, and how they can be just like this ant and the other ant. At the sight of danger, even a slight harm, or un-benefit, choosing what is easy over what is right. He started typing again, he knew now how to articulate his final message:

"And despite all that…you think all this is being done just reasonably, that she is what she is, and that you know what her IS is…and that, that is all about her. You think you know, and you exploit her so much, that you start to believe in your delusions. You start to think that you are right. And that is all that matter…

Pity pityyy…we are all made hypocrites…our pride blinds our eyes and breaks our legs and we fail to see, and even if we do see, we fail to walk there…

Gradually…forgetfulness encompasses your hate and your pride…and you just exploit, and at the same time you develop values that are good in themselves, but that are totally out of line with that disgusting blood and mud that lurks underneath your forgetful skin.

All the values then are upside down. God forbid you more wealth, more power, more authenticity and more beauty.

The choice has far moved from being between right or wrong to between right and easy. And you always choose easy…and now…that you've grown from that little bastard kid to a full grown un-adult, you choose the easy so easily, because you don't even care what the hard choice is…choosing easy is a value more important than all of your other values put together. And that by itself…it is not only wrong…but it makes you what is called a self-denying hypocrite. And that I cannot hate enough…me, I cannot hate enough. I cannot hate myself enough, and now that I have two weeks left, I have to do something about it."

He left closed the laptop. He knew what he had to do. He took the pencil again and left a note, for his brother to read and record his work and put on the internet when he could, in case he was not there anymore. and tomorrow after his breakfast with his family, he felt his double visions disappearing. Every thing was slipping away. It was time. "Good that I've really lived his yesterday really as if he was supposed to die today." he thought to himself. He took the pills the doctor had gave him, and called an ambulance, his parents and his brother walked to the ambulance. It was as if he was going away for a few weeks. His message has got into his brother, and into his parents. He was sure that it would make it into some other people as well.

He died on the same day. He never became famous for what he wrote, and never impacted the whole world. But he had an impact on those that he knew, and that was his own world and so it was more than enough for him. Death was no longer an obstacle, it was the meaning of life, and it brought with it a most promising message that a medium can bring, life is well worth living the way you choose it to be.

Ch.8: Glasses

2007-12-22T18:23:00.000-05:00

He never stood by the mirror again, but the duplicates kept appearing at times when he was writing his school work. Years passed, and he went to high school. After two years in high school, he started to feel that he can't read stuff as good as he used too. So he went to do a serious eye-exam. It was something more involved than his yearly eye check ups. and it was with a different eye doctor too. He thought this time there was no escape, he would be wearing glasses now. Not that there was anything wrong with wearing glasses, and with seeing better, but his eyes though tricky and blur at times seemed all right to him. He was not sure whether what his eyes told him was the true colors and dimensions of the world. But there was something unoriginal about glasses that bothered him. Maybe it was just the acceptance of the fact that his eyes are not able to perceive his surroundings as well as they did. He had always come to believe the existence of things even the duplicates through seeing them with his eyes. He was afraid because his eyes were his existence defining tools. He thought he would be seeing the world through the lenses of his glasses, and he wished that there would be nothing wrong with his glasses. There was very small difference between the different shades of different colors and he could tell this whenever he looked out of the window through the glass, or at different times of the day. The amount of light his eyes received from his surroundings seemed to correspond to different shades of the same color.

He promised himself, that if the doctor proscribed him glasses, he would always keep them stainless, just as clean as possible so that he can still see the real in the reality that used to see with his own eyes. But the results were different. The doctor didn't tell him to wear glasses, but what he did tell him, he wished he had told him to have an eye operation.

Ch.7: Extract the real out by Force

2007-12-01T13:54:00.000-05:00

He was waiting in a room that looked awfully like a doctor's waiting room, except that not all colors where white, and not all lights were glaring fluorescents. There were no mirrors in the office, just some frame less pictures of dusk and dawn. The magazines were weird too. Most of them had a word which he found really hard to read. How the hell were you supposed to read the letters P, S, Y and C together anyways. A lady, called his last name, and he and his mother went to another smaller room which looked like his dad's office, but with no office supplies. There wasn't even a computer, just a bed like chair, and faintly smiling lady who seemed to be a friend of his mom. He got in, and said hi. His mother said something to the lady, and then returned to him and said:"Did you say hello?''. "Yes." He said politely. The lady looked at him kindly, then back at his mother and said calmly:"Ok, let's start."

A long time passed and he was told stories about how friends could be good or bad, he was even asked if has real friends. But of course he has real friends. What was that even supposed to mean. He could tell his mother was getting less and less interested too. There was one particular question though that startled him. The lady told a long story about some friends in a playground and then asked him: "Do you have any friends, who don't talk much, but it's you who's doing most of the talking." He said:"yes." A faint smile appeared on the lady's lips, and his mother began to look at him more intensely, even more than when they entered the place. She then asked him:"Do the two of you know each other? what is his name?" He was sitting down on a weird bench, the bench was so that he was almost lying down. His mother was now up on his side, and the lady too. He looked at them and said:"His name is Fred, but he has never talked to me. " The lady's smile became a little wider and she said:"But Fred never talks to you, how do you know that he is your friend for real?" "But he is." He said back. "Yes, he might be your friend, but how can he be if he has never talked to you?"As she said this, her mother was nodding in agreement. "NO!, I mean he is, he is, whether he is my friend or not, I don't know but he is, I am just wondering whether he is or he is not."...

More time passed, and the lady suddenly stood up, and walked to his mom and showed her, the watch she was wearing. His mother came back walking to him, and said:" Ok, let's go. I'll buy you an ice-cream on our way back." But the he now, he was startled. His conversation with the lady had ended as if she was still in a middle of something. He said goodbye to her, to which she kindly replied. "Let's invite some your friends for a sleepover." He had admitted that Fred may bot be his friend, but never that he doesn't exist. But he had a feeling his mother expected him to have believed by now that Fred doesn't exist. According to the lady, Fred was just a figment of his imagination. But how can anyone see a figment of imagination when they were awake.
He took a bite at the ice-cream, and with each bite, he felt guiltier for still believing in Fred. But the more he had seen Fred, or any other duplicates, the less he had known about them. and now, he wanted to let them all go. Maybe they were right, maybe he was too old to have unreal friends. and he had so many friends who were real enough to reply back to him.

Ch.6: Frederick

2007-11-24T15:59:00.000-05:00

He wanted to try again with the mechanical pencil to see if he could make Fred appear. He called him Fred because it was a name his dad used to mention a lot when he would talk to some of his friends. From what he had overheard, Fred was a guy who was very close to his dad and his other friends but he was usually in a bad mood and said very few words too. Most of the time though, his dad and his friends talked about Fred's situation and what he meant by certain stuff that he said. He talked to his friends at school about the Fred he had seen, just like his dad talked about Fred with his own friends. But Fred had never said a word to him, even when he had said hi to Fred, he had just disappeared.

There was another problem too. He had found that he has less chances to look in the mirror for Fred. His Mom seemed to pass by the washroom more frequently, when he took a longer time in there, and as for the tall mirror as long as her mother was home, it seemed impossible to fetch a time alone with the mirror.

So one day he waited for his mother to take her afternoon nap. He took the mechanical pencil and went to stare at the mirror. He stared at the pencil, and tried to think about nothing. But it was impossible. Instead his thoughts wandered about how impossible it was to think of nothing, but as he was thinking these thoughts, he saw Fred again in the corner of his eyes. Same place as before. Fred seemed to be standing right beside him. He was afraid to look at him more intensely, he knew that Fred would just hide behind him again. So he just raised his hands and whispered to his reflection and Fred: "Hi, don't go this time, wait a second. Please. I want to know why you go away when I so much as stop thinking of you, and start to think about you." It was getting harder for him to keep his stare away: "I want to know why, as soon as, I so much as look at you, or try to think about you rather just of you, you just disappear. " But suddenly he heard a loud voice that made him jump back. "Are you talking to yourself in the mirror?! Who are you talking too?" His mom was standing a few meters beside him. "No one." he said. but he thought that was least reassuring for his mother. She moved closer, and looked in the mirror. "Are you talking to yourself." He took a look in the mirror. Fred was gone, and he could see his mother's body and himself in the mirror. "Yes." "Listen tomorrow, you don't have to go to school, we are going to meet someone." her mother said, and she wasn't asking. At least he would got to skip a day of school and that by itself had to be good. "Thanks, Fred" he thought. and winked at his reflection, while his reflection was winking back.

Ch.5: Meeting

2007-11-18T14:08:00.000-05:00

He had always had these thoughts before though. Whenever walking home from school, before turning every corner, he have had this feeling that somebody was going to be waiting there for him after the turn. Now he had actually seen that there was somebody else, but that someone wasn't somebody very different. Neither was he completely separated from him. He seemed to be ahead of his initial reflection in the mirror, but he wasn't way ahead of him. He was very close. Too close maybe he thought sometimes.
So one day he decided to confirm his feelings so he asked his mom. "Mom!" He said out of nowhere. "Yes dear?" Her mom said without turning to look at him. "Have you ever seen two people in the mirror." He asked cautiously.
"off course dear, whenever we comb your hair in front of the mirror I see myself and I can see you." she said. "No I mean have you ever seen another person in the mirror, somebody who is not with you outside the mirror, but is very close to you?" Had he said too much?

Her mother turned around to look at him. She thought about the school night. His son's teacher had told her and her husband that their son was doing all right, and seemed to get along with other people pretty good. But every once in a while, he just distanced himself away from others, and seemed to look aimlessly at things around him. She had told them that in these times, that had become more frequent, he had given her a peculiar deep stare. Something the teacher had obviously never seen. Her teacher had told them, that his friends made fun of him sometimes because every now and then he had stared at his reflection in the washroom mirrors.

"So? Have you?" He asked this time insistently. "No I haven't, but have you?" She said inquiring. "No." He said abruptly and walked away. He could still feel his mother's eyes upon him as he left the room. Was the duplicate feeling this too? If he were, he would probably not show up for a long time.

Ch.4: The Stranger

2007-11-17T00:30:00.000-05:00

The next couple of days, whether he was sitting in class, or at home, he tried to force a duplicate of himself, or his teachers as they taught, or people on the streets, or anything else, but never did it happen.

Time passed, and every now and then, he could see duplicates of smaller things. He gradually learned that when he was writing or reading he could always make duplicates of lines appear on lined papers. One day, as he was looking at his new mechanical pencil in front of the mirror, he thought he had seen another person in the mirror to his reflection's right. But there was no body else in the room. He stared at the pencil even harder this time. There there was. On the corner of his eyes, He could see a duplicate of himself in the mirror. He raised his left hands. Two people in the mirror raised their right ones almost simultaneously. "Hey." He said after bit of hezitations, as if expecting a response. "Who are you?" He looked to hiz left. There was no body there. He checked his right too, no one there either. He looked back at the mirror. There was only his reflection. The duplicate was gone. How could he have had two reflections? Was this an embodiment of all of his duplicates coming together? was this person in the mirror the same person who wrote those duplicate lines and read those duplicate books all these years?

Ch.3: Reflections

2007-11-13T03:36:00.001-05:00

He looked at the streets again, and looked back the page hoping that the duplicate might come back. There was only one paper, one series of lines. There was no duplicate of anything this time. He started thinking again. Why could he only touch the translucent image with his translucent fingers and not the other set of fingers. But the same moment he gazed aimlessly at the paper while sinking into his thoughts, the duplicate appeared again. Excited this time, he tried to avoid focusing on the duplicates. They seemed to be appearing when he wasn't concentrating on forcing them appear. They appeared when he wasn't thinking about them.
"Eh! What's going on?" He thought for one moment if the duplicates could actually tell whether he was thinking about them or not. He got up, and went for the tall mirror at the entrance of the house. He looked at the mirror and tried to think of something other than making a duplicate of himself in the mirror. But nothing happened. He tried harder, but still nothing happened.

Ch.2: Where did the other go?

2007-11-11T14:01:00.000-05:00

There were two lines, and two papers. Still keeping his stare, he tried to grip one of the papers with his fingers. His gripping fingers went through it. It was untouchable. The translucent paper was apparently an untouchable one, maybe even a fake one. So instead he gripped the other paper, and his fingers felt the sensation of paper this time, but at the same time his eyes realized that a set of fingers gripping the transparent paper too. He broke his stare, and tried to focus on what the fake paper looked like within his translucent fingers, and why did it seem transparent and yet so distinguishable. But as soon as he shifted his pupils, the images became ONE. "Where did it go?" He thought to himself. He even got a little disappointed, but the duplicates were gone for good.

Ch.1: The Duplicate

2007-11-10T22:04:00.000-05:00

It was a winter day, and he was facing the window reading his new story book. His room on the 4th floor faced the street. Every once in a while he took a glimpse at the street, following people as they walked passed the buildings. Some of them were rushing, and the rest too. It seemed windy, but "hey, you can't see the wind blowing, you can just feel it." He remembered his Dad say. So he just waited for somebody with a scarf to pass by.

Waiting, he sank back into the sofa again. He was so proud of his eyesights. Already some of his friends were wearing glasses, and even if they weren't, they never so apt with their eyesights anyways. He could have looked at stereoscopic picture, and recognize the image inside, even of he waved the picture around. His eyes had so far caught sight of interesting stuff anywhere and this usually worked to his benefit. He remembered the cover of his ipod's earplug. "Sure feels better to wear earplugs with the cushion thingys on." He thought. He had lost them many times, and instead had found other ones here and there. People seemed to be losing them all the time, and not being able to find them ever again.

He sank in the sofa again. The sofa gave him a lazy feeling. The interiors of the condo were pretty warm, and seeing the cold streets made it even feel lazier for him. He felt a yawn coming and started rubbing his eyes, but right then he thought he saw someone with a scarf going pass the building facing him. "Eeeh!" he said to himself surprized. It wasn't that the scarf wasn't dancing with the wind, it was just that the woman wearing the scarf seemed a little fuzzy. But that was probably because his right eye had watered from his rubbing it. So he covered his left eye with his hand, and tried to test the left eye by looking at the lady with more intensity. It didn't change anything.

"Dammit! Could it be?" He said to himself, while still holding his hand on his left eye. He thought of wearing glasses. But that should still be fine, it probably wasn't his eyes that made him sharp, it was his brain that helped him focus his eyes, and direct his attention to objects around him. So, he tested the other eye too. The lady walking by seemed pretty clear to him this time. Relieved, he uncovered his eye, and shifted his stare to the paper and started thinking about his right eye. But as soon as he thought his first word, he recognized something different and weird about the scripts of his book.

It wasn't that the scripts were blurred. He could clearly distinguish the words and the lines. But he was seeing TWO lines. "What the Hell!" he freaked out. Both images seemed clear the second one was a little translucent, he could see behind it but the image was not blurry at all. But how could that be. He could still see his hand holding the paper to his face, and he could see only ONE right arm, but nevertheless he saw two lines, and two papers. The two images were only a short distance apart, but they were apart nonetheless. But how could that be, how could he see two pictures of the same image.

The Rich Man

2007-11-08T01:53:00.000-05:00

The rich man has his motor-car.
His country and his town estate
He smokes a fifty-cent cigar.
And jeers at fate

He frivols through the livelong day .
He knows not poverty her pinch.
His lot seems light his heart seems gay
He has a cinch

Yet though my lamp burns low and dim
Though I must slave for livelihood
Think you that I would change with him????

You bet I would

------
Thanks to Mirza Ali
http://mirza-ali.blogspot.com/2007/07/rich-man.html

RAW THOUGHT: Help yourself with Mashed Potatos!!!

2007-10-27T22:47:00.000-04:00

I have a philosophical reflection journal, or log or whatever, where I write even the tiniest ideas, in as long sentences as I want, and in as clear form as I want. Obviously I do this for me. and sometimes, not often, I take the least controversial, more touchable notes in change them to a post in here. But this time I don't feel like it at all, and especially about this note. Here we go: enjoy the dish of mashed potatoes.

Everything is movement. Engineering vs. Science, or dancing to a rhythm vs. Listening to it. Life is movement, philosophy is a stop, and poetry is: "let's go back". A movement is what already IS, maybe that's why it's so hard to define this flux.
Life is the movement, but Religion (from the most spiritual to the most practical) is the worship of life not of the movement, so is science and so is a dogma.
Technology is interpreting the movment, it is interpreting what is, not what was. engineering is Using what is, not for the purpose of understanding it, but for the purpose of making it into life, to manipulate slow moving things into our own pace. To Make movement.
Depression is stopping to move, happiness is fast movement, sadness is starting to think.

I hate philosophy, and I did, because it is a stop, and yet I love it because I feel sometimes we feel psychologically sick to do the opposite to give myself meaning, and philosophy is the exact opposite to the movement, by trying to Stop the movement itself to think what it is. Not knowing that it just IS, just like newton formulated it, and then Einstein formulated it, just like heidegger put his philosophy, and Levinas moved it. and it will be moved again...cuz there is no stopping the movement, you can only study it at one instance and that is it. next instance is another existence.

I am going to study philosophy because I believe undrestanding the movement will lead to long term goals that will lead to the turest form of manipulation of life as is....

Disease

2007-10-27T12:05:00.000-04:00

Philosophy is the disease of people, and poetry is the disease of philosophers.

By Siavash J @ siavashj.com

Richard Cory

2007-10-20T20:54:00.000-04:00

(taken from Poem Master: Mirza Ali )

When ever Richard cory went down town.
We people on the pavement looked at him.
He was a gentleman from sole to crown.
Clean favored. And imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed.
And he was always human when he talked.
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"good morning" and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich – yes .richer than a king/
And admirably schooled in every grace.
In fine we thought that he was every thing.
To make us wish that we were in his place .

So on we worked .and waited for the light
And went without the meat . and cursed the bread.
And Richard cory . one calm summer night
Went home and put a bullet through his head::::?

by Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1869-1935
Thanks to Mirza Ali

2007-10-11T03:57:00.000-04:00

"If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, have faith. If you want to be a disciple of truth, then search." - Nietzsche

"Is Fred SHIT?"

2007-09-20T19:38:00.000-04:00

When I came home from school, on my way to my room, I passed the fridge. "Hallo Mr. Kierkegaard!" I said to my dogmatically Kierkeaardian Kierkegaard doll who is attached with a magnet to the fridge. His face was made to look 50ish, something not as handsome as his younger years. He was bald, with grayish hair on the side and he had a mustache. I think the doll was meant to be Heidegger, I actually got it as a gift when I was studying Heidegger.

Naturally, Mr. Kierkegaard didn't replay back to my greeting. His head was tilted downwards, but he was looking straight, as if seeking to have a clandestine look into the horizon. I couldn't care less for his pretentiously indifferent stare, I continued. "You know, Mr. Irony, Ramadhan and Yom Kippur, are very close, and it gets me thinking about faith, and you're about the only philosopher who talks about faith and an the immediate, imminent self at the same time and so existentially too. If you were me, you would probably think mortification is a social rule, accepted by 'the crowd', and imposed by 'the church'. But I find mortification more analogous to your Abraham and Isaac story. Abraham, a would be murderer, would adhere to a something beyond social rules and beyond his personal commitment to his son, and instead to his faith. And Faith is 'a gift from God whereby eternal truth enters time' in an instant." I waited a good couple of seconds, felt satisfied and to celebrate poured a full glass of orange juice instead of water. As I turned to to look at the lifeless doll again, I took a slip. He gave me the same arrogantly bored look, but more ostensibly avid this time.

"I didn't say that!" I bet I heard him mumble. Agitated now, I continued, ignoring his denial:"If one day anything religious wants to achieve immaculacy it wouldn't be through faith decapitating man from reality. Not that I totally agree with descendants and readers of Fred. I admire the iconoclastic implosion of traditions and clichés, and especially religious ones. But, these days, some, especially those who interpret the interpreters of Fred, think we should construct our homes away from the gods, away from the sky and into the depths of earth, inwardly. But to me, dig deep enough in your upside down pyramid, and sooner than you think you would reach the stygian devil(s) of the underworld. Just look around, logic has transmutated from the voice of reason to justification of selfly desires. I think though, if a religious justification is to ever survive logically, one practical way is down the Kierkegaardian path you drew. I think even Fred would agree with me on that. After all, he too is tied to the skies."

I drank up the orange juice, and tapped the doll's loose head. The head slided upwards. I think I saw him roll his eyes, and then the head fell down, motionless again: "Fred is SKID." Annoyed, and a little astound I said: "Funny you should say that, when you and Fred are so much alike. He too had an austere passion for philosophy, he too was poetic and prolific in his verse and even he too had a lovelife that ended in debacle." I thought I've irritated him enough, but he was smirking. "Ah, I get it. You're truly the master of Irony." and he was indeed.

I walked to my room. Fred was on my desk, his hand under his chin and his forehead zigzag. he too was looking toward the window, But the paper book cover he was on top of, even though 700 something pages, did not elevate him enough to see the horizon. "Hey Fred! Don't worry about him, everybody knows who the smart one is. You'll always be his older wiser brother. Turn that frown upside down." I picked him up and flipped the pages. I stopped at page 124. "God is dead." He shrieked. I was bewildered: "Wow, calm down, I just talked about that, I thought you knew what I thought. I even wrote it down here on this same page." My scribbles in pencil read faintly: "god is dead."

I was irritated, so I didn't flip much further. Page 179, and looked again at the midst of the page: "You are going to women? Do not forget the Whip." He said superciliously sounding like Rumsfeld on T.V. That's it. I was done. "You're nuts Fred. Never once have we had a normal conversation."

I put the book face down on my desk, and looked out of the window into the horizon. Mr. Kierkegaard was still smirking: "Fred is all Skid." I couldn't see the sky, nor the earth, nor where they met. All I could see was the Bayview Village towers.

Sense of Time

2007-09-13T00:24:00.000-04:00

"Hello, have a seat please." says the women in a red and grey semi-business-casual attire, and I think to myself, how typical of a psychiatrist . As she's picking up a pamphlet, she turns and looks at me as if about to introduce herself. "You are 15 minutes late, is it a habit, your lateness, or something came up today?" She says apathetically, and yet forcibly relaxed and what a good question to start things out. I think to myself: "No, off course not. it's not my habit but something always comes up." but instead I say: "I don't have a good sense of time."

2007-08-28T04:53:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Mirza Ali
The same person who told once:

یافتم به تجربه پس از سی سال
که ارزش مرد به علم است و علم به مال

and I've yet to find a more comprehensive answer to my questions in life.

Dam Right it aint' Practical!

2007-08-12T03:59:00.000-04:00

Studying philosophy is not practical! When did practicality become more important! what happened to that curious child, who was good at math and bad at following orders. When did we stop asking ourselves the questions, and when do we start to ask again?

Why would I need to ask myself, "why", when there is no need to ask why. Why would I ask myself How do things work, if everything I confront, I seem to understand. Why would I ask myself what do I need, if all I've ever needed, had always been provided for. Why would I ask myself what purpose do I serve, if everything I have, had always borrowed a purpose. Why would I have to ask which way, if the way has always seemed clear.

And, the fact is that I don't have to ask myself questions should I already have a purpose, or should I have all I need doing what I am already doing, or should I continue to understand things I encounter.

But, a day may come that you wouldn't understand something in your way, or you would have a need or a desire unfulfilled, and all you try seems to be futile, and fruitless. A day may come, where you'll be purposeless, tall from building up on what others have provided for you, but hollow from within as none of it would be yours alone.

Your claim to fame shall be your towers of success, that connect you to the gods that rule this planet, you shall force yourself fulfilled, and you shall thus become fulfilled.

Philosophy may or may not be practical, if practical means building those towers. May it be, and you study philosophy, then you have nothing to worry about, as you'll be answering your eternal questions, and connecting yourself to the gods at the same time. May it not, and still you conduct philosophy, at least you don't need huge towers to quite down your child-like curiosity in its innocence, and at this direction, any tower would do.

I may have to see the world as a black box with inputs and outputs, but I won't ever be satisfied just with the practical applications, and so I'll never forget to ask myself those questions that I started to ask when 12. Like Kant says, "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: The starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." I take that to my heart, and hey, I don't have Sunday Depressions (Sunday Neurosis) , even when I am not busy at all.

Little Piggy of Guilty Pleasure and Your Moral Crisis

2007-08-07T01:12:00.000-04:00

I enter the conference room and find my usual seat something like 8 rows up from the front, put my bag down and lean my hands on the sticky arm chair. The weather is hot and humid even in the room. There's a thick smell of Chinese food, and there is a fat, half man, half pig, figure to the right of my front seat, and it is furiously waiting to chase pieces of meat with his chopsticks. What is it waiting for? Please get it done with already. As soon as Mr. Speaker turns around to write something on the board, the half-pig begins his game, rushing the sticks to the plastic food container. I don't need to be right beside him to hear him regurgitate his food. and I think to myself, how close am I to this creature, how close am I to all that I pity, and all that I loathe. How close am I to stop, and stand still for an eternity, rotting in my own filth. How close am I to become the Eternal Pig.

Browse the random porn websites, but you're not a sex addict. You know that already. You just take a glance and close your browser as soon as you have to punch in your credit card numbers. Oh! and you did remember to remove them from your history list! You never downloaded any, cuz it took some time and by then your mood would have changed. Your half-pig in you is advancing, like cancer to your soul. Like a worm eating you and your soon to be still-born child inside out, and even sooner this worm will hatch in your stomach, and you're indulging. Uh, the guilty pleasure, your guilty pleasure, it's penetrating you. Anytime now, open your mouth, stop everything, here it comes. Open your eyes, you're done for. Time stops and you stop, and the little piggy is happy.

You should've moved, you should have opposed, you should have fought, you should've strived for your betterness. but you decided not to, you decided that all men are created equals and then women too with them; and you decided that Freud was right and that Desire does rule. You decided that you should stop and watch skins fucking skins, and you should stop and eat as soon as nobody looks at you. You decided that you stop eternally and like an ostrich hide your head in the sand, and now there would be nobody looking at you. Alas, in reality even ostriches don't do that, but apparently half-pigs do.

Cast a small stone into your soul and measure its depths. You don't even have to listen to the sound of the water splashes to see how shallow you've become. Just take a look, and the stone is right there, only half in the water, and half out. So now you know, the piggy is all there, and you've yeilded willingly. Congrads, you're half man half pig.

Funny this guy was a satirist then.

2007-07-28T16:28:00.000-04:00

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 - January 10, 1951)

Sleep is Good for you, I guess.

2007-07-27T01:16:00.000-04:00

Don't sleep for one day, and you'll get drowsy the next day. Don't sleep the second day, and you'll almost fall asleep after your lunch and collapse after your dinner. Don't sleep for the third day, and you'll sleep for many hours. If you don't wake up after just a nap a mild headache would follow after. Don't sleep the fourth day, and headaches turn to forks that scratch your brain. If you take some pain killers and if you don't sleep for the fifth day then everything starts to change...you can't stay awake anymore...but neither can you fall asleep. You'll sink into this weird world of yourself. It's nothing like being on drugs or alcohol, neither like relaxation nor irritation. It's just you, but so into yourself...you hear stuff, you seem fully aware of them. But you wouldn't have any reflection upon anything external, all actions will stem from your internal decisions. I happened to try it once a long time ago when I had nothing to do, but I've never done it again, not that I would have the free time to do it anyways.

His Majesty, the Inferior, cries.

2007-07-26T01:38:00.000-04:00

Mud is in his mouth,
Sick is your mind,
His eyes are blind,
Interpretations from your mind
Circle him round and round and round.
Even in his dream,
He stands up, only to fall down.

Behind the truth that shall make him free,
Your vulgar biases crowd under his fictional Tree
Plotting to bring him down from his knee

By the books that shall make him wise,
Your pride stabs him in the back, and his life flies.
For him, it’s Either "Et tu, Brute"
And after his death, your rise,
or world’s eyes bury you down after they baptize.

Under the blanket that shall make you warm,
dagger’s hidden, stab it in his heart but say your goodbyes.

With a person that shall make him smile,
floating emotions, circle around and around:
“Attachment, detachment, to yield and to survive”
“To stand tall, and sing for the pride”
“To rise to submission and close the eyes” around and around
“Fear of loss, of annihilation”
“The continuous validation, discrete evaluation”
“The shame, of being the mud, the less, the sub” around and around
The pointless horizontally turning merry-go-round
Pours ear-poison in his mind

“Down, down, let me down.”
He says.
“I don’t want your books,
I don’t want your truths,
Leave me be, that may set me free,
No truth, no tear, no smile,
Just me myself and the belief die.”

My Miserable Beast

2007-07-13T01:24:00.000-04:00

My fingers tighten their grip on the dagger. The blade is shining like a mirror facing the sun. As I examine the sharp edges of the dagger, my eyes escape their aghast reflections, begging off on the plea that the dagger is made of light, and too much light does evil to your eyes. My second best friend is ahead of me in the distance, a figure dark from the light shining toward it. Once a father to me, a mother to me, a brother to me, like a sister I never had, Like a soulmate, like my husband, like my wife, like my pet, like my car, and most of all like my second best friend was he. He is my neighbour too. Actually he's been my neighbour for a long time. At least longer than we've been second best friends. Her name is the other. She Always boils my heart in my head, invites my love as second closest, my mercy as second closest, my pity as second closest, and always stands between me and light, like a jealous moon that makes night out of day. And oh, didn't I pity him, didn't I soak him in love, didn't I give him myself. And now I stand, with a dagger in my hand, architect of my own destruction. His humped back faces me, and his dark face to the light, but I know her face: always with a sad pair of seemingly confused lips but, as ready to grin as a compressed spring ready to stretch out, as ready as tons of water pushing on a broken dam ready to flood on all that is ever made. My blood is simmering, my heart and my mind boiling, but yet again, as I charge my hand above his head to stab her heart, as the blade reflects his tired eyes, I feel mercy once again, I feel pain once again. My hand freezes and I think to myself: At least I can still pretend to be proud.

Two things fill my mind with awe and admiration...the starry heavens above me, and the moral law within me

2007-04-24T12:51:00.000-04:00

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: The starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I have not to search for them as though they were veiled in darkness or were in the transcendent region beyond my horizon; I see them before me and connect them directly with the consciousness of my existence. The former begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense, and enlarges my connection therein to an unbounded extent with worlds upon worlds and systems of systems, and moreover into limitless times of their periodic motion, its beginning and continuance. The second begins from my invisible self, my personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity, but which is traceable only by the understanding, and with which I discern that I am not in a merely contingent but in a universal and necessary connection, as I am also thereby with all those visible worlds. The former view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates as it were my importance as an animal creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital power, one knows not how, must again give back the matter of which it was formed to the planed it inhabits (a mere speck in the universe). The second, on the contrary, infinitely elevates my worth as an intelligence by my personality, i which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as may be inferred from the destination assigned to my existence by this law, a destination not restricted to conditions and limits of this life, but reaching into the infinite.

From "The Critique of Practical Reason" (1788) by Immanuel Kant (translated by T.K Abbott)

Fall Down

2007-04-17T08:14:00.000-04:00

There's very little in this world, to hope for. Very little to hang on too. It's as if we are all falling down eternally, beneath you sharp cliffs...no one can survive the fall. And when did you jump off the edge? As soon as you stepped into adulthood.
When you're a kid, you try to be what you take to be good, and definition of this good is a production of good defining constructs around you, parents and schools mostly. you may take a piece from the forbidden jar of cookies on the fridge, but when it comes to the games, you have to be the good guy, even if you are their bad guy you're an honourable one. Every role that you take in each game is flavoured virtue . Dam in this mood I am writing in, aaaaaaah, my words just are escaping me. I planned to start with children, deceive you with their honesty, and say we change through time, to become vicious men and women who define good, honourable, virtuous as they see fit.
But, I can't reason this way, I can't trick you with your childhood honesty, why? because you weren't. Children are just like us: With Virtue when pretending something, with vice when needing something. We haven't changed one bit. Nobody jumped from anywhere. We are not falling....We are the fall itself.

My Orkut post from 2003: "I hate Philosophy soo much"

2007-04-09T00:25:00.000-04:00

I said: "I hate philosophy soo much"
I meant it makes life complicated, by making you actually know what is going on...I am not sure if I had a view to philosophy that a self-fulfilling masochist like 'Mollah Nasr Al-din' has to a nail! Or maybe I did, cuz that's the only thing that explains the flower: fresh, beautiful, and yet chopped off from the source.
Now though...without any pictures ( I don't wanna help myself remember this some years from now with the help of the picture) I would say:
"I hate philosophers soo much more, cuz they just love to make things complicated"
Funny though: some of the most ardous of these philosophers (they're all necessarily post-Nietzsche) claim that philosophers do make thing complicated, and they say it in this very complicated way too. DAM dude: NICHT SIE HAß SICH? (don't you hate yourself?)

Jean Baudrillard: "Dying is pointless"

2007-03-16T14:19:00.000-04:00

Jean Baudrillard, my first hero in the battlefield of truth, died 10 days ago at the age of 77 after a long illness. During his life he wrote tirelessly and has influenced and been influenced by many other prominent thinkers of the 20th Century namely Foucault, Derrida and the Canadian McLuhan. His most controversial idea is the hyper-reality theory which, in my opinion, was radicalized towards the end of his life. You can get a glimpse of his thoughts and life plus his character best from the Guardian Article by Steven Poole.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2028464,00.html

Till Death Do Us Part

2007-03-01T04:09:00.001-05:00

Death, how can there be life without it! It shapes the horizon of meaning for the living. Yes…Life is praised at birth, cherished at birth, defined at birth, symbolized at birth and the list of what we do to celebrate and associate life with birth goes on and on. We’re born at Zero and die somewhere further on some imaginary axis.

When I was learning about free falling bodies in my high school physics class they taught me that there is reference point with respect to which you can do your measurements, and this reference point idea was so neat, you could have chosen it to be anywhere and find your answer faster. But in all the problems and examples we solved the reference point was the starting point at ground. the teacher said:” Let’s assume the Ground is our Reference point”, and so we did.

In the exam there was a free fall question. The ball would START from the ground, go up, and come back down again passing window, and the height of the window was to be found. I sucked at physics back then (still do I guess), and I took the START at the ground as the reference point (so did many others), but had I taken the STOP point of the ball as the reference point the problem would be much easier to solve.

Yeah…now what if…just What IF, we’ve taken the wrong reference point all along in our lives. Maybe death should be reference point of our lives. Maybe we should look at life as something that starts at a known point in time and moves toward the unknown reference point in future. It does not matter if you don’t know when you’re going to die (I did not know where the ball stopped from the ground either). All that matters is that you can have a new perspective now...Your life is just defined, how it should be defined to make things solve themselves faster, to make things simpler. Your life is defined by its opposite, death. Life would be defined with Death, and Being with and against Nothing. And should you truly change your reference point, you’ll waste no time of your life doing what you don’t like, you’ll give in to no other’s beliefs if you don’t believe them to be true, you’ll live freer knowing that every second you’ll be another step closer to the fortune that awaits us all, rich or poor, religious or nihilist, good or bad have in common.

Would Chris Rock make a good Judge? Robin Williams? Richard Pryor?

2007-01-25T00:33:00.000-05:00

There should exists a very fascinating outcome from any analysis of thought patterns that allow a stand-up comedian to produce laughter.A series of phrases filled with exquisite uniqueness of daily life problems, the spark of the surprise that rings the ear till its echo smoothly settles down in the deep corners of one's mind. The truly funny joke is the One that makes your stomach ache the first time, your jaws the second time and yet still manages to makes you chuckle every time you hear it even long after. It is the one that reminds you of something you've forgot to remember, something you've always wanted to.

A good comedy, is more like a judge, and you're both the accused and the plaintiff. You're standing trail, sued by yourself, no jury, no lawyer and the judge just keeps mocking you instead of reading your guilty verdict. It accuses you for your laziness, for you forgetfulness, for things that you could do, but didn't. It sucks to be the defendant, of course! You'll be just wanting to finish off and leave the room, no matter what the outcome, you just can't stand the humiliation, But hey, that's not really you. It's somebody else with whom you have little or no contact. So why would you care, you can just laugh it off. After all it's fun to see others get humiliated. But it's who the Other is in this case that makes the Joke stick to you mind. The Other is you consciousness, it's just you Yourself.

So, next time you're laughing too hard, maybe you should try to see if you can shake your head in shame, in pity for yourself. I promise, if the joke is smart enough you don't even have to put the effort, just think about it, and that head will slowly twist to right and left all by itself.

Careless? Careful?

2007-01-17T08:22:00.000-05:00

My thing's don't get lost, just temporarily unavailable.

Daybreak

2007-01-13T07:14:00.000-05:00

It's snowing outside, more like a rain, or a mix.
It's cold though, and it's night, and everything is an deep oceanic blue. Too oceanic if you ask me.
As if we are all floating in a sea, waves just drifting us around here and there.
You and me drifting around our families, and our friends, and people we don't know well, and even those we might never get to know.

A wave comes, a wave goes. You go, and I'll stay. I'll stay a kid in the shallow end closer to the beach and play with water. I'll let the the small curls giggle my feat, let me feel the bubbles in my hands, and taste the salty foam.
Deeper's all right I guess. The waves are stronger there. There are no bubbles there though, no salty foam, they are just waves drifting around you. I know why you want to leave though, It's not that you hate the bubbles. The drifts move you around much faster, they might hold you on their hands, and let surf up above all, mastering the water, or they might hit you against the rocky shores.
It's okay though, as long as you remember which beach you should return to. You would return right? Right!?

It's still snowing, and you haven't come back, so I came to look after you. I knew how the drifts were, but I did not care, we are One right? At least we were, once.

Good, the Sun will rise soon and get rid of this blue color. Soon there'll be a daybreak, and we can forget all of this has happened. While it lasts, at least.

There's some truth in this

2006-12-29T06:51:00.000-05:00

...Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for...

by Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean

Metling Pot vs. Mosaic: CBC scores an own Goal

2006-12-27T21:40:00.000-05:00

There was an article on CBC new in Depth on the winter solstice named "Solstice, December's often-overlooked event", and indeed it is over-looked yet again in attempt to relook. The article went in depth in the science aspect, went in depth in the historic aspect but not so much in the cultural aspect. When I first read the article like the friend who made me aware of it, I wanted to write about the failure of the author to mention the Iranian Celebration of the Yalda. My friend suggested that the word "Iran" like many other words is joining (perhaps already has joined) the encyclopedia of Terrorism, and thus is not mentioned in north American media (either deliberately or indeliberately that's not for me to judge but for the author's conscious), not even in CBC, the publicly funded Canadian news network.
culture namely, the My friend argued that no matter where on the Net you look for some information on the winter solstice's events, you'll find a celebration associated with the Iran. So I googled "winter Solstice", but what I found revealed an even greater hole in the article. There are similar celebrations in the Eastern Asia, ancient Greek, Rome, middle east and etc. The article fails to mention the Multicultural aspect of this celebration (may I underline that word MULTICULTURAL). This article may had as well been written by an American author for an American news agency. What I see here is above and beyond the interference of the American literature of terrorism in Canadian culture, but the author's lack of Canadian identity, at least in this article.

Coldplay Lyrics: Spies

2006-11-25T20:20:00.000-05:00

I've noticed that Numourous websites on the Net have the Coldplay lyrics for this song wrong. They always get the last part wrong.

I awake to find no peace of mind
I said how do you live
As a fugitive?
Down here, where I cannot see so clear
I said what do I know?
Show me the right way to go

And the spies came out of the water
But you're feeling so bad 'cos you know
And the spies hide out in every corner
But you can't touch them no
'Cos they're all spies

They're all spies

I awake to see that no one is free
We're all fugitives - look at the way we live
Down here, I cannot sleep from fear, no
I said which way do I turn?
Oh I forget everything I learn

And the spies came out of the water
But you're feeling so bad 'cos you know
And the spies hide out in every corner
But you can't touch them no
'Cos they're all spies

They're all spies

And if we don't hide here
They're gonna find us
And if we don't hide now
They're gonna catch us when we sleep
And if we don't hide here
They're gonna find us

And the spies came out of the water
But you're feeling so good 'cos you know
That though spies hide out in every corner
they can't touch you, no
'Cos they're just spies

They're just spies
They're just spies
They're just spies
They're just spies

-------
This is the closest live performance to the real album recording I could find on YouTube.

Raven

2006-11-16T12:11:00.000-05:00

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.

'Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more,'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -
Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as `Nevermore.'

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -
On the morrow will he leave me, as my hopes have flown before.
'Then the bird said, `Nevermore.'

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
`Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never-nevermore."

'But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking `Nevermore.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!
'Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?
'Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'`

Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!'
I shrieked upstarting -`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!
'Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!

Moor

2006-11-12T02:41:00.000-05:00

Famines plough in my golden sand, salting the dead earth so that no life ever grows again. Uninterrupted droughts interrupt the dream of life. Shadows of leafless trees spread like lightning on the sandy soil. It’s as if trees have knelt on the ground, and stretched their bare hands to the cloudless sea of blue above. Oh, treacherous sky. Nothing ever grows here. From my dry eyes, I shed a tear for rain wishing that one day these tears would enrich the heart of the Moor.

"The Defeat" by GibranKhalil Gibran

2006-10-28T23:41:00.000-04:00

Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;
You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,
And sweeter to my heart than all worldglory.

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,
Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot
And not to be trapped by withering laurels.
And in you I have found aloneness
And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,
In your eyes I have read
That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,
And to be understood is to be levelled down,
And to be grasped is but to reach one's fullness
And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.

Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,
You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences,
And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,
And urging of seas,
And of mountains that burn in the night,
And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,
You and I shall laugh together with the storm,
And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,
And we shall stand in the sun with a will,
And we shall be dangerous.

-------

Thanks

My Inner Brat

2006-10-27T04:00:00.000-04:00

Today, I managed to diagnose one of my selves that I've never grew up in. I was going to call it the child inside of me, but due the ambiguity with the common spiritual expression"Inner Child", I decided to call it, the "Brat" inside of me: My Inner Brat. This brat, I think has been with me ever since I started to walk away from teenage hood.
You see, I had problems back at my earlier years, and since I didn't know any better I just walked away from them. I used to argue with my parents and my friends over the smallest and the stupidest of discussions, just get my point of view proven. But, then one day, 5 or 6 years ago, I decided that it doesn't worth it, So I just didn't argue anymore. Not that I didn't care, I just didn't want to argue my points for the sake of the points anymore, and I didn't. I walked away from many things I had Care for, away from things I took issue with, and this wasn't the solution, (despite the satisfactory results with my parents)
Now, After almost 10 years, I can feel that bottled up teenage Care surfacing in the most unnecessary contexts. It's there, and it disagrees in the most unreasonable, senseless ways too. I never grew up, I am still that stubborn child who thinks only his reasoning is the righteous one, even when he hears others' logical arguments. I might agree, I might even become happy that I've found a flaw, and can now present my arguments better, but I feel like I've something against the person who proved me wrong, as if he damaged something that was at Care for me, something that was at Issue for me. It's there, this Inner Brat of mine, it's part of me, part of my character, part of the structure that I use to reveal emotions with, produce arguments with, and finally think with. It's there, and I wonder, if something characters of teenage-hood, if not dealt with engrave themselves right into your adult-hood! Ah!

"Grow up! Farts are not funny anymore"

2006-10-25T01:39:00.000-04:00

There are so many things that one can name in order differentiate between his adult self and his teen years. Ask this from one, even from yourself! What is my differentiating element? How have I grew up? What has changed about my mindset? I can assure you that the first actual sentence is a First person, Present tense starting with "I". Then your mumbling subject proceeding a cautiously-designed series of sentences starts to come up with more and more words to explain the revolutionary story of the growth of his wisdom. We have so many reasons to separate ourselves from a child, that you never stop to think how narrow is the separation.
You tell somebody: "Hey, just Grow up!"
Let me give you the example that inspired me with this thought. A 4-year old gets what he tries to get what he wants by any means necessary. So dam stubborn that they even cry just to use the mercy of the parent, and yet I've seen (we've seen) adults of all ages, closest friends, worst enemies, or even complete strangers trying to get to the stupidest and the smallest of things just for the sake of GETTING it. There are even movies coming out of this every year, taking some of our childhood acts to the extremes to entertain us (one that came to my mind was: what is the worst that could happen (2001), starring Martin Lawrence and Danny Devito)
I see a very very thin line between what a child is, and what an adult is. In fact, I've never received an answer that said: "I don't know, maybe I have not grown up at all, I've just conformed my childish demands into bigger contexts." And would probably never will.

Heidegger's Being and Time: So funny, it should bring you to tears for real

2006-10-04T02:37:00.000-04:00

In 500 pages, Heidegger wrote the funniest piece of Millennium and named it Being and Time. 500 pages on two words: Is, and Now.
When you hear a Joke, you laugh instantly with no thinking, but you laugh only once. You hear a Seinfield Joke, or one at Family Guy you laugh instantly, and laugh twice or three times or more. You hear a Woody Allen Joke, you don't laugh, you think, after a moment of silence you laugh, when Woody is already moving on to his other Joke. Heidegger you have to think silently, for couple years, and then you'll laugh at almost all that IS.
A funnier guy came along though, not surprisingly Jewish. He even made of fun of Heidegger, and quite truly too. Up to you to tell who's who!

Love Thy Neighbor, (as you) Love Thyself

2006-09-28T02:59:00.000-04:00

What if I would really love my neighbor... what can the neighbor give me that would deserve my love in return? What is so special about neighbor, that some men of religion even went as far as saying that god is your closest neighbor ( implicitly applying that the second amendment, "love thy neighbor", is even more universal than the first).
When I thought about it, Neighbor seemed to possess an over-emphasized non-intentional curiosity about your daily life. They neither hate you because of your prejudices like your enemy does nor remind you of your prejudices by trying to convince you. Your Neighbors are at this very safe space from you which is not too close and not too far. To you they seem as watchful eyes which constantly remind you of the things you force yourself to forget.
I later learned how incomplete and raw some of my ideas were on this topic, so I won't go on talking about this anymore, but even now I feel I had some original thoughts to be rightfully proud of.

Arash's Online Gallery:

2006-09-21T02:02:00.000-04:00

http://arashj.com/

My Friends are My Enemies and My Enemies are my Friends

2006-09-15T03:29:00.000-04:00

Among those outside of me, Friends and Enemies, there are those that define me, and those that let me be defined by having me define them with respect to myself. Thus, an "I", doesn't exist, for I am nothing more than a with-respect-to this and that. My Friends are my Enemies, and My Enemies are my Friends. My friends define me, and my enemies let me be defined. If I give in to the former, I'll be favored, and yet imprisoned. Yielding to latter, I'll be tortured, and yet be free. Will I be a Dog, well fed, but slave to humans, or a wolf, hungry but free?

Nietzsche said in Human, All Too Human:
‘Friends, there are no friends!’ thus said the dying sage;
‘Foes, there are no foes!’ say I, the living fool. (149)

Touché, and yet I rather keep my enemies and my friends all in the neighborhood, and call them neighbors, and give them my love, and my trust, and make sure they don't go hungry, and wait. I would wait until their senses sneak their to my property, onto my Being, and then wait a little more for them to put their thoughts into words, and then a little more and then I would listen. I would listen with my eyes too, with my nose too, and even with my mouth. I would not define myself in contrast to my enemies, nor in parallel to my friends, I would define myself in contrast and parallel to myself, and that shall be the most fulfilling definition of me.

...

2006-08-31T05:48:00.000-04:00

On Emotions...

2006-08-29T19:02:00.000-04:00

"The range of what we think and do
is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
that we fail to notice
there is little we can do
to change
until we notice
how failing to notice
shapes our thoughts and deeds"

~ Daniel Goleman (1985, p. 24)

...

2006-08-28T06:05:00.000-04:00

...

2006-08-23T03:49:00.000-04:00

...

2006-08-22T02:54:00.000-04:00

A Verse On the Unsecurity of Truth

2006-08-16T13:37:00.000-04:00

A lonely star always tries to reach the crescent moon’s lap,
Have you ever noticed it?
A struggle towards completion, towards perfection, towards idealism

It never gets there though, since there is no absolution, no eternal betterness. It thinks it can though, somehow, it has heard about this eternally whatever,
Just like a lie, an awful, “beautiful”, “cheerful”, deceitful, eventful, forceful, “gleeful”, hateful, “insightful”, “joyful”, kitchfull, lustful, mournful, neglectful, Ohfull, painful, remorseful, sinful, “tuneful”, untruthful, vengeful, woeful, xxxful, “youthful”, “zestful” lie.
Like an attachment hiding the detachment. A lie that the seller says, the buyer says, the con says, the judge says, the thief says, the child says the parent says…
The dictator says, the dictated says, the victim says, the victimizer says…
Like the lie that Hitler said, the Jesus said,
Like the lie that every single author said in every single word.
Yes, since there is no truth, to this nothingness surrounding us, then it’s all a lie…
Since there is no absolution, everything is a lie, what else is there, truth? Even these sickening words are lie…How else can all twenty six letters of an alphabet come together and work as an adjective for one word, lie?
Dam…
Shall the Star never gets to the moon, but in his/ and for those feminists, her dreams

God Bless You All

4/29/2003 2:58:56 AM
By Siavashj

P.S. I came across this yesterday. It amazed me how I thought three years ago with such limited knowledge of philosophy, and yet with such an open mind...no wonder the poet seems so lost, and unsecure. Last time I shared poems though, I ended up seeing some of my phrases on the Net. So, please tell me at least that you've found them worthy enough to steal them so that I can appreciate them beforehand.

My Mind is my Enemy!

2006-08-08T03:34:00.000-04:00

Is uphill North and Downhill South?
Was the radish whose root's length I see longer than the rest of the radishes, harder to take away from the unknown ground it was once buried?
Is longer the root I see, the harder was it to pull that radish off the ground?
Why always trip to the beaches UP-North around Simco lake (though its only an hour drive)...Why can't we go UP-south to the so many of other, bigger lakes whose entity is so unknown to us, where the horizon is further.
I never go there anymore: ever since I learnt to grow up.

Let's Talk about Sex!!!

2006-07-30T23:54:00.000-04:00

A new show is on about Sex and the City: Let's talk about Sex and the City... The phrase was too familiar for me to just let it go, and I remembered where I read it. Postmodernism, by Glen Ward, Pg 146:

"The 'putting into discourse of sex' far from undergoing a process of restriction, on the contrary has been subjected to a mechanism of increasing incitement...the techniques of power exercised over sex have not obeyed a principle of rigorous selection, but rather one of dissemination and implantation of polymorphous sexualities."

(The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow,1984, Pg 300)

Nietzsche’s Man: Disoriented in The Abyss of His own Imagination

2006-07-21T23:41:00.000-04:00

Man is so Happy and so tired. Man is an Animal Slave, sunk in his own lethargy, in his own remains. He's stiffed and his muscles are soar from his struggle to catch his tail, sinking in his own Animal reasoning. So pathetically lazy, that he becomes tired of his laziness, weary of himself, filled with self-pity and self-disgust and yet he slides deeper in his sofa, fixing his gaze at his own television of his imaginations...Cushions so heated from his weary muscles that they are soaked his sweat, in yet he sinks deeper...imagining comfort, happiness...
Not a slightest effort to think outside his dogmas

Aristotle died, Plato died, I am already dead...

2006-07-12T02:02:00.000-04:00

My brother's going to play billiard with a friend, and I am surfing net on Aristotle for his conception of StandStill. A white Billiard ball hit by the stick, hits another ball, and moves it, until it reaches the hole, or comes to rest by itself. It struck me with Awe! Laughter! Pity and finally Stupidity soon to be followed by Despair.

Awe and Wonder:

How universally our Newtonian laws describe the motions, and How simply do we learn and memorize them...How conveniently do they apply to our life, how well do we systemize the world around me, and take advantage of the universality of these laws in nature to make machines for ourselves.

Laughter: Ridicule the old Fools.

How deeply convincing, did Aristotle described laws of motion, and how childish and ludicrous they appear to me now. How obediently disciples followed the Aristotelian ways of the day. and why wouldn't they? His reasoning, despite its emptiness, made their earth the center of the universe.

* * * * *

Here, however, the question arises, has every state of rest that is not permanent a becoming, and is this becoming a coming to a standstill? If so, there must be a becoming of that which is at rest unnaturally, e.g. of earth at rest above: and therefore this earth during the time that it was being carried violently upward was coming to a standstill. But whereas the velocity of that which comes t o a standstill seems always to increase, the velocity of that which is carried violently seems always to decrease: so it will he in a state of rest without having become so. Moreover 'coming to a standstill' is generally recognized to be identical or at least concomitant with the locomotion of a thing to its proper place.

Physics By Aristotle - Vol 5 - Translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.5.v.html

* * * * *

Self-pity and Stupidity:
How relaxed and convinced I am to the abyss of my Newtonian Force laws having learned it in physics classes over and over, and over. Sunk in my own stupidity.

Despair:
Made Slave to my ancestors deceivingly convincing interpretations, how im possible everything seems to be free...To escape free and think about a billiard ball...like Aristotle first did before anyone ever thought about it, like Aristotle did before he became Aristotle Dead inside Aristotle died on March 7, 322 BC, but he mentally died sooner free in a wooden prison made by himself, Plato died freely even sooner within metal bars, but Socrates died in prison but free.

Choice:
And I am in prison, already half dead, half alive...surrounded by layers and layers of concrete walls...no windows, no doors...just a repetitive choice whether to add another wall or not...

Criticism of Postmodernism: I

2006-06-30T04:31:00.000-04:00

So criticism strips the idealist idea off its absolution and in that it brings a constantly evolving doctrine of values rather than an ideal system of values. Since any doctrine (or any object) holds an untruth without its criticism, I claimed that this constant evolution of an idea by the aid of criticism is the truth of that idea. That truth is thus a doctrine which can constantly evolve.
However, a doctrine should not adopt criticism as an ideal. If it does, it is creating an ideal untruth within itself. In other words, it's becoming stubborn to criticism itself. If we allow criticism to become the Truth that claims to set us free! In our new critical methods we are regressing to the Truth that was engraved in Victoria College at University of Toronto.

So, any form of thought, that centers criticism as the driving force behind it, must take extra care to avoid any biases. Falling victim to the idealism of criticism would be the most dangerous of all idealism. Considering that the "critical thought" is stubbornly aiming for eternal freedom from idealism, it would be hardest of idealism to determine.

Greek Vs. Germany: Football Pandemonium and Philosophy.

2006-06-25T19:48:00.000-04:00

The Truth Shall NOT Set You Free!?

2006-06-17T02:15:00.000-04:00

There is an engraving at the Main entrance of an old Building in Victoria College. It reads: "The Truth Shall Set You Free". What Truth!? Whose Truth!? It's Ironic...The Truth is supposed to set one free. In any forms, and terms that you think about it, the "Truth" will not set you free, if anything, it imprisons you within its own reality. The "Truth" that is to set you "free", is a truth beyond you. It transcends you, owns you, and then possibly enslaves you. Yet, I still capitalize it in every sentence, and you need still read it capitalized to distinguish as is, not only in this text, but in any other text as well. This "truth" doesn't set you free. Indeed, Setting free is the one thing that it doesn't do.

The Truth of this "truth" however, is in you. It is inherited in you, implicit in your nature, in your thinking, in any of your soul's sensuous and intelligent possessions. This second Truth too shall not set you free, (and if it had been, it wouldn't have been Truth anymore, at least not one deserving capitalization) but it didn't make any claims to do as such either. What it does is: It sets you free of the imprisonment of the "truth", and in that it quite deservingly earns the capitalization. What's next for you!? There is Choice: What next "truth" to choose as a master. This time however you'd be a careful slave, a critical slave. In your criticism you'll earn your freedom from your new master, and that will set you Free...So, in the end: The Truth does set you Free.

2006-06-08T23:17:00.000-04:00

Today, My weblog becomes 1-year old: This was my First Post:

My First Post on this blog...It's kinda like staring at the white paper, expect that here there are no parallel blue lines...pure white...well, No more :D.... I say: "Let There be Thoughts", and Thoughts are here. Seeeee through the windshield and watch the road for hazardous objects.

If Hegel's the Dan Brown of Philosophy then your Truth Is Already Dead

2006-06-08T01:16:00.000-04:00

Previously I talked about how a good story like that of "the Da Vinci's Code", can dress the emperor of your consciousness formally for any ceremony, and yet still he'd be just a naked man. I talked about how we stay in awe of the untruth of the book when any credited documentary and scholar cries: "The emperor's Naked, he is naked". But, it's just so hard to believe that it's all a lie. The reasoning of the book is so prolonged, and so twisted within a maze of emotions and characters, that your mind doesn't reason anymore. Your sense of logic, deceived by the writer's descriptiveness of imagries and intensity of exaggeration, just follows one chapter to another just nodding its head in confirmation to the facts. Alas, there is nothing you can do. Your Emperor's naked and there is nothing you can do about it, you've already read the book, and the movie is already out. You tried to believe that it was truth, but now All that you can do is to pity the untruth that is within you.

Think about Hegel: He tells of the greatest story ever told, the history, not of one Holy Grail, not of a human, but of Consciousness that is collectively in all Human: The abstract consciousness inside us all that he assumed the same to all mankind. Hegel tells how consciousness goes through time to evolve his understanding of the true knowledge. His story is filled with fights of determinate and indeterminate, with triangles that hold the greatest truth at their pick. He loses you in a maze of wordplay-like reasoning where twists of his reason, and the sophistication of his truth is oriented by historians and philosophers.

He puts so much insistence on the result, so much pressure to get the shining truth at the tip of the triangle, that the reader forgets what was happening at the base of the triangle. Drive for truth blinds the reader, as it did Hegel, to the particular facts that lead to truth. He is just "so wrong, so well", that it's just so beautifully facinating to examine his immense unltra-organized system of reasoning, and yet its so painfully pitiful to watch it collapse on its own reasoning as the those like Marx and Feuerbach critisize Hegel, just as it is pitiful to any reader to see the untruth of the Da vinci code. Hegel is the Dan Brown of Philosophy.

Remains of Enron

2006-06-06T02:34:00.000-04:00

Here's what remains of Enron: http://www.enron.com/corp/