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The only holiday celebrated by couple, and you: single. Surrounded by people’s conversations of love, romance, and schmaltz, and seeing lovebirds wherever you turn, one cannot ignore the chirping of Valentine’s Day is near. But wait, my fellow companionless-friend, there is no need to hide, because I present you – drum roll please! TRRRRRRRRRR…. Your SOULMATE!!.... Just kidding! TRRRRRRRRR….
THE VALENTINE’S DAY SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR SINGLES!!!! –APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE! HURRAY! CLAP, CLAP, CLAP!- uuhmm, I’m sorry, that’s what happens when you’re alone too much. Enjoy.
“I
think, therefore I am single.”
A minute has 60 seconds. An hour has 60 minutes. And a day has 24 hours. The life of a 24 year-old has 8’760 days and 756’864’000 seconds…
Two minutes for the search
after the rubber in the store, three minutes standing in line, 30 seconds to
pay.
3-4 hours sweet
conversations, half an hour on the way home.
20 minutes chat in the car. 10
after, outside in the corridor.
2 minutes just caressing and
kissing, 12 minutes break for two cigarettes, standing in the kitchen. Back in
the corridor, 4 minutes to or fro, plus 4 minutes for
“You can trust me, I really like you”.
And No becomes Yes in ca. 7
minutes.
2 seconds long a hesitant
breath, but that is quickly overcome.
Another 6 minutes to take a
bath, 3 minutes from, looking at the mirror, see that everything’s turning, and that
one is high, quietly laughing.
In a short moment lights
turned off and candles enkindled.
Clothes from body, then all
naked.
A second long thought given
to the rubber in the bedside locker, already at the next moment dispelled, no
attention dedicated.
And then: 10 minutes – or was it yet 40? – amused, then
4 minutes remained silent, avoided sights.
12 minutes long talk, 5
hours sleep, shower for only 3 minutes and 8 for toast and tomatoes.
10 minutes for “I have to
go, it was nice, and we see each other.”
10 seconds for “write me
sms”, 8 seconds long goodbye-kiss.
20 minutes at home, out of
the things.
1 hour under the shower, but
the odor won’t get off.
4 months for everyday life,
2 hours fever dizziness, 2 hours waiting room at the doctor and not feeling
well.
4 minutes blood taking, 6
days waiting for values – the seconds of the result, in life the hardest.
Thousand hours for doubt and
remorse, 20 seconds anguished, 20 comprehended, then 20 in tears, 20 screamed.
To be 24 and realize:
“Oh, my God what have I
done?!”
24 years exchanged for the rush
of only one night.
Everything comes to its
time, the time where it must come. In the time, that is meant for. The
beginning is the end. The beginning of the end, that is ever present. Each
moment is infinite, yet only an instant short.
Based on the song “24” by
Curse from the album “Sinnflut”
عِناق، تَعانُق, 拥抱, 擁抱, objetí, omfavnelse, omhelzing, kaisutus, halaus, étreinte, Umarmung, αγκάλιασμα, átkarolás, faðmlag, pelukan, abbraccio, 抱よう, 포옹, apskāviens, priglaudimas, omfavnelse, uścisk, abraço, îmbrăţişare, объятие, objatie, objem, abrazo, omfamning, yakap, kucaklama
Hug – The Universal Language
In the darkest corner it
waits. Placidly waiting to torture me for the wrongs I have done. Pretending to
sleep, not to move, nor breathe, yet through an opening of my cave of pillows
covering my head, keeping my eyes indirectly fixed at the ink black end of the
room, where it placidly waits. Wrapping myself a little bit more under the
blanket, but still, not enough to not feel exposed. It knows that I’m awake,
knows that I hear the wind knocking at my window and feel the cold shadows of moonlit
trees dancing across the bed. It is in these cold, never-ending nights in
particular, where it appears and deprives me from sleep, patiently, silently
waiting, just standing there in that corner between the unlit. But tonight is
different, this time I dare to take a longer glimpse across the darkness, I
won’t wait for the old sun to save me. It already knows that I’m looking right
at him and stares back, something familiar the way it does. My heart is
pounding, but still determined to be exposed and to get out of my cave.
“What are you?! I know I’m
not asleep, but are you a product of my mind?”
Placidly staring, then at
once moving towards the window to escape. But I get up the bed, grab it at its
back, pulling it down to the floor, to see its face…
A seemingly never-ending
night. The wind knocking at my window. Between the cold shadows of moonlit
trees it is now plain to see. After all this time, the monster, it was me.
As his every-days are spent, he sits there with an emptied instant noodle cup in his hands, only a piece of cardboard gives him comfort on the concrete. People various whereabouts pass him by, the college student late for his religious education class, a teacher taking her lunch break to make groceries for her family, the businessman who will attend an important meeting across the street, yet they seem like faceless ovals in gray suits, gray and cold as the concrete the aged man is sitting on. Every now and then he shakes his cup just enough to make a clink of loose coins, trying to penetrate the glassy blur in front of him. The faceless ovals in gray suits conditioned to ignore the clink of loose coins and immune to the sight of the aged man as if their senses were cut out of them. But once in a while, a curious child, not yet conditioned to ignore the clink of coins and not yet immune to the aged man’s sight, or a conscious dreamer seeking for a wake up call, or a life-ponderer refusing to become one of the faceless ovals in gray suits, stop and hear the ringing of the coins as it was a wake up call, see the aged man as it was a sign for the meaning of life, or, like through the eyes of a child, microscopically notice the details of the aged man’s character. The thin silver hair, his face drawn by lines of his history, and if you’re lucky, a catch of his smile. For free. Like the other day, a priceless memory had been picked up by a life-ponderer seeking for something soul-touching.
As the life-ponderer made
his way through the gray, cold stream of ovals, he couldn’t help but pay
attention down to the aged man eating a piece of bread. About to turn his eyes
away from the man, he suddenly noticed a bunch of street children making their
way from the opposite direction. As they neared the aged man, without even a second
thought the aged man reached out with his hand and offered the piece of bread he
was eating, and smiled.
It all happened within a
blink of an eye and the situation itself seemed meaningless, yet for the
life-ponderer that fraction of time lingered in him. “Was I meant to see it? Was
it a sign?” a train of thoughts crossed his mind. But whatever it was, he felt
blessed at that moment. He looked back once more, and continued his way through
the gray blur of ovals.
"What if God was one of Us?"
He is all of us.
For my other photographs visit seian-j.deviantart.com
click on images for larger view
It’s always a
reflective experience when I am in the middle of somewhere and along my national
geographic, discovery channel like travels… –basically, I just get lost-
stumble on territory of a bunch of children.
I
like to see them as little Indians, complete with tiny dresses made of
animal-skin and matching feathered hats, for us outsiders they appear like
outer-spaced hullabaloo, but it’s what they want you to see, those little
Indians are more organized then you think. Within each little Indian’s tribe there
is an underlying structure, some of them hunt (animals, plants, other Indians,
outsiders), others discuss tactics and strategies against those hunted, or on
important issues, such as the effects of magnifying glass on global warming, and
older ones are assigned to keep an eye on the fields. But the one you should put
in mind is their leader. He can mostly be located with a smaller group of other
Indians walking after him and doing exactly what he does. If he picks up a
rock, the other Indians will pick up rocks. If he puts something in his nose,
they will put something in their noses. If he laughs devilish, they’ll laugh
devilish. 
When
you find yourself in such situation, let me tell you that you have two
options. Either, 1) you sneak you’re way
back in the opposite direction before they spot you, or 2) and if they already
did spot you with their wolf-like senses , put on a smile and hope you will not
end up like the other victims tied on a tree or worse.
In the latter case, you have two sub-options,
2a) Run, is not really an option if you want to escape unharmed, plus it’s not
really considered the “cool”, Spartan choice. Which leads us with your only
choice 2b) befriend yourself with the leader, for the faith of your sorry life now
depends solely on him and his judgment whether he likes you or not-like you. I
hope that very moment is not when you remind yourself that you have forgotten
to make a check on the offerings-in-case-of-Indians item on your things to pack
list back home. Silver coins or colorful bonbons is a good start to tame the
leader, by now the rest of the tribe might have gathered around, so make sure
you have enough offering for each Indian in the tribe. If you have indeed no
offering with you, well, entertain them, dance, do something stupid, and/or
hurt yourself.
Once
they have sensed that you mean no harm, you’re allowed to move, slowly. Let the
leader show you around, ask him about his favorite horse. Gain his trust by
keeping attention on what he is saying, little Indians know if you are not
interested and they hate it. Now is the time when you can take out your big
black light-capturing box, in other words camera from your big black
light-capturing box bag, slowly, and while still keeping attention on the
leader. Don’t act nervous or too excited, little Indians can sense nervousness,
they will think you are up to something, and they hate it.
This
is particularly important when they spot you holding your big black
lighting-capturing box, the whole tribe will drop everything and gather around
you, just to see you operate your magic device. Don’t sweat. Let the little
Indians look
through the viewfinder, show them their light drawings on the
liquid-crystal display of your light box, soon they will lose interest and go
back to what they were doing. At this time the little Indians know that a)
you’re harmless, and b) your magic device is just a camera duh. Good for you!
Now you can shoot the whole tribe in their natural environment, without being
noticed by them. After you knocked yourself out with your shutter-button
frenzy, show the tribe few frames (if they’re still interested in you), smile
and say good-bye.
Leave the little Indians how you met them in their
territory. Some will vaguely remember you as a giant with the magic device, but
most probably in time they will forget you being once there.
When
it comes to us, we might have gained more then just photographs. The footprints
of each little Indian I meet linger in my heart, and remind me that I was one
of them, for once I was a little Indian too.
(Me and my tent in the '80)
For my other photographs visit seian-j.deviantart.com
After many years being (consciously or sub-consciously) depressed, there came a point where I had enough of being unhappy and spending too many thoughts on my past and what could have been better. I think I’m finding my way back to how I used to be four years ago, just myself.
Here are some of my refined thoughts and ideas that up to now still help me when things don’t go the way I wanted to:
Once and again I can’t help myself but to get pointless nostalgic. Reminiscing my cares away and see the things that I may have missed at the time. Sometimes bitter sweet, but always worth remembering. People from the past are slowly slipping away and I wonder how they are. I would let them know how I appreciate them and to some that I regret I didn’t say goodbye before I left, yet you may not know it, you are here when I need a home. Sipping memory lane would not be as grand without you.
I get caught up in photographs and it seems so far away, it feels like another person lived that life a long time ago. But then, by heart I can’t forget; sunrays on a cold day in spring, the squeaking of railways, the aroma of fresh bread, the people and places of yesterday’s living, and moreover, I remember that we were carefree. -Yes, I’m yearning for the good old days. Until, I realize once and again, that life is meant to be…
Give me the taste of some wine. Cheers!
(Good friend Viviana and yeah that's me at Paradeplatz, Zurich)
(Good friends Beatriz and Tais)
(Tais)
(My Lil Sistah, Candy, et moi)
(Old Friend Patrick. at times friends,
at times rivals, but always made me
stronger)
(Ain't no Playa. Juz like to Club. Old classmates Tamara, Elina, Sarah)
The only reason
why I’m telling you this is because someone made the ultimate sacrifice.
A few years ago he found me. He said he was lost and I believed him. Yet I couldn’t trust my own eyes. My mother never told me, why would she hide him after all these years... because, she never knew. We decided not to ask, so we never had any answers. He was running away from his past, especially from the family who adopted him. In search of something “real”, as he told me, he was tracing back his origins, wanting to know more about himself. It took him two years to find out what I had to realize a numb 30 seconds from the moment he was standing in front of me. A brother, a twin brother.
For the first couple of weeks I had difficulties figuring out how to deal having a doppelganger around my neck. It was bizarre, living in a room with a stranger wearing your visage, a damned moving mirror. But I felt it was something new for him too.
We were similar, but different. He preferred to be alone and despised “the society”. He idolized people who live on their own, like the Spartans with their simplicity and strict self discipline. I understood him, but I’m a loner simply because I have a hard time finding people I can relate to. I appreciate good music of any kind, where the roaring of a high performing engine is music to his ears. He’s dream was to own a Ferrari Testarossa, in red of course. He was more of an easy going person with a hint of an “l’etat, c’est moi” syndrome. He kept on mocking me because I was still a virgin, but I was smarter than him and he knew that. We had different point of views, and agreed at best when we shared our sarcasms. After hours of Q&A we became close, like brothers, and it didn’t matter anymore where he came from.
At a point in time we began to think seriously about our newly acquired selves, but it was me who worried more about him, there where times I felt less a brother, but his parent. He didn’t want to let anyone know about him, there was no place for him to go anyway. I was his only family, he once told me, and it was enough for him that I exist.
I had classes to attend, and he didn’t mind staying at the apartment everyday. We then figured that he could try going out as me. All he had to do is using my glasses instead of his contact lenses. But the physical appearance was the only easy part.
“It’s the glasses that make you look smart, now don’t make a fool out of me”, I joked half seriously. I had to teach him everything about me, what I eat for lunch, how I talk, get him familiarized with the people I communicate on a regular basis and how I am related to them. But no one really would notice the switch, being a loner worked for us, and we agreed to keep up that image. My habits and routines became his, it was like wearing a mask for him, and he liked it that way. It gave me the creeps at first, he soon played my role almost too perfectly.
Time passed and the switch became regular. Together we developed ideas that would solve or prevent problems that would come our way and may uncover our double life. We had to think ahead and after each switch every single occurrence must be known to the other, the information accumulated to the point that we had difficulties keeping them in mind, so we wrote them down, and lead to the idea of a journal, a mutual diary.
At any cost we would not be allowed to be seen together, outside or inside. When one did the switch, the other must stay in the apartment. Disguise crossed our minds but it was not realistic and it was way too risky.
There were times when my then girlfriend planned to stay with me for her vacations. I could share my life, but not my girlfriend. He said I shouldn’t worry, and he would handle it on his own. He packed his things and was gone. But I did worry each day. He shaved his hair short and stayed somewhere outside the city where no one knew me, he told me afterwards. And it worked, more than once.
Daily life became ordinary, boring at times that we began to test people with silly remarks which would actually give hints to our secret. When my brother would receive comments like “you look like a good person”. He would reply, “It’s just the glasses.” And they would interpret it as an amusing answer. Or if someone would ask me about my nationality I would say that I was a dual citizen with the double entendre on my mind. My brother had a short temper he hardly could control, where I’m the one with patience, but we would simply say that I was moody. People never did bother to notice, the illusion was perfect with the truth right in front of their eyes. But I knew already that this twofold life would not work out forever.
The time came I had no choice but to move to another city, and staying together was impossible without exposing himself, since I would live with my father and his family. Eventually, I had to leave, and he stayed until we figured something out.
I visited him whenever I could, mostly over the weekends when I didn’t have any classes. My cover up was having a long-distance girlfriend, or visiting old friends. And sometimes he would come over here, stay in some cheap pension outside the city, we couldn’t do the switch, because he was keeping his hair short, but it didn’t matter since I was new here and no one knew me yet. I told him that it would not really work out unless he would show himself. His immaturity pushed me to the limit of my patience, and more than often we ended up arguing and hating each other.
“What do you want with your own life??” I kept on pushing him. And the last time we fought he shared that when he found out, as a fourteen year old boy, that he was adopted, he wanted to kill himself. He hated his family, and realizing it was not even his own after all, he never wanted to exist. Finding me gave him something real, at least once in his life and it was enough for him. He said I shouldn’t worry, and packed his things. I told him not to do what he had in mind, and threaten him that I would do the same. He knew I was bluffing and was gone anyway.
Weeks passed without hearing something from him. I broke up with my girlfriend from where he lived with the reason that I needed some time alone to find myself, which came closest to the truth. I couldn’t find a start where to search for him, I knew if he would want me to find him he would let me know. All I could do is prepare for the worst.
Weeks became months, and I troubled about him everyday. But Faith came and I met someone. It was the right time to share some company and she helped me to keep my mind from my worries for a while. I started to like her.
Then on a Friday night I got a message with an address outside the city and that I needed to be there tomorrow or the secret would be uncovered, I couldn’t care less about the secret. Hearing from him after so long, I was upset and relieved at the same time. He informed me at night, because he knew I couldn’t get anywhere at these late times since I had to commute, so I had to wait till morning.
As agreed I went to the address and I found my brother, with a note. It is still unbearable for me to write this down. I couldn’t look at him for long and I didn’t know if I should cry or just get out. But I just stood there senseless. A dead body is far from what you see on television and movies. And fuck he was my brother... The note asked me to do the hardest thing I ever had to, and it still hunts me. It simply said “If you respect me, bury me here.”
Everyday I tried to compose myself not to break down. Questions of guilt wriggled in my head and it was hard to keep it all by myself. I couldn’t let anyone see me like this, but with a little help by faith made it easier to give an answer if ever someone happens to see me having a bad moment. The girl I started to like a few months ago, decided to leave me three days after my brother’s death, which was a perfect cover up, plus summer holidays was near, so I didn’t have to face people. I couldn’t ask for something better, or did my brother just waited for the right moment?
I still think of him a lot, and I’m getting better. He wanted me to keep our secret and live MY life, I do my best. But nothing really matters, I shouldn’t care if people say this story is fake or stamp me as crazy, I accept my mark of Cain. The best way to keep a secret is not to hide it and let it become an illusion, or does it just look like one? Even if someone would find a shred of evidence, it is still harder to prove that it’s real.
And the only reason why I’m telling you this is because someone made the ultimate sacrifice. A sacrifice that gave back my life by taking his, but I can’t grant his wish me to live mine, because I want to do what he himself never could, to live his.
(sj)
(h)
And As God asked Cain where his brother was, Cain responded: “I know not; Am I my Brother’s keeper?” And God said “what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” the Lord put a mark upon him so that he would be identified as the killer of his brother but would also be protected in his wanderings. Cain is cursed, always to be a fugitive and wanderer in the earth.
Dear Hannesli,
I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the choices I make that keep you struggling and make it harder for you to move on from your past. I put you in the corner and rather ignore your cry, yet in the agony of silence I know I can hear you. My withheld anger towards the people who made your life unhappy has left you most of the time in sorrow. Isolation has become your friend, and if someone comes along to make things easier for you I distrust and drive them away, I believed it was for your own good if they don’t know about you. But I was selfish, many times in the past I let you down, I should have spoken up when you needed me to.
My insecurities have hurt you more than once, it was never my intention to do so. You should know that your tears run through my eyes, but my weakness refuses to let anyone near you to give you a hug, it’s easier for me to lock you up in the closet. You keep on trying to reach out, but you’re hunting and it makes me uncomfortable. All you wanted is letting me know that no one but me can put an end to your suffering.
I hope in time you
will forgive me for being afraid and mistreating you. I love you, and I know someday
you will meet someone who can take care of you better than I manage to. As you
run into that person’s arms, I wish she would see you, despite of me, and
inspire you to let me go. But until then
I promise I’ll try my best to find my way towards my horizon, and to your
happiness… I’m sorry for being weak.
Will you hold my hand and lead me?
Love,
s.j.
Go To: http://seian-j.deviantart.com/gallery/
Like a queen on her throne, tranquil and majestic raises the Mayon Volcano above the Albay gulf. But don’t let her calmness deceive you, her temper is feared even by the farthest villages across the lands. Too many times they have felt her mercurial rage, and when there was word among the people she was again about to erupt, they prepared for the worst, like they did during this times before, but no one could foresee that something else was coming towards their direction three moons later.
(Bugtong Road)
(Near Cagsawa Ruins)
(Bridge in Ginubatan)
It has been four months now since typhoon Reming made its way and brought the harshest winds in Bicol and black, roof-high mudslides that cascaded down from the Mayon and took many houses and families with it.
“The water came in so fast”, one of my grandma’s neighbor still remembers like it just happened yesterday. Within minutes the mud rushed into their houses gradually increasing in elevation. Some hurried to the first floor (if they were lucky to have one), others abandoned their home completely to the nearest and highest point they could climb to, and many weren’t that fortunate.
Like several around my grandma’s house in Malabog, Manong Puldo and his family found shelter in a church which was located on a nearby hill, as he decided to check up on their house later in the evening, he only came to find that little was left.
“Everything was gone.” he recalled for me that moment.
“Our things, the television, our clothes, not even a piece of underwear… Nothing was left.”
He pointed on the other side of the river. “That’s our house.”
(Manong Puldo’s
house)
As I made my way through the devastated areas in Daraga (among other places I passed by) and visited a couple of evacuation centers, one cannot fail to notice that the progress in rehabilitating and rebuilding is unnecessarily slow paced. The lack of equipment and engineering vehicles such as bulldozers and excavators force the workers and inhabitants (and even children) to clean up the devastation more often than not manually. They spend their day digging through massive areas of black gravel and rocks and separating the sand from the stones with man-made coarse sieves, which is then loaded on trucks and transported to deposit areas (for further use I suppose).
“Thank You,” Manong Hermez said as I approached him with my camera. In his face I could see that he meant it. The lines in his expression revealed his age and that he had been doing this kind of work for a time. It seemed that he was genuinely happy to see me, or that it made him feel not forgotten as I asked him if I could shoot a couple of frames. He gladly insisted and expressed his gratitude repeatedly. I can’t deny that moment moved something in me.
(Manong Hermez)
(Hard Work)
(young worker)
I spent a morning on the fields with a group of workers and I was already exhausted walking under the early sun. I went home with shoes filled with sand and dust all over me.
Right after Reming passed by there was news of the Cagsawa ruins being ultimately ruined, and this information is far from the truth. The opposite, the church, which was buried by molten lava in 1814, had become more than a tourist spot. Miraculously the mudslide split before it reached the church and streamed on both sides leaving it unharmed. Since then it had become a sanctuary for the people.
My first attempt to get to the ruins of Cagsawa failed, the streams of water from the widened river made it impossible to pass through the gravel area other than by foot, but this didn’t keep several tourists from visiting the church, I guess it gives them a sense of adventure. Since we were traveling by motor, I decided to go back next opportunity, which came the other day.
Unlike several nearby structures such as souvenir shops, restaurants - and I think there was some kind of park, the church’s bell tower stands tall and soundly. In addition to the postcards of Mayon and the Ruins, children made a business selling photographs of the devastation around Cagsawa. But moreover there is a change which cannot be witnessed through the eyes. Cagsawa ruins has become quiet, it is no longer solely a tourist attraction, but a holy place, a memorial for the victims.
In 1814 Mount Mayon erupted and buried 1200 people who gathered inside the church, thinking they would be saved. 193 years later everything around Cagsawa was buried, leaving the church ruins untouched. Is this the balance of nature?
(Cagsawa Ruins)
(tourists)
Numerous inhabitants began to rebuild their homes on top of the gravel without waiting for the area to be cleaned, who can blame them, no one can live without some kind of shelter, and it has been four months. But as I hiked above the gravel and rocks, the thought there still might be (and most probably are) dead bodies underneath hunted be throughout. Among scattered pieces of clothes, unpaired shoes, deformed toys, and bed mattresses coming from nowhere, it wasn’t hard to imagine.
Which reminds me of the case of Esthela K., who lost her sister-in-law and cannot claim the money of her insurance, due to the fact that the family is not able to provide the body, not even a piece of cloth of her sister-in-law as prove.
(A family)
(Buried)
“Mam, “ an aged man approached us asking my aunt as we were walking home,
“Whom will you vote for these coming elections?”
“Who ever can help us,” my aunt replied.
The man already knew that answer, yet there was little hope as his tone of his voice changed.
“We lived here,” the baseball cap made him appear younger, but a closer look revealed silver hair,
“Only my own family survived, but my cousins and their families are still missing.”
He pointed to several areas in the gravel.
“Our houses used to be here.”
It was hard for me to follow which spots he meant, everything looks the same… Even the people, like Manong Jakob and other individuals I’ve met during my stay in Bicol, many of them have similar stories to tell, an experience how they lost their houses and families, and how their hopes slowly vanishes into dust and ashes. They are willing to share them to you, hoping that someone will hear them.
(Manong Jakob)
For full-view and other images visit: seian-j.deviantart.com
I wasn’t in the mood writing, so I made this mangaka style, and like a manga it is read right to left.
Arigato!
It was a late afternoon in autumn. Long angled sunrays turned the sky into a twisted glow of mauve and copper, the sun itself was little energy. The open sea was calm and tiny boats where moving slowly along the horizon. Everything looked peaceful and small up here. Under the sheltering roof, watching the drizzling of the sky that silently painted a rainbow above the city.
A rainbow. . . a fucking rainbow, I was thinking.
This is great. A perfect now-or-Neverneverland moment. What am I going to do? Almighty from above, just tell me what you want! What?!
Not daring to look at her, I kept my head positioned to the rainbow and tried instead to concentrate on the song that began to play in my head, a Bossa Nova song sung by Astrud Gilberto. I adore her voice with the Latin accent. Starring at the fucking rainbow I could only remember the first line:
‘Never trust the stars
When you’re about to fall in love…’
Think!, I told myself. Just focus on that rainbow, after all you haven’t seen one for ages. Isn’t it beautiful?! And so many colors, one… two… three… fou…
“Love is just all in the brain.” she interrupted my cerebral counting, “It’s just chemicals, dopamine, Biochemistry, whatever.”
I smiled, also because she broke this awkward silence, and replied with my head unturned.
“Well,” I paused. “love is more than scientists can ever explain. Some things are meant to be mysteries, like believe or miracles. If we had scientific explanations for them, it will take away their essence.”
“No, no, no. Look, it’s just chemical reactions!”
I smiled.
I guess I belong to those people who believe that love will always be more then the sum of its natural parts, but of course she was right. For a long time scientists weren’t interested exploring a phenomenon that has been around since Mankind itself. Science is cold and hard. Love is mushy and touchy feely. Science is based on facts. Love is vague and fuzzy. If gravitation, according to Einstein, cannot be held responsible for people falling in love, what then is this thing bound to that makes our world go spinnin’?
Cupid’s
arrows wouldn’t be effective if they weren’t dipped first into a cocktail of chemicals
with an ingredient called phenylethylamine (PEA), which triggers the other substances. PEA is responsible
for that silly smile on your face when you see your crush. When we see someone who is attractive to us,
the PEA factory is in full steam. PEA
can also be found in strawberries and chocolate. But wait! Before you start
chewing that Snickers bar, you should know that the body naturally builds up
tolerance to PEA and therefore takes more and more to produce that special love
kick, the reason why from the earliest days our human mating pattern has been
“monogamy with clandestine adultery”. Some end up craving the intoxication of falling in love so much that
they move to one affair to another as soon as the first rush of infatuation
fades. (You may continue eating that
chocolate bar now)
If you’re lucky to survive the phase of infatuation and its floods of fizzy amphetamines, another set of chemicals takes over, namely endorphins. These are soothing substances that give lovers a sense of security, peace and calm. That is one reason why it feels so horrible when we're abandoned or a lover dies. "We don't have our daily hit of narcotics."
Now you can see a contrast between the heated infatuation induced by PEA, along with other amphetamine-like chemicals, and the more intimate attachment fostered and prolonged by endorphins.
Early love is when you love the way the other person makes you feel. Mature love is when you love the person as how she or he is. It is the difference of passionate and compassionate love. It’s Bon Jovi vs. Beethoven.
Oxytocin is another chemical also called the cuddling chemical, that sets in during the attachment stage as well. It increases the bonding between lovers, and is also released during childbirth and production of breast milk.
Another chemical is Vasopressin, the monogamy chemical, which is responsible for creating strong partnership bonds. Only about three percent of mammals are monogamous; mating and bonding with one partner for life. Unfortunately, as already mentioned, humans are not one of these naturally monogamous animals.
So if I know that Love is just some cerebral chemical reaction, can I choose with whom I fall in love with? Or in other words, can I consciously fall in love? Well, it’s not that easy. You see, nature has wired us for one special person. We draw an image of our ideal partner based on persons and experiences from our childhood. A record of whatever we find exciting or disgusting. Brown eyes or long hair. The way our fathers treated us and how we were taken care of by our mothers. All that information gathered while growing up is imprinted in our brain’s circuitry by adolescence.
Of course no person will ever meet all the requirements, but it takes only a sufficient number of matches for our brains to signal “jackpot!”
In addition nature seeks the best compatible genes as these genes will be passed on to our children and ensure that they are healthy, which is a complex process.
And how do we do this? We sniff out Mr. or Mrs. Right through Pheromones. They are smellprints which are as unique as fingerprints. It is a force which overpowers reason and dictates where cupid’s arrow will land. That’s how powerful Pheromones are.
Now there you
have a scientific explanation of love. Love broken down in less than 1000
words. Satisfied? Probably not. Love will still remain a mixture of reality and
Nonrealidad. Poetry and phenylethylamine. Facts and fuzziness.
The last sunrays became longer and as the
rainbow slowly faded I said,
“See that rainbow, we both know it has
something to do with the sunlight shinning onto droplets of moisture in the
Earth’s atmosphere, but we end up with technicalities that we don’t see the
rainbow at all. Before you know it… it’s gone. Sometimes explanations don’t
matter.”
We were both silent again.
“Yeah, whatever.”
I nodded amused and glanced at her while she was still watching the rainbow slowly disappear into the young soil of the evening.
I’m not talking about the current performance
of Globelines Broadband internet connection that has already been going on for
several weeks now after the Taiwan quake, although let me add one point on that
matter. . . It sucks!
But
just think, in a world where we are the first overcommunicated society, we fail
to communicate; more is said, but less is understood. Our means of reaching people has become
faster, yet there is no progress in unity.
Communication is the single, most
common, most universal reason people give to their problems. Business problems, government problems,
marriage problems. But the problem is communication itself.
I
wonder if we unplug ourselves from society, government, religion, from
everything, do we start to connect with our inner selves? It is society that shapes us. It is the
government that makes rules how we are being shaped. And isn’t it because
of religion there is war? If we forget
how to talk, will we learn to listen? Then, we should start to listen to ourselves first, hear our inner voice
and not other people’s thoughts about who we are expected or not expected to be.
Everybody wants to be somebody, but nobody wants to be themselves. Allow me to unplug and reconnect.
Peace.
Okay. I’m
telling you. Starting today, upfront and straightforward, I’m going to write this
like everybody else is writing a blog, Raw and uncomplicated. No dictionary, No
thesaurus, straight from my brain. Just let me think of a title, or maybe I
should write down a concept or at least an outline, or maybe I should give it
some thoughts first, let it roam in my head for a couple of time until I get a
clear plan of what and how I’m exactly going to write, after I finished a
general research on the topic and grabbed one or two reference books from the
shelf, but before that, allow me to introduce myself.
My
name is Johannes Seian Manzanilla (a.k.a. Mr. Sennahoj Boredom, as I currently
call myself) and I am a perfectionist. Don’t think I’m a freak and everything
around me has to be dust-free and placed in its designated arrangement. I whish
there was little order; my room is perfect, a perfect mess! But come on, am I
the only person who has a hard time writing without being conscious of sentence
structure and vocabulary?
Perhaps
it is worth mentioning here that I didn’t grow up with the English language and
its grammar, although I naturally learned it when I was a kid through family,
growing up in Switzerland
Ask
why I became how I am and I won’t be able to give you a clear answer, it is a
myth to me as well. One of my theories
is that I look at my parents’ lives and the choices they made in the past. Do I
want to walk the same path as them, or am I already on it; can I learn from
their mistakes (in my opinion) and use it to find a shortcut or to set foot in an
opposite direction? - Well, let’s just cut that crap! - Someway or another you
know what I mean, right? We deal with the same problems and frustrations; we
are all subject to the Laws and Principle of life. And this is where we arrive to
my second point (if you still care to spend your valuable time with Mr.
Sennahoj Boredom, or perhaps we are related?).
My
class starts at 7:30am, whether I like it or not, I arrive at school 7am. I
mostly wait in the lobby, the benches and hallways are empty. The chairs in
every classroom are polished and neatly aligned by row, anticipating the bell
of disorder, but for now at 7am, everything is in a state of tranquility. A
great time to reflect.
After
10min, the first students arrive, sitting on the benches. Another 10min pass, the
first crowds make their way to their classrooms with the neatly aligned chairs.
3min before the bell of disorder sings, swarms of students, teachers, and
workers, and their hums are streaming the hallways. In the midst, there I am on
the bench, and observe.
They
just do what they think they ought to do, day by day, or maybe they don’t think
at all anymore. I imagine if one of them just stops in the middle of the
rushing crowd and realizes that she needn’t to do what she is doing, or at
least that she’s conscious of her actions in that very moment, her individual
actions. “To stand out from the crowd existence” as the Existentialist would
say (but don’t worry I won’t start breaking it down for you philosophically),
what I’m asking is, Are they conscious of life? Are they aware that they are
aware? Do I only do what I suppose to
do, or am I thinking too much?? –CHECK (with a fat black marker!) –
As
a perfectionist you end up thinking, and thinking why you are thinking because
you are aware that you are thinking, until you realize you are aware that you
are aware of your thinking, so you get back thinking what you are suppose to
think about in the first place.
When
I was considering to start my own blog few months ago, I began to study other
people’s blogs, made a research on blogging itself, and read books about
writing, I must have read at least five books and skimmed through a lot more
(and counting), I enjoy the later, although I cannot confirm major improvements
on my writings, but sometimes I read them for the sake of doing something – I
am Mr. Boredom, remember? -.
Currently
I’m reading Steven King On Writing,
to be honest, it never occurred that I had read one of his novels (I guess this
is because I cannot seem to find Steven King stuff around the house, except the one I mention here), but what I am more
interested in right now is his insight about this craft, and he has definitely
the experience and know-how. In his
opinion, a plot should only be used by a writer as a last resort, because life
itself is plotless! – Mr. Boredom can relate to that indeed! - He explains
further that he just gives enough space to let his characters shape their own plot.
And it dawned on me that life is exactly like a story:
It is a cold morning in late December. The shops and bistros
along the Limat River
At the Rudolf Brun Brücke Station by the Limat River
On his way home he feels empty, he does not get on
the streetcar number 4 at Fröhlichstrasse Station, decides to walk. He passes
by the mourning trees in funeral costumes and the tomb-like benches along the Theater
Strasse. Under the struggling pale behind the drapery the wind is bitter, but
from his face alone one could not tell the young man is aware of his
surroundings. Near the Grossmünster Cathedral he makes a right into the winding
cobblestoned alleyways of the Altstadt, and arrives on Brunn Gasse. By the
door, he gets today’s newspaper from the mailbox, walks up the staircase, and
enters his apartment. Only a shade of
pastel bleaches through the nearby window. He sits by his desk and stares
blankly on an unread newspaper in front of him.
Time is a circle, infinitely repeating itself; we are
trapped by each oscillation of its pendulum, while time never grows old. The
young man stares at his life, transfixed he loses sight of the things around
him that must be done, realizes that the only certain thing is time, like the
date on the newspaper.
- S. J. M.
Every year millions of Christians around the world are
busy decorating their homes with Christmas trees, lights, and candles. Malls
and shops are in full steam competing with selling and marketing strategies
through seasonal advertisements, dramatic window decorations, and anything that
would give the consumers a feeling of warmth, in other words, to attract and
make a sale. Whether you like it or not, whether you have a commercial or
religious point of view of it; Christmas season is in the Air. According to
Odon, my younger brother, the smell of Christmas is the smell of burned out
Christmas light bulbs and gift wrappers. But there is something more to unwrap
about Christmas, behind the festive lights, the truth of Christmas is
forgotten, mostly untold.
The holiday that unite Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, all
customs of it, existed long before Jesus Christ was born.
The Romans converted this pagan legacy to a celebration of the god Saturnus,
and the rebirth of the sun god during the winter solstice period. Solstice
means “sun stands still”. In the northern hemisphere it is the shortest day and
longest night of the year, occurring on the 20th, 21st or 22nd of December.
The winter holiday became known as Saturnalia and was characterized by
gift-giving, feasting, and singing.
Time
went by, more Christians observed these celebrations, and as Christianity
spread, the Church became alarmed by the continuing practice among its members to
indulge in pagan customs and celebrate the festival of Saturnalia. The futile
attempts of the Church to prohibit these practices made them eventually decide
to adopt the customs and make them better suited to honor Jesus Christ.
Five years later, Constantine the Great (the first Christian Roman emperor)
changed the ancient solstice celebrations into Christmas, an immovable feast
celebrating the nativity of Christ.
Besides of the Shepherds, there are other references to the possible birth date
of Jesus Christ. In the 6th Century, the Roman monk-mathematician-astronomer
Dionysis Exeguus unintentionally committed what has become “history's greatest
numerical error in terms of cumulative effect”. In reforming the calendar (as
we know it) to revolve around the birth of Christ, he miscalculated the
Nativity by at least 5 years off. Thus, the reference to the Birth of Jesus
“2000 years ago” is wrong. Knowing this and considering the star that the Magi
followed, also known as the Star of Bethlehem, which could be any of the astral
markers that appeared in 6, 5 and 4BC, Jesus was born in or before 4BC.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
When i ask myself that very question, i remember an
article i once read for my philosophy class. I forgot the Author's name, but
what he wrote changed the way i saw myself. the title was "Who" and
it started with a simple question:
Suppose it is philosophical true that you cannot step
into the same river twice, which leads me to the question that therefore you
cannot meet the same person twice? For
the second time you will meet a person, he would have changed in many
ways. He would have new memories, for
example. So there are actually two
persons you’re going to meet. The Person you met first, and the person you will
meet on the second time. It doesn’t make
any “sense”. I try not to take it too
literally. The river has always been
symbolic for oneness of constancy vs. change. A cloud symbolizes the same thing. It is always changing while remaining the same cloud. People are constantly changing too, but
remaining the same person. We are
constantly being, while becoming.
