Friday, December 31, 2010

New Year Message for 2011 (and beyond...)


There will never be peace on earth.

Never.

Ever.

...Not in a million years.

The only time we will get peace on earth is in the distant future - many millions of years hence, when the sun has grown fat and mushroomed into an obese red giant, and swallowed the earth whole. This last gasp of breath - this final death rattle of the earth, will usher forth a sort of peace for the wretched mass of miserable-striving humanity. But it will be a peace of non-existence - that state of care-free nonchalant sleep stamped on the face of sleepers.  But for all intents and practical purposes my statement still stands:

...there will never be peace on earth. As long as there is an earth there will never be peace on earth.

I know. I know. It's a rather pessimistic and sobering assessment ain't it? This is supposed to be the merry season of cheer and Christmas and mince pies!

Perhaps (you're thinking) Wasim is just having a bad day and his thoughts have taken up a darker hue as a result of some gloom that has overcast his mind. Or perhaps, Wasim didn't get any Christmas presents and wishes ill, sulphur and brimstone on the whole world! Yes, tomorrow morning Wasim will wake up with a more cheerful head atop his neck! - that is what you are thinking right?

Wrong! No, I am not having a bad day. In fact my day has been rather good. I have no complaints to make today (and who would I complain to anyway?). It has all gone rather well. I didn't wake up with a nasty headache. I got a good nights sleep. I bought a new toy which I am giddy with excitement with and on the verge of reviewing (watch out for the review!)

Yet, despite the above, I know deep down, that there will never ever be peace on earth.

I do wish - I really do - that a day would arrive when people would once and for all set aside their differences, embrace one another, see each other in each others eyes - and live happily ever after...but alas this is a pipe dream. We will never get peace on earth because the human condition will not allow it. Our inheritance will not allow it. An inheritance we have accumulated; that has been steadily hoisted upon our shoulders, over many years - and in everything we do, every breath we take, every love we embrace, every child we create, every satisfaction and pleasure we satiate, we will never get peace whilst we live and there is breath in our lungs.

You see life is not about peace. Peace is not its 'purpose' or raison d'etre. We don't exist because of peace. We exist in spite of it. We exist because of struggle. The struggles of the past and the struggles of the future to come. Life is struggle incarnate, life is want, life is craving, life is coveting - these are the nasty bedfellows; the demons sitting broodingly on our shoulders, weighing us down - our shoulders hunched, our mouths agape, our eyes distrustful, our hearts shrivelled like dried apples, our earthly hopes dashed, our lives (seemingly) without purpose.

We live on a world that spins on endlessly in a cold dark vacuum of nothingness. Have you seen Space? Do you have any idea what Space is like? I do. Mulled endlessly I have over it. I know Space intimately. For it dwells up there and has made a home inside my breast. It courses through my veins. We are alone - utterly, maddeningly, heart-breakingly alone in the vast ocean of stars. There are moments when I feel this with such force - with such brutal honesty - that it is like an icy grip on my heart. A feeling of utter desolate bareness. Like a once fertile landscape blighted by some natural calamity.

Yet...there is hope. A little hope. A little slender green shoot of hope that takes root and grows forth from the black desolate earth. A green shoot that crashes through the soil and takes aim for the skies!! A green shoot that knows all too well that all is utterly vain, yet it still strives and thrives. A green shoot that sees itself as the engine of innovation, as the answer to the indifference of the universe, as a big 'Fuck you!' to the whole of Creation. Yes, a big wet slap in the face of Time. Against a backdrop of a forest of black burnt-out trees this green shoot rejoices! Ah yes how it rejoices! Rejoices at the miracle of its own existence! How it could be, how it could possibly happen, that this green shoot could despite the odds - deign to exist!

Hey you little green shoot - how dare you defy - entropy!



Do I have a message for 2011 and beyond?

I do:

Go forth and exist. And continue your defiance! We are all; each and every one of us, green shoots, in a spinning sea of emptiness.


V.




P.S: and (for what they're worth) my resolution(s) for 2011 are: Write more, take more photographs, read less, look out of the window more and go on a very long wander somewhere...far out.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

On Talent

If you can't excel with talent, triumph with effort.
Dave Weinbaum


Talent is cheaper than table salt.
What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.
Stephen King


However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.
Jean Jacques Rousseau


I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious
Albert Einstein

Use what talent you possess
the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
Henry VanDyke


_______________




I don’t know for sure if there is something real that we can call talent. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. What is sure is that there are people debating for one option or the other, and being very adamant about their beliefs.

For me, if there is such a thing as talent, it is the ability to make the best use of your time, when doing something you deeply care about, by engaging in regular practice, study and dedication. Talent is also seeking help from people who are where you want to be, because the experience of someone who is more experienced than you is one of the most valuable assets you can find. Finally, talent is not giving up when faced with difficulties. Talent, in other words, is the ability to focus, work hard, seek guidance and not give up.

I believe that these are qualities that we all have. I believe that all of us can focus our efforts on regular study and practice. I believe that we can all look for help from those more experienced than we are. Finally I believe that we can all find the courage necessary to not give up in front of difficulty. Therefore, I believe that talent is something we all have. All we need to do is decide to use these abilities, decide to nurture them and allow them to grow rather than leave them unused and ignored.

Talent is overrated. Believing that talent alone could do the job, is a falsity. Study, practice and focusing on specific projects - that is the key. Study under the guidance of someone who is where you want to be; regular practice with a subject that you are passionate about; specific focus on projects that you care about and that are important for you and that you want to complete.


In closing, I want to say this: What matters most is not where we are right now. It is not the skills we have today or the images we are able to create right now or the writings we are able to invent. What matters most is: what we believe about ourselves. Why? Because it is this belief that will determine what we can become, what we can achieve in the future. It is this belief that will shape the road ahead, it is this belief that will influence which path you are going to take.



_______________

Monday, December 27, 2010

Mince Pies, Christmas and Other irreverent thoughts



Mince Pies

Who loves Mince Pies?

Answer: I do.

Let me tell you about my Mince Pie fetish. Marks & Spencer's started selling Mince pies this year on 1st Oct. How do I know? I know because I notice these things. That's 3 whole months before Christmas! I remember picking up a box and looking at the best before date: 22 Oct! Who buys Mince Pies in Oct for Christmas with a best before date of 22 Oct?

Answer: I do.

Why? Because I have absolutely no intention of keeping them till December. I have every intention of eating them. As I said I really like Mince Pies. Which is why I am wholly surprised to learn that most people don't, and that most people only eat Mince pies on account of a Christmas-thing-to-do. But to start selling Christmas stuff a full three months before Christmas seems to me a little bit exuberant! That's Christmas for a whole 3 months of the year! 


Single slices of Christmas cake

There was something I noticed the other day. Single slices of Christmas cake. Not two slices for maybe a couple who can't be bothered to bake a whole cake. But a single slice. For one person. A slice for you and no slices for your no pals. For those spending Christmas alone. Ahh....it (almost) made me cry.


A Christmas Nativity Play

I remember this very clearly. I was at Primary school. Probably about 6 years old and we were having a school nativity play. My teacher told me I couldn't play Jesus in the play because I was not the 'right' religion. I remember feeling there was something wrong with me! (I still do). I remember going home and telling my mum. She said it was OK because I was 'supposed' to be a Muslim and we didn't celebrate Christmas. I remember my mum telling me about Islam and that Jesus was really a Muslim and about the prophets and all that. Even as a 6 year old I loved reading books and absorbed them like sunlight. So I absorbed everything my mum told me but even then I had a nagging feeling that my mum didn't really 'believe' these silly stories! I had already come to the conclusion that the Tooth Fairy was fiction and Father Christmas didn't really exist. So why should I believe in this God bloke! What did he ever give me. He seemed more like a stern father who told you what you could and couldn't do. He never really sat down with his children and talked to them.


How to avoid big family fights on Christmas

We all have family relations we can't stand - right? People you absolutely loathe, have nothing in common with, can't stand to be around - people who's every comment, every gesture - makes your gears and teeth grind and your blood erupt in volcanic eruptions. If you have such relations, and there is no chance you will ever be reconciled with them, and they are close relations whom you must invite around Christmas (cos if you don't a small nuclear bomb will go off in your family), here's what to do. Invite them. Oh yes, invite them round! But also invite a ton of other people too. Invite everyone together even the unwanted guests, that way you can lose them in the crowd, ignore them in the milieu. You don't have to speak to them at length as you'll be very very busy. You'll loose them in the midst of everyone! Excellent! Job done! Genius!

Sunday, December 19, 2010

The Art of the Hoody: Farah Vintage Duffel Coat

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I bought this the other day. I love it. It's an old English classic with toggle style buttons. It comes in midnight blue and is warm enough to keep the arctic chill at bay. The hoody is great if you want to keep your ears warm. There's a neat little badge, adjustable button cuffs and two large pockets at the front to stuff your cold hands into. Perfect for this arctic weather. I must admit it has got something 'Jonathan Creek' about it, but in a good way. It's not at all a geeky look and heaven knows I'm not a geek. And of course it looks cool!

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Movie review : Of Gods And Men

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"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction." The speaker is Luc, an elderly Catholic monk played by 79-year-old Michael Lonsdale, quoting a pensée of Pascal. He does it at a moment of crisis and ambiguity: does this thought apply to the Islamist mujahideen who are threatening to kill him and his brothers? Or should it rather apply to these future victims, secretly infatuated with the idea of a martyrdom that will fan the flames of violence for generations to come?

That reference is the sole, perhaps pre-emptive, concession to secularism in this stunningly passionate and deeply moving film by the French director Xavier Beauvois, based on the kidnapping and murder of monks in Algeria by fundamentalists in 1996. The movie is in fact saturated with faith and belief, and part of its power is the absolute conviction of its cinematic language, an idiom of severity, austerity and high seriousness, imitating the spacious silences to which the monks have devoted themselves, and boldly supporting the validity and meaning of their dilemma. Of Gods and Men is a modern tragedy that doesn't require the audience to share its belief any more than something by Aeschylus. It climaxes in a quite incredible "Last Supper" sequence, in which the monks share red wine to the accompaniment of Tchaikovsky's Grand Theme from Swan Lake, playing on an old tape machine in the corner.

Beauvois's camera does nothing but pan slowly around the table while this happens, minutely watching these men's careworn faces as they absorb the mystery of their own deaths. It is an overwhelming fusion of portraiture and drama.

Lambert Wilson plays Christian, the head of a Cistercian monastery in Algeria: a spartan order devoted to contemplation and prayer. Their community has developed a happy relationship with the local Muslim villagers, based partly on the free outpatient clinic they provide. They have a quiet, supportive respect for each other's traditions. But dark forces are gathering: intolerant jihadist forces have already murdered Croatian construction workers, and are rumoured to have the Catholic monks in their sights as the ultimate prize. Theirs is a regressive, brutal worldview – and a cynical police chief, irritably preparing to wash his hands of the imminent bloodbath, tells Christian: "I blame French colonisation for not letting Algeria grow up." The monks must now decide: should they stay or should they go? Is going cowardice? Is staying arrogance? Is martyrdom their destiny?

The monks themselves are permitted little or no backstory. Their lives in France are hardly touched on. Some are very old, especially Amédée, heartbreakingly played by 83-year-old Jacques Herlin, whose face is set in an unreadable expression, perhaps a gentle smile of acceptance and grandfatherly tolerance, or a rictus of suppressed pain. Perhaps he has been here all his life, perhaps not. When Luc is asked by a local young woman – for whom he is a confidant – what love is like, he replies that it is an attraction, a desire, a quickening of the spirits, an intensification of life itself. Beauvois allows us to believe that this chaste monk must, poignantly, be speaking about his love for God, and that his advice is at once truthful and naive. But no. He confesses that he had been in love a number of times before he found his truest love, and so we are shown that Luc had known and lived in the secular world – presumably as a doctor, for he runs the clinic – before he joined the order.

Of Gods and Men strives for simplicity; cinema is usually about dynamism, attraction, ego, but this movie concerns the renunciation of these things, in art and life. But it is also about the question of how to act when this life is violently challenged.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

A crazy little thing called life

I have been having strange thoughts lately. Not morbid thoughts as such, but thoughts that seem to hover on the fringes of life; at the boundary points of existence between this phenomenal world and  that of the spirits. Anything can start this train of thoughts in motion.

Take last night for example. A pretty ordinary November night. Dark. A slight chill in the air. A dampness engraved on the pavement. A fresh breeze. And autumnal leaves scattered everywhere. I stayed indoors last night. I was watching ‘Predators’ – the new Predator movie. It features a group of people who are parachuted into another world for the sole purpose of being hunted and killed by the predators – for sport. One by one the ‘game’ (people) are brutally hunted and killed, and it got me thinking. Maybe it was late, maybe it was the dark, maybe it was the Rioja Gran Reserve 2001, but it got me asking a very simple question (and you can apply this to real life), what ‘crime’ or what ‘sin’ or what ‘misdeed’ had these people committed that meant they were hunted and killed? Let’s ask the question again:


What ‘crime’ does any hunted animal commit that means it is hunted and brutally killed by its predator?

And in a flash of (I like to call it profound) insight the answer came to me: the crime these people; the crime the zebra, the crime any hunted animal that is killed for sport, or killed for food, has committed is the crime of ‘living’. Yes, just being alive, existing, being here, is enough to condemn you to a brutal death in the jaws of a tiger, or a lion, or (in more fantastical terms), a Predator. Just my existing condemns many other animals to death (for I will use them – their flesh for food, skin for clothes, bones for ivory), but also my existing, my being alive, condemns me to a life of struggle and strife, a life of bother and pain, a life of passions not extinguished, a life of wants not satiated, a life of disease, a life of infirm old age, and finally a life of my death.

I have departed much from the theological beliefs of my forefathers; the religious and the non-religious, who seem to view life as some sort of ‘gift’ and therefore worthy of gratitude from the almighty. I pour scorn on such fanciful ideas. Life is not a gift, but a contracted debt. And the debt was contracted in our begetting – that singular moment when our parents gametes fused in an intoxicated bliss of sexual inebriation and our becoming was made possible. I was never asked if I wanted this! (this being my life). Yet I am expected to show gratitude to not only my parents but also to a god, for something I never asked for, for something that was given me without my asking. Sorry but I can’t do that. The fault is not mine! It is my parents that are to blame! I know. I know. It sounds rather ungrateful of me don't it? I sound like a spoilt child that has been given something wonderful but doesn't want it. But you're only thinking that because from the earliest days from cradle to school we are all schooled that life is a gift, a blessing, something to be grateful of – as if the alternative is some abominable hell!

Let me ask you: what is the alternative to life? Answer: non-existence. What is non-existence like? Easy: the opposite of existence. Just think back to the time before you were born...what do you remember? Exactly. Nothing! You don’t remember it do you? It’s just an emptiness, devoid of any pain, any pleasure, devoid of well....anything and everything. A blissful black ocean of nothingness. And compare this to life. I don’t know about you, but I quite ‘like’ this blissful black ocean of nothingness! But you must remember, if you’re in this black nothingness you don’t actually know you’re in it. What I mean to say is that you can’t imagine this blissful black ocean of nothingness as something that exists, positively – it doesn't. It’s the absence of everything – so you can’t imagine yourself sitting in this all enveloping blackness thinking: ‘Oh, this is rather pleasant! This kind of nothingness!’. It’s not like that. It’s absence. So in affect we are comparing life (a positive thing in the sense that it exists) to non-life (which is a negative thing in the sense of absence).

The more I think about this life, and by life I mean life in general; I don’t mean my own ‘personal’ life (which is rather pleasant by the way – free of worries and obligations and stresses), the more I think about life in general, the more I’ve come to realise that we take it way too seriously! Way, way too seriously. We live too much in it. We are swept away by it, like a raging torrent it sweeps us along, and in trying to remain above the water and not drown we don’t notice the torrent and more importantly, we don’t notice the scenery, the banks on either side, the sky and the stars. And we always seem to be pining for the end; or some imaginable point in the end, where the torrent will cease – and we will finally relax and get some rest from this constant struggling. But there’s only a waterfall at the end and we will all go over it and then it will be all over.

I don’t mean to depress you. I really don't! That is not my intention. I want to emancipate you from the tyranny of life. Unshackle you. Strip away those fetters - those mind forg'd manacles. Rather, I think these thoughts should make you sit up straight and take heed. I keep saying this and I will say it again: life is an amazing experience. That is the acme of my philosophy. Everything else I believe stems from this statement. Life is a one in a quadrillion opportunity. Look out there, look up there, look everywhere, there are more stars in the universe then there are sand grains on earth. This planet of ours is a mere blip in the utter black mind-bogglingly vast ocean of stars that is the universe. Our brains cannot possibly contemplate this vast ocean of stars. Obviously it is you and I who are alive because if we weren’t we wouldn’t be here talking about it! We must never forget how special and utterly maddeningly improbable a thing this life is. Yet we become so accustomed to it – we fail to take notice of it. There are moments (many moments) when I sit on the London Tube looking around me with a little smile on my face, and an all expansive feeling of awe, contentment and compassion welling within me. A sereneness not unlike that on the face of the monks – but my smile comes from a realisation springing from the depths of my being, that nothing matters, nothing is worth our troubling over, all will end one day, just sit back and enjoy the ride!

Just sit back and enjoy the ride. That's practical philosophy for you!

Don’t take heed and don't trouble yourself with the opinions of others – others are little people, and little people have little skulls and in those little skulls are little thoughts and little opinions. For most people have not a true vision of the real nature of existence  - too ‘involved’ they are in their everyday doings and going on's. It takes the mind like that of a child to look out of the window in a train and wonder goggle-eyed at the majesty of the scenery – it takes the mind of a stupid adult to be seated on the same train as that of the child, but instead have their nose stuck in the newspaper, or attached to another adults ears!

Adulthood! Bah humbug! What a waste! To be an adult is not to have a clear picture of life. To be an adult is to be preoccupied with nonsense. It’s children who really see life for what it is. It is children who are truly wise! I am not jesting. I am being deadly earnest and serious. Only children see this world for the massive sensory overload of a playground that it is. That is why they are constantly jumping around, excited, chasing pigeons in train stations, whilst we adults stare up at the train timetable, wondering when we can get on the train. We don't see the pigeons in a train station. But the children do.


And what does one do in a playground?


Explore and have fun.

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Why we eat / what is eating?

Why do we eat?
To stay alive?
Yes, but what is it we are doing when we are eating?
What do you mean?
Well, what are we saying when we eat?
Well we're not saying anything! We just see something we like the look of or the smell of, and we say "Mmm, I like the look of that. My belly would like that very much!"
Yes, I know. But let's start from basics. What is 'eating' when looked at from first principles?
First principles? Sorry Wasim, I don't quite understand what you mean?
OK, let me try and explain.
Yeah, I wish you would!
You do want me to explain don't you? You are interested in what 'eating' really is?
Yeah, I suppose so.
Suppose so! Show a little more enthusiasm please!
Yeah, alright then. I would love you to tell me what eating really is and why we do it
Excellent, that's better! Now let me begin:

When I eat something I am in affect saying to the thing that I am about to eat (be this thing dead or alive - though usually it is dead. It would be strange if you started talking to the chicken that you were about to eat. In fact, in today's modern life, you will have no intimate connection with your food at all. It arrives neatly packaged and fresh to your local supermarket)...anyway, I think I am rambling. So where was I? Oh yes! So when you are about to eat something you are in affect saying 'metaphorically' to the thing that you are about to eat:


"Hey you! Mr Fish" (or Mrs Hen, or Mr Cabbage, or Monsieur Frog (if you eat frogs, the French do), or Mr Goat, or Mr Lamb, or Mrs Turnip or any other animal or vegetable you care to mention). What you are saying is this:

"Hey you! I am Mr Wasim and I need carbon atoms to stay alive. Why do I need carbon atoms? Well because carbon is the only element that can form the long chains needed to build me! I need carbon to build my tissues, and to build my proteins, to grow, to repair my body, for energy, for my hormones, for my blood, for my bones, for my skin. I need carbon atoms to fight off infections because my white blood cells need carbon for their metabolic pathways, for their Endoplasmic Reticulum's and for their Golgi Apparatuses, for their cell membranes...in short I need carbon atoms to be me! To be Wasim!"

"But dear Mr Chicken and dear Mrs Lamb and dear Mr Apple and dear Mr Rice and Dr Miss Wheat, the thing is I can't breathe in carbon from the atmosphere. I can breathe in oxygen but not carbon. If I could breathe in carbon then I wouldn't have to eat or catch or hurt or kill you! Oh no! If I could breathe in carbon atoms through the air, through my nostrils, I'd be able to make my own food! But then I'd be called not an animal but a plant. Plants breathe in carbon in the form of carbon dioxide and they use the carbon in carbon dioxide to build their bodies. I, Mr Wasim, can't do that I'm afraid"


So when I eat something I am saying: "Hey you! I need your carbon. And since you are made of carbon, or since you have carbon inside of you, and since I can't make my own, I must have yours! So give it to me!"


The problem with asking would be that if Mr Chicken, or Mrs Cow or Mr Fish could talk then they would respond by saying: "Oh no! You can't have it. It belongs to me! My carbon is mine. Hands off thief!"


But we take it anyway. Don't we?


We kill Mrs Cow, and slaughter Mr Chicken and catch Mr Fish and pull out Mr Potato and we say: "I don't care what you think. I will take if off you whether you like it or not!"

What you and I, and every other animal in the world is doing when it is eating, is stealing each others carbon. We are carbon thieves. We steal the carbon that plants have breathed in and built into their bodies, we steal the carbon that animals have built into their tissues from either eating plants or eating other animals, and we take this carbon (when we eat a steak for example) and we break the steak down in our belly, and we strip away the carbon that has been built into proteins and fats and carbohydrates, and we use it to make our own proteins our own carbohydrates, and our own fats. The proteins we need to keep our nails healthy, our hair sleek and shiny, our eyes moist and healthy, our skin, our bones, our brains, our fluids, our sperm, our eggs, our muscles - ourselves.

We are all carbon thieves.


Every beast of prey, first and foremost carnivorous man, is the living grave of thousands of corpses. Our self maintenance, our existence; is a chain of torturing deaths


How does that make you feel carbon thief?

Shame on you!

Monday, October 25, 2010

London Coffee Walk - follow link below...

"the coffee bar was the place where you would go, to sit all day, past midnight, to meet up with people, painters, writers, intellectuals...you would have brown sugar on the tables, they did cappuccinos, and you could meet women if you wanted...the coffee bar was the perfect antidote for those suffering from insomnia...nowadays, you have Starbucks. Insipid tasting coffee for the masses..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/interactive/2010/oct/25/london-coffee-walk

Friday, October 15, 2010

The strangeness of a life less ordinary - (investigative reporting from the very rim of reality!)

I was seated at my desk today. At work. With my computer screen humming away in front, and me slouched in an unhealthy posture on my chair, legs outstretched in front (to prevent deep vein thrombosis!), and in my hand I held a sheet of paper. I was holding a sheet of typed paper in my hand and I was looking at it. I'd just printed it and pulled it off the printer. It was still warm in my hand with a whiff of ozone. Immaculately white I noticed. I'd never before noticed how white these things are! I peered closely at the paper screwing my eyelids together to get a microscopic look. The girl sitting next to me turned her head to look at me and then turned away smiling enigmatically (I thought). It was almost perfect; the paper that is. You couldn't make out the individual fibre strands of the pulp from afar. It was thin and 'smooth' to the touch. I held it up to the light. Again the girl sitting next to me turned her head in wonder. The paper: a slight glossy sheen. It wasn't really for writing on with ink pen. The paper had been specially designed (after much lab research no doubt) for printing. It had low absorbency - so the ink wouldn't stain or spread. And it was treated with chemicals that stopped it from turning yellow with age. I kept looking at it - Ahh, how the ancients would have marvelled! And there was so much of it! Skyscrapers of the stuff packed in those A4 sized brick like packets of 500 leaves. How much of this stuff was consumed around the world in a single day! How much of it was then thrown in the bin! The folly! The sheer madness! The waste! The ancients had to contend with clay tablets at first, and then came papyrus, then reeds (A stray thought pops into my head: I wonder if the word 'read' is derived from reed?) Then I noticed that the paper had marks or 'symbols' imprinted on it in black ink. And the symbols or marks were contained within larger demarcating lines that crossed and criss-crossed. Oh, yes - it was writing. My writing in fact! And the lines? Oh yes, that was the table I had just prepared! A table of audit adjustments for our German entity. It had various columns, with neat descriptions: a column for the currency, another for the amount in Euros, a column for the General Ledger account codes...It had a neat heading at the top left. It had a date of preparation. and probably other stuff that I can't recall right now. The spreadsheet related to the year ended 31 July 2009.

Why am I telling you this?

Because, as I sat slouched in my chair, in unhealthy posture, in deep thought, staring at the spreadsheet - reading it - understanding it - knowing what it was about - the meaning of the letters - the numbers - knowing how to read the layout of the table, knowing that you begin from the left hand side, even...thinking back to my preparation of it, how I'd quickly made a decision in Excel on what column lengths to use, the amount of space in between, layout of the headings, Italic or normal? Bold or normal? Underlined? Big or small font? How best to present the information to aid understanding, what can I leave out? etc. etc. etc...It made me wonder about the sheer quantity of unconscious thought that went into its preparation.

It suddenly occurred to me; as I lay staring at this white sheet of paper, that what I was now doing, i.e. reading and interpreting and understanding this sheet of paper, was actually an amazing thing! Let me explain: Firstly (and not as importantly) it is amazing in the sense that I realised that I spend a lot of time thinking about formatting i.e. how to present information to make it easier for others to understand, but more importantly, it is amazing because here I was - an organic 'life-form', and I was holding in my hand a sheet of paper (constructed from tree pulp), and on this paper were symbols made with ink, symbols I could understand! (because I could read), I knew what the letters meant. I knew all these things! The letters didn't look alien to me like the letters of a language you can't speak inadvertently do. I recognised these symbols. And at that moment a rolling wave of strangeness crept up on me, and put its hand around me, and suddenly, abruptly...the symbols, the words on the paper no longer made sense.


How was it that we got from sea living creatures to this: reading stuff of a sheet of paper! Doesn't the thought of this impossible thing just blow your mind?

This feeling of the strangeness of everything that had crept on me, also had other symptoms: it made me wonder who I was. A strangeness that made me look at my hairy hands in disgust and also with some interest. A strangeness that contemplated the beating heart inside me, and the watery eyes (reddened from a days staring at spreadsheets) that allowed me to see, and the ears that picked up transmissions on the airwaves - from my chatting colleagues, the constantly whirring photocopier, the air con vent above. Then there were the hormones and neurotransmitters secreted by my glands that gave me; this organic life-form, 'feelings!'. What I mean is that I also have an emotional system that makes me 'feel stuff' - annoyance, happiness, love, irritation, contentedness, and a stomach that makes me anticipate my evening meal. And this entire seeing, feeling, thinking, contemplating thing I call myself, also has a body wrapped in these clothes. The layers upon layers - a mind that wonders how it could read these strange symbols printed on the flattened pulp of a photosynthesising organic life-form called a 'tree'.


At that moment I could see all. At that moment, sitting slouched on my chair, staring at a white sheet of paper, you could call me a god. A god whose job description happened; just happened to be: accountant!

Life is weird.


I am awed.
I am humbled.
I am...
Well, 
I am very much alive.

Are you?


Thursday, October 14, 2010

Schopenhauer's Curse


Random words
when typed
out
in funky
w a Ys
make for
interest
ing
SaYs...

I Am a
man who
seem s
2B
Lost
n
found
but not yet
discovered...

Not yet discovered
I.
For I
must b
found
Or Else
who knows?
Mysteries
(deep 1's too)
will stay
buried
UNDER
life's
DEADweight.

TearAway.
BCome
a
Tearaway
from Life
n
Discover
Ur
Trueinnerdeeperburiedwonder
full
self
calling.

Ameen.



Playful Me


To know
is to see
is to laugh
is to live
is to smile
is to walk...

...is to wander
at the wonder
of the miracle
of the wonder
full
you!

you are my
wonder
full
wonder
thing...

and to love
you
is to feel
alive
is to touch
heaven
is to know
life
has a
purpose
beyond me.

To know
is to love
is to be
you.
be me.
Be all
you can be.

Ameen.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The Reluctant Philosopher strikes again

Sitting on the train today, whilst reading a chapter of Schopenhauer called 'The Metaphysics of Music', I stopped in mid-flight of thought, and stared out of the window and smiled; for Schopenhauer had finally told me why I love music. Yes, I also happen to love movies and books and paintings and poetry - but music, ahhh music is different!


Only music can move me to an emotional crescendo. A U2 guitar solo by the Edge recorded live and on my mp3 player, has the singular magical effect; on a dull Monday morning on the station platform, of 'moving me' beyond the physical realm I am occupying. The shimmering electric guitar seems to rise up into a capacious empty sky - taking me with it. You are literally transported - heart, soul and mind, to a place deep inside you of a billion possibilities - a billion stars flickering in the night of your soul. The music gives you wings. It's an illusion to think that what you are experiencing is outside of you. It's not. It's inside of you. Your inner being! That's what music does! It strums the strings of your inner self and brings it (your inner self) to the surface. Your feelings become evident to yourself and perhaps to others. Music makes you naked. Why do you think 2 lovers are so enraptured by a jazz trumpeter? Why do you think it is that random people on an underground train can be made to feel acute embarrassment by a guitarist playing a love ditty to all of them? Because the music brings to the surface those inner feelings of love and passion and desire; which in public, we repress.


With me music does many things. It inspires me. It gives me ideas. It draws forth from the chaotic froth of my inner self. A self, that even I; contemplater as I am, cannot access. It plants seeds that sometimes grow into archaic monsters and sometimes into weirdly wonderful flowers. Suddenly, through listening to a particular piece of music, I am overtaken with a hypnotic and obstinate desire to travel somewhere far. Far, far away. Music can do that. Makes me wanna do things! Before I stick on those headphones I'm just an ordinary accountant on my way to work. But somewhere, in my journey, I become an adventure seeking superhero! Dying don't matter any more. I just want to see things. And write about them later. Music makes me feel like that. It acts on a level beyond deliberate conscious knowledge. Some may say; I know Schopenhauer would, that of all the mediums of art, it is music, that speaks the truth of how we are feeling. I agree.


There is nothing better that captures the feeling of a world of unsampled possibilities then the soaring opening guitar of U2's 'Where the streets have no name'...it starts off as a faint jingly jangly sound that reminds me of street-lights reflecting off water, and ends up making you fly - skywards.


Purists working for NME or Q-Magazine may denigrate certain music for its lack of sophistication, or for not being 'in' right now - but does it matter? If music can move you - then who cares what the critics think. For as far as you're concerned, the music has done its trick. And the trick is to wash you up and tumble you about in a soapy bubbly rainbow coloured lather of emotion and feeling. To make you feel. To make you live. Love. Learn. And Explore.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Review: My brand new Sony X-Series VAIO (the worlds lightest laptop)





Do you believe in love at first sight?
I do.
I love small laptops.
I've always loved small laptops.

Over the years I have owned a succession of smaller and smaller laptops.
The first small laptop I purchased in Dubai. It was a Sony VAIO Z series. At the time it felt small, but now the same laptop, feels like a brick. That particular one weighed in at 3.5Kg.

The next portable laptop I purchased about 2 years ago. Again it was a Sony VAIO but a TZ Series. It was for a special mission so had to be light. It weighed a staggeringly feathery 1.2Kg with battery. Just to give you an idea, the new Macbook Air weighs 1.36kg AND it has no DVD drive. The Sony VAIO TZ weighed less AND it had an optical DVD RW drive! Go figure! I took it along with me tucked away in my rucksack to Pakistan, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Burma and India. It survived the trip. It survived numerous onslaughts. Jungles. Rivers. Mountains. Rain. Bugs. Snakes. Thieves. Earthquakes. Heat. Damp. It still lives. I still have it; though at home I tend to use my Macbook Pro. The great thing about the 1.2Kg Sony VAIO TZ was that it could do everything I wanted it to: Photoshop CS3 worked great on it which allowed me to process my travel photographs 'on the move'. It has great battery life - which is perfect for those far flung and cut off places where electricity blackouts occur often - such as Northern Pakistan. You never know when the power will return so a long battery life is a must.

I've now bought myself another portable laptop. Judging from the evolutionary history of my past laptop purchases you have probably guessed that this new addition is lighter still. Yes, it is. In fact; as it stands today, it is the lightest, smallest laptop in the world. Again it is a Sony VAIO and it is part of their new X-Series Range. It weighs a mind numbingly paltry 0.7Kg! (with battery). I'm typing on it right now, and when I hold it up with one hand it literaly weighs less than a paperback book. It is that light! This baby I'll be able to take with me wherever I go. I don't need to put it in a bag, I can just grab it with a book in my hand and shoot off. No more thinking: 'Oh, do I really want to carry a laptop around with me today?' - It doesn't matter. I won't even feel it in my hand.

The screen measures 11.1 inches, which is the same as my previous 1.2Kg TZ. In fact the screen has exactly the same high resolution image quality. Great for detailed Photoshop work. It is also very svelte measuring less than a cm in thickness. It has plenty of connectivity: 2 USB ports. A headphone jack. An SD card slot and another for the Sony Magic Gate memory sticks. Bluetooth. SIM card jack for mobile surfing anywhere on the planet - even Antarctica! The keyboard keys are cut out and placed in separate slots to aid typing. They are small, but for me it is no problem at all, since my fingers are small also. It has an inbuilt motion eye camera. It has 250Gb of Hard Disk space, 4GB of ram. A 2Ghz processor. It has a GPS tracking device in case I get lost somewhere and need to be rescued. Fat chance! Should I continue? Put it this way: It does everything my TZ did for me and weighs 500g less!

As you can tell I am extremely enamoured with it; so gushing with love for it! How Sony managed to pack all these goodies into a body that weighs 0.7Kg is beyond me. It really is a modern technological marvel. Jam-packed with electronic wizardry. This little thing has more computing power then the Apollo space mission.

It's the small portable lightweight take-everywhere-without-noticing laptop I've always wanted and dreamed about. It makes writing anywhere possible. It makes blogging a real pleasure! I will be taking it along with me on my next trip. This baby will see action. It'll be in my bag and I won't notice a thing...


And that, is the whole point. Isn't it?

Blogger Out.