To Become a Man

The change that has occurred within me in the past few years has been life-changing. I am very much not the same person I was three or four years ago and I'm still changing. Recently I have been thinking about the man I want to be, about the traits I want to have and how I want to look to other people. I found myself wondering about my character and how this is translated into the world outside my personal sphere of thoughts and how I manage to express myself. I do believe that I don't express myself very clearly, and I find myself being thought as differently than what I really am by others. 

I want to start reading more and expand my knowledge of the world and of different cultures. I don't read too much, and this is not a good way of building a character with a holistic approach towards society. I also intend to buy good music I like more often, so as to support artists in their work and have an ever changing archive of what I consider as memories or emotions translated into sounds. 

Being respectful, trustworthy and never lying are three other pillars on which I build my character. To keep self-confident but never bolster, believe in your ideas but never be blind to new possibilities and to listen to people and understand what they are saying when spoken to, are also very important. To be yourself and never try to impress, but rather act out and say what you think in a respectful manner that does not harm anyone but rather makes them think and to ask and question more than to accept what is given to you and learn from mistakes. These ideas are what define me and what I strive to keep in my life. 

And finally, to appreciate life and never lose awe in the smallest of things. To recognize beauty and enjoy a laugh, and to smile in hard times. These are the traits that I want to build my character on and to become a humble person, a man.

Love Like a Sunset

"Day comes
Visible horizon
Right where it starts it ends
Oh and then we start the end

Day comes
A visible illusion
Oh where it starts it ends

Love like a sunset"

Phoenix

Man and Religion

There are too many people praising gods in this world, and very few appreciating their place in the universe. We should not look for god's existence but live the life that is given to us, for what is more beautiful to understand your place in this world without having to fight the fear of hell or the challenges to reach heaven?

If man lives by his virtues, bestowed upon him by morality, evolution and cultural and social development, and avoid any religious shackles, he would be truly free to live a good life, in which truth and compassion prosper. There would be no more excuses to fight in the name of gods or to create castes based on the idea that we are born according to a holy plan. There would be less poverty, for religion is not the tool to solving this problem. It is not religion that helps a dying man, but a loving heart, and these are found in every race or ethnicity. You do not need to be recognised as a saint to give all you have to those in need, for compassion is an emotion nurtured by family and not by religion. 

Religion is based on ancient ideologies, most of which break down in our modern society. They tend to help people aggregate in groups with the belief of a powerful ruler looking upon them. This helped quite a few tribes in the past to rebel against their tyrants, but what relevance does it have today? Politics is very similar to religion, for it is the art of influencing people. A society does not require religion to be controlled, nor does it require religion to give people a common goal. 

Education is an important factor in spreading religious ideology or eradicating it. Science is the step towards becoming more keen to learn about our surroundings and our place in it. When children learn, at a young age, to wonder and ask questions about what they see and cannot explain, they will grow to realise that religion has no sense in their life. The the beauty in their lives far outweighs the need for believing in a deity, because for them, the important fact is to be able to appreciate the beauty around them, and not waste time wondering about what could have created it. 

This is not to say that spirituality is not important. It must be made clear that spirituality and religion are two separate philosophies. I believe that spirituality exists because of the way we are built. The universe is chaotic, but life is order. Whenever we see order, we tend to associate it with life and benign feelings. To learn that our Earth is so tiny, and how life emerged on our planet and how distant we are from anything else out there, gives us a sense of unity and of purpose. We strive to maintain our species without destroying our planet, for there is no god to help us do save it and prevent us from becoming extinct. 

We are fragile little aggregates of ordered molecules created from a soup of chaos, living on a speck of dust in the vastness of everything that is. It would be a pity to waste our time to live without knowing this fact and without fighting to learn more about the beauty of everything around us. 

Moonbeam

In a moonbeam we talk about the little things of our lives. The music, the lights and the zombies around me. Such pitiful admiration. The sudden surge of energy and the night that's creeping in. And yet, my mind sways away from this hole in the ground to a memory that could have been, for now I am here and not there. 

What are we doing, sitting here, in a little grove under the moonbeam? 

Another Week

The weekend draws near. My physical strength dwindles close to collapse, my mental stability is almost jeopardized. Early mornings, late nights, little sleep. This is the life of a student. My life, and the lament of a thousand voices that I create behind me, in my mind, so as to emphasize my point and feel confident about it, even though there's no point in whining. 

This is going to be a long tiresome semester. I know I will meet my deadlines ahead of time, and I will work hard and waste no time. At least that's what the ideal me would do, but I'm not ideal. Far from that, I am a sloth, a creeping maggot on a silky cushion of warmth.  Wasting time is easy, being productive and efficient is not. My time is characterized by events; periods of long wasteful nonsense, and stressed-out, efficient working periods, that produce results that could have been achieved leisurely and way better earlier on. 

I guess this has always been me. I never really studied much, if at all, prior to exams in the past, and I grew in an environment littered with distractions. However, I do believe that these distractions made me who I am today, for I have learnt so much from my mistakes, which I still do. Learning is a life long process, and I am still building myself up while eroding my useless traits. Well, let's say there is no useless trait, for even these have their share in the formation of a character. 

What I tend to do now is stop writing, because even though I have only spent few minutes putting my thoughts into words, I am still creating my own distractions to avoid being efficient and avoid completing tasks which should have higher priorities. Priorities. What a word full of meaning, isn't it?

I need to work on my priorities. 

Negative Emotions

This is for all those who do not have anyone to share words with. For all those that are neglected, for those that are tucked somewhere in their own world, being chocked by reality. 

It is not rare to find people who seek refuge in their own solitude. I do so very often, to escape problems, to hide from fear. I have learnt to suppress tears. I'm not ashamed to admit that I used to cry a lot, but I got used to it and was constantly told to stop acting so childishly and I changed. I built a wall around me, and locked myself and my emotions in it. I blocked the only sink of negative emotions, which ended up flooding me. 

I found some comfort in music. The different melodies and sounds I experience reduce emotional discomfort or elevate others; like regrets and sadness to a tipping point where they can escape. 

People can be both the source and the ease of negative emotions. Laughter is a good remedy, even in harsh times. Best of all however, is a person to talk to, and to share anything that bothers you, because sharing burdens makes them appear less daunting. This act called friendship is blatantly mistreated, and very few friendships serve their true purposes any more. 

So writing has become another form of release. Words are the physical form of thoughts, and even though they do not accurately depict whatever churns somewhere inside this brain of mine, they can ease the stress on my system. Through reading, I hope that other people can be encouraged to find their own way at sharing such emotions, rather then suppressing them, because suppression is not a solution but avoidance. 

The Life of an Old Fisherman

The life of an old fisherman, on the edge of a cliff, a sunset curtain and a soft breeze.
His cast, an elegant swing of the pole perfected with time, the float that lends on the dancing waves, a cork as old as his wrinkled face.

The melody of the birds in cliff-side nests, a lizard scurries under a rock and a cricket hops on the dried blades of grass. In the distance, a village, and closed windows.

A fish on a hook, and the reeling of the prize of happiness and satisfaction. And the walk back home, the rubble walls and the stone and the carob tree.

Who Am I?

I do not understand myself. I try to make sense of all the dreams I dream of and of all those things that worry me, but I become more confused than reassured with every thought I conjure. I feel like I'm going crazy and that I am losing control over my mind.

I change with every word that is told me, and I act differently with every person I get to know. I become more like them the longer I am in their presence, and a bit of what was formerly me corrodes with every passing moment. People define who I am, the way I think, the way I act.

However, I do not think anyone really knows who I truly am, since I don't really know that myself. The truth is I am not a static character. I am a changing figure, like a black hole sucking ideas from those around it, and in the process, changing itself. So to know who I am, I must look at the eyes of those who I know, for they are part of who I am and who I shall become.

It's constraining to say whether this idea of myself is right or wrong. I would rather think that I am a concious being with an identity than the carrier of thoughts of those around me, but I do not see the negative side of this philosophy. Maybe that's the problem in all of this, that I have not yet came to grasp the truth about myself. I still have to find what makes me happy, and this should not be based in people around me. I have come to depend too much on other individuals, and  less on myself, and that has to change.

For I need to build myself with that deep intricate feeling of being me, rather than to satisfy what others would like me to be alike.

The Sentinel

"Wake up, wake up..."

 The waves came crashing on the cliffside. On their back, howling winds followed, hunters chasing a fluid beast that engulfed everything that dared to oppose it, slithering and squeezing into the coast. The beast made way and found the only weakness through the rocks and ventured into the cove. Their it bellowed and rose, arms open, unwelcomed in this quiet refuge. It sat upon the innermost sands, licked them and retreated. However, the beast dared not touch the feet of the man standing watch on the sand bed. His eyes commanded it not to, or so it seemed, his hair flowing elegantly, caressed by the breeze that found its way in here. 

 This cove, carved by the sea inside the cliffs, was not a place accessible by land. It was embedded so deep inside the rock that not even green plants grew in the lack of sunlight. The walls jailed it from all sides, a protruding stony balcony shadowed the grinded earth that formed the sand underneath. Yet, in such a desolate place, a person stood sentinel to the waves that periodically made their way inside.

His hair was rust brown, shoulder height at rest, and his eyes burned with a silver flame glazed with a hint of celestial blue. They were deep and focused, keys to a thousand hidden thoughts lurking inside. His feet were bare, his toes printed were he stood, and on his wrist he wore a bracelet with seven rings dangling on golden strings from it. A wave came rushing in and touched his feet, he recoiled and moved back. 

"Wake up..."

It is time, he thought. With a sleight of hand he grabbed a ring from his bracelet and wore it. Everything turned to silver dust. Across the room there was a boy, very young and innocent, playing with his cowboy hat. An elderly man giggled at the sight of his grandson, coughing with shortage of breath. On the other side of the room was a bartender polishing his glasses, more precious to him than diamonds. This was an inn, as old as the elderly man and as weak as his boy, built from wood imported across the desert from the swamp. But what significance does it has? The silver eyes veered from the scene. 

The waves came crushing back in. The Sentinel removed the ring from his finger, and sat down on the sand. He knew not what to make of what he just saw. Lately, they had started to become stranger. The setting, the characters, the sensations he felt in these dreams he ventured into. They all seemed so alien nowadays. He recalled how different his work was a few aeons ago. Time itself was no matter for the Sentinel, but nowadays something different was concerning him. His relevance and his position in all of this. What exactly was his job? He tried to think, to come up with a conclusion, but he could not understand. He could not even remember how he ended up in the cove, why he dreamt, and to an extent, who he was.

 "Wake up, wake up..."

He picked a different ring this time, one adorned with veins of ebon running through a river of gold. He admired its beauty. As he slid it into his aging index, all around turned dark, the sound of the waves ceased, and a crushing sound of caving rocks engulfed him. 

The Words of Rainer Maria Rilke

These are the words of Rainer Maria Rilke, words that I found inspiring, and could not do without preserving them in a post on this blog. 

“Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. 

This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and miss...

Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.”

The Colours of the Night

Sitting in his velvet crimson chair in a corner of this dark room he stares at nothing in particular, yet he sees too far. The colours of the outside world swirl around his weakened state of mind, taunting him. He frowns slightly, then grins. His mind races forward through the chorus of yells and noises that surround him. 'They are all puppets', he whispers to himself, 'a brood of inanimate bodies controlled by masks'. His dark eyes sway in their sockets from side to side as if to lock on a target that doesn't exist. An army of clockwork machines marches straight past him, startling him and making him lose focus. Yet he does not shut his eyes. He follows these machines into alleys lit with blue and green ribbons dangling from the balconies on each side that shine as they dance with the night's breeze. From the balconies, with a sudden burst of sound, flutters out an orchestra of butterflies, producing different musical notes with each beat of the wing.

His anger swells, his eyes shudder. The choreographed flight of the butterflies is abruptly halted as they suddenly shower down onto the machines beneath them. The colours and the sounds vanish, and a darkness looms over the alleys. The butterflies' wings melt and corrode the intricate clockworks of these mechanical abominations, as they stand there, lost in the darkness. His grin grows even larger, 'let this night be remembered as the eclipse of the moon. Tonight their shall be no celestial light, for I have cast my gruesome plight'.

 And as he utters these last words he sits up from his chair and flicks his eyes and walks out of this dark room, into the night.

Our Future Society

Sometimes I wonder how our future global society will be like and although most probably my ideas are incorrect, they are what I believe to be the way our current society should develop in order to become a sustainable one which does not go extinct by destroying itself.

I do not see roads with cars. I believe that for an efficient approach at transportation we require automated vehicles that are connected to a central AI-computer or otherwise, they are able to communicate with each other. These vehicles would drive on their own after you input your destination and are able to avoid obstacles, do not collide with each other, and drive at constant speeds from one place to another with minimum deceleration because traffic would be negligible. Traffic is usually caused by accidents, construction or road maintenance, or the sheer lack of knowing what the best route is to avoid traffic in the first place. If all vehicles would be controlled by one central 'brain' hub, then they could be controlled accordingly to produce no traffic, while working at maximum efficiency and least pollution. 

The future society must harness another source of power generation. Currently, our main way of creating power is directly, or indirectly, using a generator. This machine that converts mechanical energy (be it steam, water or air) to electric one by using a simple spinning turbine and a coil is very limiting in our development. Alternatives, such as direct electric generation from the sun is an important step is the development of our civilization. Solar flares pose a great threat to our current electrical grid, and we must be able to detect these, while having other alternative ways of creating electricity. 

What I see in our future is energy transfer through the air without the need of wires, alternative modes of electricity production, such as pavements that produce electricity from people walking on them, new ways of locomotion, including hovering over superconductors, and a better way of harnessing the energy of the sun. I see homes that are totally energy efficient, with no energy waste in thermal regulation, but rather, they produce enough energy through new methods of harnessing the sun's energy, such as photo-conductive paint that they become energy hubs and power stations will become a thing of the past.

Similarly, our sustainable future society has to increase the efficiency in food production and assimilation. Rooftop farming and skyscrapers dedicated to farming are going to be a must in large cities. New ways of growing crops without soil and close to the local market will greatly decrease the use of space and energy wastage for transportation. I also envision a time where insects will become staple diet, for these can be farmed way more efficiently and provide humans with better nutriment than cattle protein or other similar types of inefficient food production. 

I also see bionic humans and robots in our daily lives. Humans will become half synthetic, half natural. New technology will make blind people able to see, some to grow back lost limbs, or otherwise use an exoskeleton to walk again. I also see the synthetic production of organs at a large scale replacing the need of transplants. People will live longer, creating  a better chance for them to develop their skills and come up with world changing ideas, increasing our exponential burst of development. If a person would live for at least two hundred years, then he would be able to absorb more information and develop inter-disciplinary approaches to problems and research.

 Space travelling will become more common and important. We will start to harvest minerals from asteroids, create a base on the moon and start terra-forming Mars. A possible new invention of travel or the immortality of men could lead to a nomad society that travels space. This society would branch out from our own and be lost into interstellar space in the hope that one day it could colonize other planets. This is very much like a tree dispersing it seeds. We could possibly send hundreds of these long term self-sustaining ships with near-immortal humans to all directions of space in the hope of avoiding extinction. We would not be able to know if they made it to the other side, but it could be our last chance at survival. Moreover, our civilization will become immune to disastrous asteroid collisions.

Quantum computing and new discoveries in physics will help to accelerate our technological advancement. Computers will become so powerful and efficient that we will not be limited by computational power in our search for stars and planets or nano particles, or things like parallel universes or wormholes. New ways of data storage, such as DNA-storage will become an asset. The internet will develop into semi-concious entity that can create new ideas and increase the assimilation of information in a way that no metapopulation within our global society will be left behind. Science will become the central part of education. Religion will no longer be necessary, and philosophy will take its place to teach children how to think in a constructive manner. Languages will decrease and we will start to use one language in order to communicate faster and with more people.

These are only some of the developments I see necessary for our future global society. Of course, the path we take in our future can be so different that most of these might be impossible or very easily surpassed by better alternatives. The most important thing however, is that our society does not go extinct before it reaches the point that it becomes sustainable. Until then, I can only envision and hope that the future will be as bright as I see it.

Beauty

The most beautiful of moments are experienced in the most unexpected circumstances or in the most simple of things; like a smile or a blooming flower. As they say; 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'. This, however, has a deeper meaning often neglected, for beauty is not just a perspective of each and every one of us, but a happening. Beauty is not something we see but something we understand. 

How often have you ever looked at a flower and never thought of it as beautiful? We only know beauty when we want to experience beauty. That feeling of awe, unknowingly to us, bubbles through all the other emotions and churns within our brains. This in turn causes a sense of bliss, or joy or happiness. Beauty is that moment in which we realize that the object or event we are experiencing is in fact real. The beauty in a flower is the colours that reflect into our eyes. It is the reflection of life within it that transcends into the notion of being beautiful. 

Beauty is an experience. It is not an emotion nor just an adjective. It is beyond both of those. And to live in beauty is to live a life worth living.