Iain M Banks Died, June 9th 2013

I just found out that Iain M Banks passed away on the 9th of June, 2013, about 2 minutes after I found out he had been diagnosed with terminal gallbladder cancer. What’s more, I found out about his death through an irrelevant blogpost that held wrong information about his cancer, as well as how he took it, blotching in some vapid sob story about how he’d decided to give up writing to spend his last days with friends, family and a new girl when he’d actually packed up for a busy summer with another culture novel in store that never made it to our dimension, and a late romantic proposal to a coworker asking her to be his widow.

I don’t know what’s more infuriating; how this never got enough exposure and the world didn’t skip a turn or how people didn’t honor him enough to properly publicize for his death, so much that I had to find out about it by sheer accident. Or perhaps it’s reading his last interview (read here) and seeing how much potential he had in store or how he took it.

It’s all so infuriating.

The world lost a genius, for god’s sake, acknowledge it! It’s disturbing, how someone like him could just leave our world unnoticed, and not be nearly appreciated enough for all of his pent up, as well as produced, works.

I am too pissed to properly express myself.

Happy Hugh Dancy Day!

Just look at that smile, look at it <3

June 19th is Hugh Dancy’s birthday, which means that today is going to be a great day. If one June 19th produced such gorgeousness then its progeny will have huge shoes to fill. If your great grandpa took part in producing such work of art,  then it logically follows that you’d spend your whole life trying to do something as wonderful. Nothing bad can ever happen on a June 19th.

My Spirit Animal.

P.S. I’m allergic to cats.

P.P.S. Judging my luck, it would make sense that my spirit animal is a cat.

P.P.P.S. It would make more sense if it were grumpy cat because it will try to kill me and like it.

Chaos?

If you can escape in your head, you wouldn’t need to escape your head. There can be all sorts of worlds in there, parallel adjacent and loopy. People can’t exist if you don’t allow them to and people can exist who no longer do and people can exist that aren’t people and people can exist that never were. All the possibilities inside your head couldn’t be calculated by a permutation known to the intellect of man, you can get lost there all you want to as soon as you know how to find your way back, and if you have nothing to go back to then I guess you needn’t even worry about that.

Let there be a world where all are homesick, and neither knows the other exists. A world where Babel happened on an individual level rather than tidily on imaginary lines of maps. Let there be a world where all are kind because they don’t know anyone else is there; they’re kind not out of choice, but out of trying to make their own company bearable.

But no, I’m not good at this. That’s no different than real life.

Let there be a world where there are coffee fountains every where, a world where there are coffee beans instead of soil and the birds never sleep, are always chirpy and drop dead every 72 hours of caffeine overdose.

But no, that wouldn’t work, they’d cause an epidemic and everyone would eventually die.

Let there be a world where people daydream for a living and live in their daydreams, and form families and loved ones by the rare occasions when their dreams overlap in nature and desired comfort.

But no, that’s not fair. Where’s the choice in that? And people would be forced to lose their families and loved ones without prior notice if they dare dream differently.

Let there be a world where everything makes sense, where numbers and formulas work out people and politics, functions work out relationships and interactions, permutations cause the necessary number of accidents required to reclaim cosmic order and integration resets values when they get too astronomical and eventually keep their world grounded.

But no, that would fail because people would never know what it’s like to get a useless lottery ticket, bet on a live horse race or experience an adrenaline rush. They’d never fail so they’d always fail, by always winning and never knowing what it is.

Let there be a world where people never grow up, die or procreate, a world of eternal youth where nothing wilts or expires, nothing is outdated and the concept of time isn’t paired with the dreaded concept of its consequences.

But no, how would people be alive if they didn’t have the ability to destroy? How could they properly love if they had an annoying aeonian wall of skin and an eternity put on hold between them? What would it matter to live or to love if they couldn’t accidentally or intentionally destroy it?

Let there be a world where people are clones, they all think the same way and they all feel the same way. The entire race is propagating on the same wavelength steadily towards the unknown.

But no, that would backfire a couple of weeks in when they all simultaneously PMS or three weeks in when they simultaneously fuck. If they survive both, they’ll die four weeks in when they panic about getting there too quickly.

Let there be a world where all forms of life are omnivores, where all sentient creatures feed without bias or prejudice, without sentiment or lack thereof, a dynamic equilibrium following a constant function with equal mathematical losses on all sides involved. A perfect symmetry of survival and equal odds for all.

But no, that would annul the concept of family and pets, of homes and siblings and of recreational activity. The young will never have a dog for the same reason they never had a baby, and the old will never go into gardening for the same reason they never dated. That would mess with their odds.

Let there be a world where people had a life span of one-week and they knew it, with no chance of regeneration or redemption. They were born to die and had no other purpose, they deserved no more than they were entitled and their quotas were equally rationed.

But no, that wouldn’t work because one or two will decide to take everything down with them in a final evening of odds. Soon enough, the world will be consumed and the later generations will come into nothing, a certain life of nothing instead of a possible life of some things with odds of nothing.

Let there be a world where all forms of life could effectively communicate, with no bridges in notion or gaps in progress. Each species climbed their respective evolutionary ladders at the rate allowed by their world’s timeframe, that is constant for all.

But no, they would spend millennia discussing their rights, millennia trespassing each others’ and all the while trumping each others’ progress so that the only constant in a world of variables, being time, is invalidated.

 

I guess the only way this world could feel less chaotic is by realizing how its chaos is peculiarly durable.

True Story

I met a homesick alien who taught me how to build worlds in my head, and we were alone together but never lonely alone.

Caffeinate!

Time dons quite the kaleidoscopic perspective to things that were once too painful to acknowledge.

Friendly Update

Fairytale?

“Once upon a time a woman never got married, but had many fulfilling relationships, a job that kept her comfortable, an apartment that she got to decorate just for her, and hobbies that stimulated her mind. The End.”

One Day, I Will Ride Next To A Panda.

Forrest Gump.

I don’t know about you, but I generally find people incredibly confusing. This has always been the case, although lately it has come to be a problem because of increased exposure – although it is worth mentioning that the aforementioned increase in exposure is not my doing, god knows I’d do anything to stop it as soon as I know what that is that I should be doing to get to the desired results – but a matter of growing up and being in college and what not. A lot of times, I find myself thinking I probably shouldn’t have done that, even though it made complete sense in my head then later produced explosive results. Then it hit me, people don’t make sense, so trying to do something that makes sense won’t make sense to people.

Following that logic, it became even more confusing to figure out what to do on certain occasions, because logic is counterproductive and it’s not exactly as easy as pretending everyday is opposite day. Which brings us to our next conclusion, not only does logic not work, the opposite of presumed logic is equally dysfunctional. That’s when I found myself in quite the conundrum, and in a desperate attempt of damage control, I tried to directly treat the problem by eliminating the cause; being people. Turns out that’s not all that easy either, if not impossible. Eliminating pressure works with chemistry, not people. Fixing denominators works with maths, not people. Where does that leave us? Right where we started, with some modification; I generally find people incredibly confusing, and I haven’t the least idea what to do about that.

You see, you can’t work it out on paper. You can’t jot down the preferred outcome and design a plan of action with variables and constants and a function that forms a pattern, because people are full of variables and absolutely no constants that would help form a pattern. What’s more, you can’t even see those variables half the time, and in my case, not quite understand them when they’re out.

I’m not going anywhere with this. I would if I could, but I don’t know how to.

What I do know is this though; I’m not compatible.

You see, I’ve come to the funny realization that when it comes to people, I’m quite the Forrest Gump. That’s why most things backfire only when they involve human specimens. I got no problem with texts, facts, numbers and written things, but this whole interactive organic Neanderthals walking on twos with emotions and choice and thought and background and a gazillion other things adding to the ever-changing bio-blob that is a person, this is usually how I take it:
















And this is usually how I react to it:



And this is usually how it turns out:



The one difference is this; it actually worked for Forrest Gump in the end. Be it luck, providence or sheer karma that steered things in his way, it eventually worked.

Some More Little Things

Dad's cure to my loopy biological clock; an organic alarm, ready and set from the night before.

The Little Things

 

Oh nothing, just my father spontaneously getting up in the middle of the night to brush my disheveled teddy bear. And people wonder why I love my dad.

Religious Harassment.

This happened today at uni and it thoroughly pissed me off.

 

I was sitting alone next to the side entrance of the free clinic where the interns come to practice. It overlooks a construction site on campus so it’s hardly populated, and doctors occasionally come out for a smoke.

 

There I was, enjoying Ayn Rand’s We The Living and a smoke, when I was startled by the company of a patient. She was an elderly woman wearing a black abaya. Without any greetings or pleasantries that would warn me to her existence, she was leaning onto me, inches away from my face, and the following unedited dialogue took place.

 

هي: إنتي إزاي بتشربي سجاير وإنتي بتقري المصحف؟

أنا: حضرتك مالكيش الحق تقوليلي أعمل إيه

هي: يعني إيه؟

أنا: ده مش مصحف حضرتك، لو سمحتي إتفضلي

هي: ماهو لو كان أهلك حاجبوكي مكنتيش مشيتي في الحرام

أنا: حضرتك إزاي تدي لنفسك الحق تكلميني كدة؟ لو سمحتي إتفضلي

هي: تلاقيكي قبطية ماهو أصل كلكوا كدة

أنا: *عليت صوتي* لو سمحتي إتفضلي

 

Now let me tell you what’s wrong with this scenario:

I honestly don’t know where to start, perhaps that she gave herself the right to go up to a stranger and tell them how to live their life, or maybe it’s the sight of a woman smoking that Middle-Easterns just can’t get used to and almost always relate to promiscuity, or maybe it was the violent religious discrimination, or the fact that she thought all Christian women are whores, or that she thought that all women who smoke are whores, or that she thought all women are whores that need to mend themselves and become human beings, or the fact that she thought all Christians are depraved and immoral by default, or the fact that she thought there’s nothing wrong with parents forcefully veiling their children, or the fact that she thought forcefully veiling another person is the solution to depravity, or viable in the first place, or the fact that she thought depravity is synonymous to smoking, or the fact that she thought depravity is a given for all Christian women, or the fact that she thought the bullshit she was spewing was virtuous, or had anything to do with values, or is remotely related to any religion or moral code. Maybe it’s the fact that she couldn’t imagine a woman reading a book that wasn’t the holy Quoran that had her assume the English book with a colored cover was in fact Quoran, or maybe it was the fact that she invaded a complete stranger’s personal space and filed accusations based on their assumed religion, or the fact that she thinks anyone who is not veiled is a whore, or the fact that she perceives my very existence as a mistake that she is bound by religion and society to set right out of her own precious time, or how the way her society taught her how to understand Islam allows her to behave this way to another human being, or how she thinks that’s what Islam tells people how to behave, or how she insulted me on every fucking level possible for a person to be insulted and verbally violated, and last but not least, how she genuinely believed she did absolutely nothing wrong.

 

I don’t know what to say, I was bound by the difference in our ages to respect the elderly, but I have never been thus insulted in my entire life. I am no stranger to the societal difficulties and the unwanted tags that come with being a smoker, I am aware of how this fucked up society perceives the sight of a woman smoking and I have been harassed over it before, but maybe the combination of discrimination against women, Christians and smokers in the span of less than 2 minutes was too much to bear.

 

I am a free woman, and there is nothing that anyone can say or do that can change that. I am not a walking vagina, I’m no less of a human being for being a Christian woman who smokes, none of these three give anyone the right to think of me that way. I am not a whore for having a vagina, I am not a whore for smoking openly and for fuck’s sake I am not a whore for being Christian.

Mark it.

Quand je vous aimerai?
Ma foi, je ne sais pas,
Peut-être jamais,
peut-être demain.
Mais pas aujourd'hui, c'est certain.

L'amour est un oiseau rebelle
Que nul ne peut apprivoiser,
Et c'est bien en vain qu'on l'appelle,
S'il lui convient de refuser.
Rien n'y fait, menace ou prière,
L'un parle bien, l'autre se tait;
Et c'est l'autre que je préfère
Il n'a rien dit; mais il me plaît.
L'amour! L'amour! L'amour! L'amour!

- Extrait de Carmen, L’amour est un oiseau rebelle par Georges Bizet.

"But they need to worry and betray time with urgencies false and otherwise, purely anxious and whiny their souls really won’t be at peace unless they can latch on to an established and proven worry and having once found it they assume facial expressions to fit and go with it, which is, you see unhappiness, and all the time it all flies by them and they know it and that worries them to no end."

– Jack Kerouac, On The Road

Happy Easter!

 

So That’s Why.

Mood Capsule.

 

It’s an Astor Piazzolla kind of night. I’m yet to hear another composer who manages to make time stop in its tracks like he did, quite effortlessly too.

 

I’m at a weird place of my life right now, but I’m surprisingly calm, and I guess that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

 

The crows still come back to the tree where the nest used to be, although the nest is long gone, along with their parents. They don’t have to come back, but they do anyway, and not because they need it, because they want to. I think that’s beautiful. Humans should be capable of that too, but they’re not, because they complicate everything, and it is because they complicate everything that they find it so hard to feel. Feelings are no longer spontaneous, they’re triggers for things they don’t want to go through again, and they think being numb will protect them. Crows are smarter than that, they’re too free to compromise for their own protection. I like crows.

 

My pinky hurts like hell, I’ve been graphic designing for 14 hours on a laptop touchpad, and now I’m considering chopping it off to silence the pangs. Occupational hazard has never been this lame.

 

Every once in a while you come across a wild thing, and you stand in awe to behold it, and try so hard to make it part of your life, but you should have known better because it will never let you. The only way you could keep a wild thing is by being a wild thing. Such a rare commodity these days, people are afraid to think, they’re afraid to feel, they’re afraid to be, and they’re afraid they’ll do something wrong. That’s no way to live, how did we ever get here?

 

I have asthma now.

 

People should really stop dying.

 

Buddhism was the only philosophy that got it right, the only way to get out of this life whole is through detachment, you neither love nor hate, and you’ll be whole. But you’ll miss out on a hell lot, besides, who wants to remain whole if our time is limited? It would be practical if we were immortal, but choosing that when you’re gonna die anyway, perhaps really soon, is the most idiotic thing you could do to yourself next to missing out on a chance to spend a day with Erik Satie or Kurt Vonnegut.

 

Who cares?

 

I got one hell of a week ahead of me, so many midterm projects, midterm assignments and work that would usually take three weeks crammed into 3 days. The first thing I’m gonna do when I’m finally done with that will be to play piano until I can’t feel my fingers. I miss playing piano, I haven’t played in a while and I think that’s ridiculous because it’s one of the very few things that make me feel like I belong somewhere, or that I’m getting somewhere. It’s a very odd sense of comfort, one you’d naturally associate with home.

 

There’s that one bird that usually wakes up before the rest, and it would make a huge difference when he’s finally gone. He doesn’t know that, and I don’t think he ever will. I don’t think the bird understands that without its significant little tune at 4:25 am everyday, none of the other birds would wake up, and mom, dad and I wouldn’t smile in the middle of the night in recognition. Little things matter.

 

I’m lost, and I don’t mind it.

 

Nobody reads this, and it’s one of the main reasons why I like writing here. That applies to more than one department in my life right now. It’s weird growing up, you’ll never have that childlike certainty again. Never again, and most people  hate that. I wonder why. Don’t the people who are certain of everything feel claustrophobic? What’s left to live for if you know the answer to everything?

 

My hand hurts. I think I will read game of thrones now.