Sense and nonsense

It's a fortress. I can tell that it's a fortress. And I can feel an army within, At the center. A few thousand soldiers.  All sleepless and scared. The world's sleepless.  The world is suffering. The world is tired. the soldiers want to defend their own secrets. They send only the strongest out.  To buy more time. Maybe they could sleep for a few years.  And fight on! And the fortress might crumble in the meanwhile . But it might not matter.  The world is going to sleep,  and this might already be last night's possible dream.

A Pocket Designated for Passport : Change

winter is cold. Winter is windy. It's winter again and it never fails to surprisingly cold.

I have started to wear my warmest jacket again. A dark zipper jacket with a whole bunch of pockets. I was walking out of the building to get coffee and I touched my pocket to double check whether it was empty or not.

It was empty. My passport was not there and for a second I was freaked out. My passport had a lot of significance in my life. Especially  When I wanted to drink . My subconscious concern for my passport that was actually in a folder in my room, was all tied to my jacket and my first winter far from my home. A winter of rebellion against a mental immigration from somewhere that I didn't want to be in to somewhere that i didn't want to be in. By having a passport in my front pocket. One with the main purpose of identifying me as someone that has a right to drink, Of course after enabling my run away from a place that I don't one to be in to another place that I don't want to be in. It was the best tool I've ever had, an Identification.

But It's winter again, I don't need my passport anymore. It's safe and sound and it has less purpose in it's life now.

I'm drinking coffee now and I'm warm again. but I'm still just getting used to a lot of stuff.

I'm still getting used to seeing a talking picture of my friend trying to talk to me from inside my laptop.

My habits have changed. My life is still changing.

Somethings don't change. Be safe my dear passport.

"Accept the mystery"

 We romanticize our home , when we are not there . We romanticize a relationship when we don't have it. we romanticize limits, boundaries, religion, science, nature, cities. All good or bad . It's something that we do and there is probably a reason to it. A lot of it is to keep ourselves from feeling bad. Or alone. Or dead. Most of the times it is something that we enjoy having. Having a country to be nostalgic about is nice. Having friends to miss. Bodies to desire. Music to dance to. It is all good. It is nice. we probably need it.

Sometimes this romantic attitude of most of us lucky portion of humanity, Turns itself into hatred to other stuff. We then hate governments, cars, males, females, genres, races, words, people, people, people. This is all good too. We probably need this to to feel good. Feel important. Feel safe. Feel purposeful. And we probably will be all of those someday . or not . 

And how green and natural and caring and honest and comic and functioning and funny and beautiful and progressing and smart and curious and lovely we are. 

sometimes looking at people fills me up with joy. Sometimes it scares me.

 that Asian guy said : 

"accept the mystery"

"Level of Connection". A story , not a letter to a friend or any of that shit.

First of all , I'm physically and mentally tired these days, So I couldn't even think of anything to write ten minutes ago. That is before I thought of writing this.

i'm at work. I should not be paid for something that I'm not doing. But similar to what Louis CK said in one of his bits, Lets just love ourselves with just the thought of being honest.

It was starting to rain last night, and it was beautiful and all. Really beautiful. A few different conversations that I had with my roommate and my friend, reminded me of another friend at home. And a whole nostalgic feeling hit me. And I remembered what a phrase that he used to use.

I'll get back to what he said later.

 I was really hungry too. And I was tired as I established before. And I was thinking of going to a art, BYOB, music thing.

"Hey, Do you wanna go to this art thing that we want to talk about ? " I asked my roommate

"No I gotta go to work early tomorrow" He said.

"huh ? whats it got to do with that man ? Your job does not require thinking. I think you can show up to work hungover?" I replied

"Well that doesn't matter, Sometimes it is harder to be hungover at jobs that are like that" My other friend said

And we all dropped that conversation . I don't remember what we talked about after that.

So I went and laid down on my bed. My fiend was sitting on the bed and we were having a discussion about some style of music and whether that style requires creativity or not. And I played some basic notes on the music that was being played with my instrument. And some noise that was created by my instrument was added to the music. By noise I mean some malfunction of my instrument. So I asked him whether he can fix my guitar.

"I'll take a look at it , But I definitely, Cannot do it"

You know , When you write it down . Its clear . he said he could not do it . but with his tone, And the fact that the conversation was in Persian . I was confused. I didn't know that he meant he definitely cannot do it ( 100 percent sure ) or he cannot definitely do it ( not sure if he can do it). And I was trying to explain that. And I was not successful to explain my confusion. At all.

" These two that you are saying mean exactly the same, You and all your explanations" My roommate said something like that. And that messed my head up. I remembered my friend from Iran at that moment .

And that conversation was dropped at that point too
.
"Our level of connection is really low" My friend used to say. And I'm not sure whether that phrase really means anything in English or not. what it means is that i'm saying something and you are thinking something completely different. And I also really missed him at that point.

So I went out in the rain and cooled my head and had a burrito, And went back home. I went to the kitchen and started to wash the dishes. after a few minutes my friend came to the kitchen.

"I'm going to sleep, I gotta go to the work that requires no thinking tomorrow" He said with a strange tone.
"Haha. Those kinds of work are the worst kind, Mine is the same"  I said.

He went to sleep and then I realized the what he said was a reference to what I said when I was asking him to go to the art drinking thing. And that fucked my head again. Cause my intention of saying that was to say that our works don't really matter. we can get there hungover. And what my sentence implied to him was that I was probably making fun of what he does. or something like that. Fucked my head, both for saying something that caused misunderstanding (Which can be avoided) and someone not understanding something that I thought he would.

"the level of connection was low" last night, As it is low in most of the times. I mean people misunderstand each other frequently. And there are lots of reasons behind that. And this is so shitty. I know but it is the way we are. Communication for most times is a difficult thing to do. Understanding is even more difficult.

This shit sometimes get scary . Even though it's just overkill .

"Cold silence
has a tendency
to atrophy any
sense of compassion
between supposed lovers,
between supposed brothers."

Personal Performance

one disturbance , can screw up a good experience for a lot of people. Same thing goes for a person and all the internal psychological interactions. 

I was at a small concert. To see a band I really wanted to see for a long time. And I was focused on enjoying the songs and everything. I'm sure everyone have some sort of similar experience. Then some motherfucker drunk started to dig his way forward in the crowd. The place was packed. He just pushed and moved his way forward and everyone he pushed would just look at him and think : "What the fuck is he doing?" . The first time I thought to myself that he might be a fan and he really wants to get closer. But he would just get closer and then go back. In one of the most stupid loops I have seen in my life. He would just move in the crowd, Probably just to fuck my enjoyment, and other people's too. Even though he might have been just some drunk who did not know what he was doing. The results are the same. One recurring disturbance and your enjoyment will be reduced to a minimum. 

In order to be optimistic. I have to say that sometimes one disturbance can turn a shitty experience to a good one too. I just don't remember any right now.

Anyways. The story reminds me of myself. Internally I have feelings and thoughts and motivations and goals and a whole list of semi known and unknown elements. And sometimes I want to do something. Or  just want to enjoy something. And Sometimes that disturbance happens internally. Some thought, idea, or feeling might ruin a lot of stuff. The interesting thing is all the actors are me. A whole group of drunks and sober people at a concert listening to a one man band that is also me. And one of them drunks  will move around ruining my concert for me. 

I like reducing my life to a concert.

That's why every time that drunk dude would push me to get closer to the stage and then go back. I laughed and cursed. I didn't push him back. I don't know why no one did.

How narcissistic we all are at some point .  

Welcome to my personal performance dear friend. Just be careful, That fat drunk mother fucker is standing over there and is coming towards you. And you are not going to push him back. 

Pigs and Ignorance

I was discussing something with my boss. Not a work related issue. Just some issue that I though was interesting to talk about. And to be clear the discussion was related to urban planning and it was also about a black neighborhood in Chicago. So I was talking about my opinion and how I thought that new development in that neighborhood was not cool. She agreed with me to some extent. But then at some point when I used the phrase "Food desert", She got all mad and started to say that I don't know anything. And black neighborhoods are "everything desert" and kept saying : " You don't know anything about this".

Well ... I responded with a loud tone : "I KNOW ABOUT IT, I AM AN URBAN PLANNER" . 

And this was probably the only time or one of the only times that I have used being an urban planner or being anything else as a tool to win in a stupid debate. 

 It felt good. But I usually don't act like that . It is a shit move that a lot of people use and it really fucks up conversations. Not that I care  about making a conversation or anything. 

I also used phrases in a class debate that I usually don't use. Something like : " This is the exact meaning of ignorance and self importance" . I don't really remember why I used those phrases but the debate was about environmental planning and saving the earth or something. 

Well... It feels good to act like a dick in conversations. Especially when other's act like dicks.

Some random remarks on different stuff :

It's either most people are ignorant or stupid, or most of them are not. 

I'm gaining confidence about my knowledge on some subjects. Feels strange. Feels like boredom.

I've been trying to write something and this is the best I can do now. My mind is all occupied and fucked up thinking about personal stuff.

It's not even  important if I write or not. 

I'm listening to a song that goes like : 

Big man, Pig man,

Haha ! charade you are. 

wooooooooooooooooooo !

Its called : Pigs , Three different ones !

Laughing at stupid, sad, cruel stuff - A letter to two friends,

It's been a while now. Doesn't matter if I'm at work, or I'm home, or at a friends, or even a party. I might take out a device of mine and stare at the news like a zombie ( refer to "Vicarious - Tool") to see what new shit is going on in the world. And by shit I mean to see where, in the world a whole bunch of people have been killed, or at best killed each other equally. And most of the times, It doesn't even bother me anymore, Just like most of us. We get used to it. Some might even say that we enjoy it, unless it has some negative effect on us and that is when we blame our governments. Which at most times are to be blamed for at least part of the shitty stuff happening in the world.

There are moment's though, that you get tired of it. Irritated by it if you will. When you turn on the news and see a whole bunch of people have already died for some fucked up stupid reason. And you have to believe me, now , I think some types of killings and fights are completely rational, comparing to what is happening these days. I am too disturbed. "deeply disturbed". And I'm pretty sure I'm not even remotely disturbed as you are. I understand the difference in us being disturbed because I remember times when I was disturbed and shitty and I knew most people couldn't be feeling as shitty  as I was, even the people who knew of the shitty things that were happening to me, my friends, my family, my people.

The sad thing is I kind of feel that it would be much better if all this was silent. Silent in a way that it would happen and we wouldn't even hear of it. I'm sure what is happening right now is is going to be added to the list of humankind's achievements in fucking up stuff. And we are going to be proud of ourselves to survive what we are  doing . But I wish there was no news agency, to show pictures and sounds. I'm afraid that this stuff might some day become my favorite entertainment. I'm being ironic now.

Anyway. There are ways to rationalize our stupidity as a species. First, we can just say that this is just the way we are and we gotta grow up. the other way is to say if you look at history, you see that what is happening now is nothing new. It's actually getting too old and boring. I mean we've had wars. specially we, as people from a certain part of this earth of ours. And we've turned out fine, I'm pretty sure people are going to read books about what is happening now. And reading books is either education, or entertainment. And when something is educating and/or entertaining, that's when you know everything is fine again. I'm pretty sure things are going to be fine. A matter of time. That's what it is. And that is one amazing ability we human beings have. the ability to forget, and be fine. 

Besides these cruel ways to calm ourselves, you should always know that there will eventually be some decent good outcomes out of this shitty bloodshed, I'm not sure what. But something good and nice always comes out of fucked up stuff. I will go ahead and say that I believe that most of the times, the best stuff come out of the worst situations. I'm pretty sure this is not just some stupid way to say life is good and shit like that. to make you feel good. I am just sure. I might explain why I'm sure some other time.

I just need to say that most of what I said, you might already know. And we all know that the situation is too crazy and sad. And you eventually are going to be feeling really shitty. Just be sure that your friends will support you.

 please laugh at things. Find something funny out of this whole fucked up, sad, depressing, and cruel situation and laugh at it. You probably need to maintain yourself for the time you are needed.

Just wanted to let you know that I'm not sympathizing with you. I am sure that no one can understand how you are feeling, Even remotely. That's why I talked about my own feelings. to let you know that I know that "your make up may be flaking, but your smile still goes on". And I'll try to help you keep your smile. 

Sincerely,
A friend.

The rise and fall of Dr. Imagination

I think that one of our  major problems as living human beings is that we collectively have decided not to be imaginative about certain subjects, or maybe we have lost our ability to be imaginative. A few years ago, I read a book. It talked about the fact that one of humankind's characteristics is that we have the ability to compare our current state with a desired state. I don't remember the book's title. But the idea seemed logical to me. It still does. Now,  I'm thinking about "Imagination" and it reminded me of that book. I somehow feel that this phrase means that we, human beings, are imaginative by nature: We can think of things that are not here, we can't see, or things that might not even exist.

these are examples of  being imaginative :

-There is no money in my pockets or my bank account. I need to get some money in my pockets or in my bank account. I might think of finding a job, or robbing a bank, or marry a rich person. I might even think about it and realize that I don't have any options. I might get depressed. 

- I hear a girl in the other room in my dorm. God she is probably beautiful.  And then I might try to think how she might look like. and I might think of things I will say to her to get her to like me when I see her. I will probably think of some of the stuff that she might say. 

- I'm driving a car. The road might be slippery and I might lose control of the car. in the very few seconds before the car crash. I might scream " oh god please help me". or something like that . And I might not even believe in god. 

Most artistic creations of any form or genre are created by this "imagination". I like to think of it as a tool that we know how to use. As I hope my examples sorted out, there are different levels of imagination. I mean what you imagine might be real and just not be at your presence. Or It might be something completely unreal. "Close encounter of the third kind" is an amazing movie by Steven Spielberg, which itself is a beautiful creation of imagination and it shows how people can use their imagination to interact with the unknown.

This brings us to why good story telling, is a powerful tool. Maybe the most powerful of them all. It's important because we rarely can truly understand something if we can't imagine it. And this is regardless of how true that thing is. It seems like a lot of us can imagine a being like god that has a lot of power and/or can create stuff. But it seems like it is harder for us to understand that the way we interact with our environment (namely planet earth), even though convenient for us, might make us extinct. And this is regardless of god or climate change being real or not. 

A book of religion like bible or Quran, tells good stories of heaven and hell and creation and a lot of people can relate to that. But regardless of all the numbers and facts towards the trend of how things are going with us and nature and how logical these might be. We tend to not relate to that. Some might say that us humans are stupid overall. Some might say this is our nature and we can't call it stupidity. whichever it is, I think we like stories better than numbers, and it is not a matter of understanding something or not. tales and numbers are of two different nature.

The problem with most of us is that we are almost forgetting that part of ourselves.These days, we tend to focus on numbers, logic, experiments, and stuff like that. because we understand them, and this is not a bad thing in any way. We need these stuff  too. But I think we are a problematic generation and I think most people agree with me on this. I feel like we are becoming too serious, I think we are becoming too real. I think we are not as imaginative as we need to be.

There are great examples of good story telling. I think people from japan have proven to be good at developing themselves and  handling natural and unnatural disasters (nuclear bombs, tsunami,...)  because they tell amazing imaginative stories of things that are important to them in their literature, cinema, and animation. And they are great with numbers too. 

Yes, I've been amazed by some forms of Japanese art for some time now. And yesterday this hit me again when I saw "the secret world of Arrietty". It's about a family of little people who live in a house of real human beings. Big ones. It is a story of how they interact and understand big humans, and how they address them. I would be really happy if I could tell a story about what I think is important, like that!

Alcoholcracy

It might be the year 2114 now, and I might be someone's dead grandfather, and I might have talked to my grandson about a book I read  when I was a teenager, and he probably wouldn't remember the name. I might have told  him that the book was about a world in the future,  in which humankind has developed a pretty progressed human reproduction technology.  people were raised outside families and they have created some alcohol-drug type of thing with no hangover and bad side effects. he might remember the name of the drug or at least how it sounded when I told him about it. toma ? soma? and they might have created something like that drug by now and they might have made some small progress in reproduction technology. and everything might be in some better kind of order by now, the time my grandson is thinking about some book that his grandfather used to talk about.

He might be sitting in a crowded bar, having some legalized and age restriction free alcohol-drug kind of thing. And he might be thinking about this book I talked about. or he might be really bored by the fact that some tall pretty lady in the TV is making a speech about freedom, and the power of the people. and his friends might be saying that things haven't changed much. they might be talking about the fact that they still have poor people. or they might be trying to sign a petition to save the last tree in town. or they might be amazed by the new artificial flowers that the city is planting in small parks. they might even be talking about the fact that the poor still get poorer and the rich get richer. or they might be talking about how the definition of power has changed from the time that their grandfathers ( me and friends) used to live. and they might keep getting their hangover-free drink or drug, they might be tenderly drunk or amazingly high. and they might kiss on the cheeks or shake hands and say goodbye and walk home. or bike home. or teleport home. And my grandson, or his friend might be thinking about a pretty girl while getting home. Or he might be wondering whether the world, someday can turn up like the book that I, his grandfather, talked about when I was alive.

Or...

It might be the year 2013 now. and I, might be sitting in a bar, a really crowded bar. With a group of my friends.It might be some fundraising event for some local political activity. And I might be drinking my beer. some young girl might be talking about how everyone should fight for democracy and how things have not changed much in the past 50 year or so. After an hour or two, I might be thinking about the fact that they have used the word democracy 136 times in just an hour or two. And I might think that when anyone uses any word excessively, the word would become dull for me. and I might make some jokes about how I think democracy and freedom can be as dangerous as religious extremism. My friends might smile at me. I might have a lot of other irrelevant thoughts. And I might clap and whistle and yell for the speakers. and I might keep drinking my beer. I might shake some hands and kiss some people on the cheeks after a couple of hours, and I might say goodbye. and I might walk home, bike home, or take the bus home. and I might be thinking about that really pretty girl I saw in the bar, or I might be thinking about a book I read when I was a few years younger, I might remember the name of that book, I might walk home wondering whether the world, someday can turn up like "brave new world". I might not care about this stuff at all. or I might listen to my music and some relevant song might shuffle on my phone. the song might go like this :

Democracy is coming to the USA,

and It's coming through the crack in the wall

On a visionary flood of alcohol

A rain dog

dogs have a powerful sense of smell, and they probably get to know everything they have by smelling them.

now they say that when dogs get out of their home, they can smell their home from far away and get back. and if you didn't know , dogs love their home.
dogs probably hate rain. it's not romantic for them at all, it does not have a beautiful sound. dogs hate rain cause it washes away the scent of their home, and they'll just wander around wondering where their home is. and it's going to be hard for them to find it. really hard.

rain dogs, is one of the most strange phrases I've heard in my life. through tom waits' album "Rain dogs".

home is an important word. and that is why "rain dogs" is a strange phrase. and sometimes, I am a rain dog too. and i know a lot of rain dogs. and they probably know more rain dogs than me. and those rain dogs might know me.

A Letter to a Friend

Dear friend,

I thought I exactly knew what I wanted to say in this letter, but then I realized It is way harder when you actually start to write things down.

I'm not really sure if you care about people, and by people I mean human beings over all. or you just think you care about them, but you just care about a group of them. or you just act like you care and you consciously use caring as a tool. there even might be other ways to think about it. and I want to say that it's not really important to me.

I think I have to clarify what I mean by caring:

by caring I mean caring about how you treat people, how others treat each other. and how you and other people treat the environment around you. and how you care about the things that individuals or groups of people identify themselves with. things like race, sex, a favorite soccer team, anything.

I don't want to get into the actual ethical discourse of the things mentioned above. In my opinion, these are not the most important things in the world.

I think it is really important to be consistent about how much you say that you care about stuff, and how much you act on it. I think we cannot be completely consistent with our actions. but it would suck if we talk about something a lot, and then we don't act on it in an obvious way.

there are lot's of examples of inconsistency. and you are smart,  you'll get it.

It sucks when organizations , especially non profits, have a goal of creating justice, and equity, and stuff like that. and then they don't even try to achieve that within their employees. or a really small group of people that they might have to deal with. most of them don't think of it that way. when scale changes, people's moral values change and it sucks. I say it sucks because I think part of this is because we human's are the way we are. it just sucks, like a whole list of other stuff that suck and we might have to deal with them for a long time. anyways...

one other example is  when someone hates racism... or some notion of this kind.
what is racism anyway ? It is probably the fact that people cannot understand that even though a group of people might have a lot of similarities, culturally and physically, It does not mean that they are all completely the same.

The problem is that even though this is really easy to understand, we tend to generalize groups of any kind. I mean for us, apples are all apples. shit is shit. and the same thing happens when we try to think about a group of people. and then suddenly , we treat them like apples, or trees. you see what I'm saying?

you see? I  can get why racism happens. I'm not trying to say what I said was the best explanation ever though. remember! this is just a letter.

you know what is really easier to understand ? the fact that Individuals are different. in any other way you can imagine. and I'm talking on a different scale now. there is no group of people that we have to care about and treat well. Just our friends and colleagues which are probably from very different places and backgrounds.

individuals are way more different than groups of people. and treating individuals (I'm emphasizing on this word on purpose) with presumptions, is even more wrong, because its way easier to understand the fact that people are different. again ! as individuals.

so if you constantly think about racism, or sexism, or feminism, and then you try to consciously be understanding of these groups of people. you should think about the way you interact with your friends even more frequently.

Now to finish up, my very very dear friend. I gotta say. I understand that it is really hard to do that. really really hard. and it depends on your moral standards. If you personally have high moral standards towards groups of people. you should think about the way you treat people around you. to be consistent.

this was an observation,  a lot of  of people and I care about you  and we might even talk about it someday.

sincerely ,
A. K

"Hurt"

"Hurt", Is a song by Nine Inch Nails, Which is made more famous by Johnny Cash. this is how it starts :

"I hurt myself today.

To see if I still feel, I ..."

And believe me, I'm not trying to write about a song, or introduce it, or anything. It's just that I "hurt" myself yesterday. And It's kind of funny. I actually "hurt" my back, while riding a bicycle. and I didn't even own the bicycle, and this raises a serious justice issue which I'm gonna get to later.

What happens was I was riding this stupid bike. and I was riding it because it's kind of cool to ride a bike anyways. It's hip. and I personally like it too. this fucking taxi driver though didn't like it and just showed up in front of me. so in order to not get really "hurt", I tried to not lose control and i didn't. but in the process of not losing control I "hurt" my back. I don't even really remember how it happened. 

I should say though . being "hurt" with a -not so stupid- cause is not that bad. I mean I think it's kind of cool that i'm "hurt" but i'm not "I broke my head and I'm in the hospital" kind of "hurt". even though I have a history of back problems. and I'm almost secretly ashamed by it. which I don't really mind cause I'm secretly ashamed by a lot of things. Just like most people.

anyway's I gotta say, this really sucks. because even though it's not really crippling, it does make me walk funny. and I don't like that. you know ... even though I "hurt" myself yesterday. It wasn't to see that I still feel. actually it was the other way around. I got "hurt" because I didn't want to "hurt" anymore. and I don't want to explain that. I really wanted to be racist about this incident. I wanted it so bad,  to blame it on the racial background of the taxi driver, but I didn't see him clearly. he took off. 

now back to the justice issue. unfortunately this is not of a social injustice nature( which makes it not really interesting. doesn't it ?) rather a more cosmic injustice. First of all, the bike wasn't mine, and if by any chance my attempt to not get "hurt" was to save the bicycle it wouldn't be fair, cause it wouldn't be my fault and it would just show my stupidity. but most importantly, The last four times that I tried to  exercise or do any activity that involved physical exercise, to be fitter, and try to achieve other goals in result of being fitter. I've had some similar shit happen to me. and I don't like that. because I'm only gonna keep on trying 18 more times. if the same shit kept happening,  I'll just let it go. and this fucking shows that my will is strong, period.

I just really wish that this pain get's me some sympathy. Just in order to make this dear "hurt" of mine, just.

The Blogger Wannabe

I've been wanting to have a blog since I knew blogs existed. almost 11 years. and I've had several failed attempts.  I wrote stuff about the music I liked ( Thrash metal) in one of them, with some shitty internet speed. and I was eager to see how many people read my stuff. so I worked hard! to add a visitor counter. and after 3 months, I realized no one wants to read this crap. 15 times overall, the number of times my blog was seen back then. And I asked 10 of them personally to read it. and well , It was disappointing. I stopped doing it.

and now after a long time, and several attempts, i'm trying to do a blog again. and I'm not gonna talk about metal music. I realize that saying smart stuff about social inequality and stuff like that is appealing to the audience that I don't have yet.

my craving for attention might force me to talk about that sort of stuff too. and I can't be explicit about it... I know that.

Blogging is hard...

Fuck...