The hardest thing is to start writing. You spend ages just waiting for that time to begin, until you know that you can't wait any longer and you just have to do it. Then you might need to struggle a bit more with the first few sentences before you actually get an idea of what the whole paragraph is about; and obviously, some times, it might be so needed that certain amendments must be made to the opening sentences, but it doesn't matter anymore because you've started already – the ball is rolling.

That's pretty much how it is with life, isn't it? Takes about nine months of waiting before life actually starts, and it does start quite painfully and with a lot of difficulty. After that, however, and after taking care of the first few sentences, the rest pretty much writes itself – there is no effort made in being, or existing.

Oh, how lucky. We are so lucky. We live in a fairytale which we write with our very own existence, each and every moment of our being. We are the fairytale. The wildest human imagination could not have come up with the simplest of nature's wonders – what a beautiful dance of splendidly interdependent and organic existences, spread around haphazardly on a giant wet gem floating in mid-air in the vastness of cold space around a big rock on fire, spinning round and round and round like a carnival balloon, like the windmills of your mind.

What is there, really, apart from now? Point to me to yesterday, place my hand on tomorrow. Time is not a tool, it's a convenience, a yardstick for measuring what we experience as the 'passing of that which allows things to have a linear order of execution, of cause and effect'. But there is no such quality inherent in things – time is like beauty, it's not intrinsic to the object in question but is a particular perceptual stimulation of the individual experiencing it. What is an 'hour' to a butterfly, a 10-year old boy, an oak tree, or a planet. It is merely a convenience, and it is certainly not money.

Take it easy – don't stress yourself over things that don't really matter. What doesn't really matter? I can't tell you that. Obviously, nothing will matter anymore when you're dead, at least not to you. When you die you will never regret not having worked a few hours extra, I'm pretty sure. So does something matter if it matters to some other person even after one has passed away? That's a bit silly; if something matters only because it matters, then it obviously doesn't matter. Dancing for dance's sake is meaningless – but how beautiful. Birdsongs are definitely not music – music is not something 'out there'; it's something 'in here', something that happens in our minds and our perception of sound. But they're beautiful.

Maybe life's meaning is not something 'out there', a list of tasks bestowed upon us by some remote divine figure, which we have to tick off the to-do list before receiving a one-way ticket to eternal bliss (or damnation, if you ticked the wrong boxes). Maybe it's something 'in here', what we make of it, and maybe we could just about create the most beautiful of worlds if we all agreed there was no meaning at all. What a beautiful world would it be if we could look at the world for what it is, and just be amazed, in awe, at the smallest things.

And of course there's life in this universe! It's such a blast, what a wonderful dance of light, rocks and titanic fireworks, and it somehow had to look at itself. As Alan Watts says, what is better than wearing shoes so comfortable that you think you're not wearing any shoes, is wearing such shoes and knowing you're wearing them. So live your life and know that you're living it, but feel as if life's not there to be lived, but that you just happen as things do happen sometimes, and there's not much more to it: you're a fluke, smile at it. Smile at life's smallest wonders, the littlest things you can find, things beautiful, things bizarre, things that make you go WOOP, and things that make you sing. Life's life, and welcome to the tautology club – where dance is merely dance, music is music, and you are. So just be, and smile at that too.

Promise?

"The most important thing in life is Rhythm.

In music, in painting, in cooking, literature, architecture, in physics, mathematics, in kissing, sex, conversation, strokes, or in movies, swimming, cycling, waves, in light, in movements of planets, the universe.

So in this particular situation, it just so happened that the rhythm wasn't convenient. Here, therefore, comes the issue of Chance. Rhythm with Chance, thus, create synchronisations, or "coincidences". These are the most essential thing which determines a human's life, and not only.

I wish things were different, I wish I had more time with her, to be, to think things over. I don't regret, though, a single second I spent with her - for it wasn't something wrong; it was something right, just in the wrong time."

(entry from my diary, 18/08/2007)

ένα γλυκό φιλί
ένα χάδι τρυφερό
δυο λόγια σιωπής.

What is Art?

Art is not an apple. No, certainly not an apple. And Art is not square, definitely doesn't have corners. Or does it? Well, I'll assume it doesn't for now. It's not infinite, but no one knows or has seen its limits. Yet. Or maybe we never will. We don't know.

But what is Art really? Art is a human thing. If you take all of humanity off the face of the planet, would Art still exist? Hm. So, Art is a human thing. And it's not the hands. Certainly not the hands.

But what is Art? Are some scribblings on walls Art? Well, if they were made by humans, perhaps. So Art has to be made by humans. So how do you make Art? You need materials. Yes, that's what you need. Materials. Textile, sonic, intellectual, linguistic, all kinds of materials. But you need them, right? So, I take a red material, rub it against a white material. Colour, shape, contrast, movement, emotion spring out of my gesture. That's probably Art. Or just maybe. If I see a piece of wood, is it Art? If I take a piece of wood, is it Art? If I take a piece of wood and change it, is it Art? If I take a piece of wood and change it, and declare it Art, is it Art? If I take a piece of wood, and change it, and you declare it Art, is it Art? If I take a piece of wood and say I made it, and I don't change it and say I changed it, can you declare it Art? If Jackson Pollock took a piece of wood and gave no information whatsoever about the piece of wood, would it be declared Art? Would he declare it Art? Would it make a difference? Should it? Can the same piece of wood be Art to you but not be Art to me? Does then Art mean anything at all? If Art is a human thing, can it ever be objective, since we are the subjects themselves?

But then again, black lines on paper can be paintings, but notes on manuscript paper are certainly not Music. A bird singing, is that Music? So if the manuscript is not music, and isn't Art either, what is Art and what is music? I whistle a bit, make some noise. Is it Art? I do something that someone else directs me to do on an instrument. Is that Art? I make some noise with an instrument, is it Art? I make some noise without an instrument, is it Art? I do something that someone else instructs me to do, but without an instrument. Is that Art? I constantly make noise and sounds, but I never realise it or think about it really. Is any of that Art? And if Art is made of materials, what if my materials are not man-made? Can totally man-made Art ever be feasible? Will it be more artistic than not? How am I more artistic than you? Am I artistic? Are you? Are you Art?

We think we have been disangaged.
We think we're independent.

We're not.

We are as much part of Nature's web of life as we are sure we exist. To think otherwise would lead to a destructive relationship between humans and nature, a relationship that is going to be toxic, unpleasant, unhealthy, unsustainable and short-termed. (Given that the earth will still be here, humans will be the ones terminated first.)

Oh, wait..

"Been there, done that" is the word.

You know what's perfect?

Death is perfect.
Sickness is perfect.

Death and sickness will always happen. There is nothing you can do to avoid or predict them.

"There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking."

-Yamamoto Tsunetomo

You, and me, and everyone else, we're not perfect. We can never be perfect, because we're part of Nature, and Nature is not perfect. But Nature's imperfection is in such a great balance with its perfection that one cannot exist without the other - that balance is perfect.

Out of balance, life.
Out of life, death.
Out of death, balance.

The most cyclical of all relationships. No need for God(s).

Similarity depends on the level of details you're looking at. Two human beings - they have the same number of limbs and outer shape. But maybe different hair colour, or maybe their DNA differs. The further down you go, the more difficult it is to find similarities and identical matches.

However, there comes a (bifurcation?) point, at which suddenly, what seems diametrically different, is eternally the same, for ever, and always, everywhere. Where all matter is energy, all subatomic particles are the same energy manifested in different forms, and where all is that same one thing.

Would there be a universe if there was no one to observe it?

What if all citizens, instead of going to the army, were trained as policemen? What if they underwent such education and training that instilled in them a duty of justice and to protect, and the confidence (and skills to go with it) to tackle criminality?

Then, there would be no police, no established institutions set to serve the citizens; the police would would BE the citizens themselves, and given the nature of a non-established system, Law and Justice would emerge in the larger scale.

And what if all humans had access to everything they really needed, and had equal rights to education and health? And I don't just mean paper-rights, but actual, physical rights. And what if there was no money, no property, physical labour did not exist, and the world somehow operated in a different way? How likely would it be that criminality would be reduced to an infinitesimal amount of cases, most (if not all) of which would be related to treatable psychological or physiological conditions?

So why, instead of trying patch that 200-year old car that clearly doesn't work anymore (and probably never will), don't we just make a new car? It's not going to be easy, and it's going to take a lot of time and effort, but will it not be more beneficial for everyone?

"Και πρώτα απ'όλα τι εννοούμε λέγοντας παιδεία; Την πληροφορία, την τεχνική, το δίπλωμα εξειδίκευσης που εξασφαλίζει γάμο, αυτοκίνητο κι ακίνητο, με πληρωμή την πλήρη υποταγή του εξασφαλισθέντος ή την πνευματική και ψυχική διάπλαση ενός ελεύθερου ανθρώπου, με τεχνική αναθεώρησης κι ονειρικής δομής, με αγωνία απελευθέρωσης και με διαθέσεις μιας ιπτάμενης φυγής προς τ'άστρα;"

-Μάνος Χατζιδάκις


[translation: "And what do we mean when we say 'education'? Information, technical skills, the certificate of expertise, all of which guarantee a marriage, car and estate, in return for the total obedience of the individual? or the intellectual and psychical training of a free human being, accompanied with technical skills, a tendency to dream, an urge to strive for liberation, and with intentions to reach the stars?" - Manos Hadjidakis, a major figure in Greek music in the 20th century]

Protesters and policemen. Two very different systems which work similarly; one is established and one is emergent.

The good thing about the emergent system is that there is cause and reaction. Something is done only if it needs to be done, by everyone, for everyone. If something is good for one, it's good for everyone. If something is bad for one, it's bad for everyone. Everyone cares.

The bad thing in an established system is that things can be done just simply because someone wants it to be done. If something is bad for one, it's just that one.

Therefore, to live in an established democratic society is an illusion, when it's not out of need for a leader, but a seeking for profit that puts people in the government.

Sound is so much more than we think we hear.

(Remembering Feldman's encounter with Varese, when the latter told the former "Keep in mind how long it's going to take from the moment the players play the music until the audience hears it".)

The power that discovering an ancient mystical knowledge has in changing someone can only be experience - and then it doesn't matter anymore, because you've changed into something that has lost interest in what effects discovering such a knowledge has on people.

(Remembering Scelsi.)

I hate the attitude that some people have at concerts - that of going to see a most serious 'high-class' intellectual, emotional, and artistic experience, obliging to the power of formality, stripping music of its most obvious function: to sound itself.

How is it that in Western societies we've ended up placing ourselves above everything else so essential to us, above Nature, above Art, above Survival, that there has to be a relation of a slave and a Master, of better and worse, of more and less, instead of just seeing things as they are and just experience them?

Why do we have to be, instead of just letting be? (us and others)

It's funny how people can't decide whether it's the outer beauty or the inner beauty that matters. When it's about people, they all say "oh, look at the personality, not how a person looks like!". In Art, however, people fo for the outer, directly experiential beauty - and although the 'inner' beauty of a piece of Art is appreciated, it comes second, because Art is mainly an aesthetic thing.

However, both these cases are dependent on the occasion: people will be attracted to beautiful people, as people will appraise a painting with 'inner' beauty more than a painting that just looks nice. And to try and classify rules of behaviour by _ these two caterogires, would be wrong, because they are not two different things, but two sides of the same coin.

The Aesthetic cannot exist without the Conceptual (otherwise there is no final result), and the Conceptual cannot exist without the Aesthetic (otherwise there's nothing to apply/exhibit hte concept on).

"Ah, so a more beautiful piece of Art will be beautiful both aestheticall and conceptually!"

Well, not quite. It's not that it's 'better' or 'more beautiful' - it's just beautiful in a different way. And it's the same for people: you can't say that someone is 'better' or 'more beautiful' ecause they are interesting both in terms of personality and looks - because each person is different to another.

But in a society where competition is so highly endorsed, where you have to fight to get something, where you have to constantly try to be better than other people, the Different gets lost in that sea of effort. People, instead, try to do things that everyone does, because then it's easier to show how much better you are than the others. People eliminate their differences so they can focus their energy in doing better the things that everyone does.

We live in a world of mass production, mass consumption, mass destruction. The only hope is that, just like past, Art will change the way we see the world, because nowadays it's being individual and having your own voice that matters (in Art), and now how 'good' you are compared to the Masters. I believe Art has a similar function to language in that it doesn't represent the things we experience, but shapes how we experience the world.

I spoke with Tony, a guy who picked me up when I hitch-hiked towards Bré, in Ireland.

He was telling me how he speaks Irish, but no one is really bothering learning it, he told me about a really old cemetary and St. Monochg, that Dublin was originally spelt 'Baile Ath Ciath', he started talking about the world in general (politics and the lot), and how they changed the Irish writing, and they made things shorter etc.

How money is destroying our heritage, our environment, our own true possession which is the gift to walk on such a beautiful planet, how 20 years ago you'd see foxes, birds flying everywhere, and all sorts of animals over the country side when driving the car; but now nothing. How all of this, including the corruption of the cops in Greece and everywhere, is beacuse of money.

"When I was in the USA, I was in the Navy and we travelled all over the world for many years. And wherever I went to, I saw corruption. You know, 'something's wrong with with your papers, how much?' Money, whiskey, cigarette, anything - corruption was there."

So it seems that wherever/for as long as there is money, there is going to be corruption.

"Exactly."

[...]

One could say that people are a lot happier in societies where they care less about money, or use them less.

"I think that the best life is where they don't use money at all."

Now, this coming from a person with the experiences that Tony's had in his life, is something I should at least try to keep in mind.



I think the difference between London and Dublin is that Dublin has some integrity, while London doesn't. London is an amazing place, where you can see Art from all over the world, ancient ruins from all over the world, listen to music from all over the world, see movies from all over the world, eat food from all over the world; but when it comes to what London has iherited throughout history, all that remains is the Big Ben and the Tower Bridge. I'm not saying London doesn't have an interesting history, but my point is rather that this interesting history behind London has been hindered by the incredible amalgam of cultures. But unfortunately, all this is just an illusion. You can't really appreciate something unless you go to the place it comes from. And I am not talking about intent here, I'm talking about Heritage and culture.

Chinese food in London has nothing to do with actual Chinese food in China; the Egyptian and Greek ruins in the British Museum are nothing compared to seeing ruines in Egypt or Greece; italian olive il in London is not the same as italian olive oil in Italy; and hearing traditional Irish music in a concert hall is nothing compared to seeing people play in a pub in a village in Ireland where they barely speak any English.

It seems that the British should stop taking things from other cultures and start travelling more. Or rather, travel more without trying to make everything the same as their home. Travelling is indeed one damn good mind-opening experience.

"The further away you go
from the things you are familiar with,
the closer you come
to finding who you really are"

"Στον κόσμο, δύο είναι τα πιο μεγάλα πράγματα: εσύ, και όλα τα άλλα που δεν είσαι εσύ."

"Τι είναι η ιστορία αν όχι αναμνήσεις σε κάδρο σε κρύες αίθουσες, σε μουσεία, σε μια μεγάλη πόλη;"

I'm staring at Powerscourt Waterfall right now. It's just magic. I can keep looking at it for hours, just like a painting. But the problem with paintings, I think, lies in the approach people have in watching/experiencing then. In painting one is constantly trying to look for intent, instead of beauty. One must know something about the painter or the painting, or the movement, or the era, or the place it was painted, in order to appreciate it more. In nature, there is no intent. Things Are. A waterfall Is. I don't need to know how it was created, know where the water goes to, or see the rive it's coming from, or know it's the largest waterfall in Ireland to appreciate it. It's just there, and so am I, and that's all it takes: just experiencing something for what it is. Unfortunately, because Art is created with intent, it's more difficult to do that. (Since even if an artist creates a piec eof art they claim has no _ intention, even the decision to create that piece of art has intent.)

Maybe we shouldn't even try to ignore intent in Art because it's inherent in it, by definition. That's why there's nothing artistic about this waterfall. Nature is not Art, Nature is not a creation, nature just is. It exists. Time just 'is', so is space. Instead, direction has been imbued within each one of us, in the form of goals, ambitions, the past, the future, that we cannot quite comprehend things that just are.

"In a world that moves so quickly, the ability to stop and look back should be highly appreciated."

-Miguel Monteiro Sena

Ο κόσμος που ζούμε είναι μαγικός. Υπάρχει καλή και κακή μαγεία. Ευτυχώς, η σημερινή μέρα ήταν τόσο γεμάτη συναίσθημα. Ίσως θα έπρεπε να μένω άυπνος πιο συχνά. Σήμερα συνειδητοποίησα πόση πολλή καλή μαγεία έχω ζήσει. Είναι απίστευτο πώς, όταν απολαμβάνεις κάτι, το απολαμβάνεις ακόμα περισσότερο.

Μερικά πράγματα έρχονται με τον καιρό - μερικά άλλα δεν έρχονται ποτέ. Αλλά αν ο χρόνος είναι σαν την μουσική, τότε το ποτέ είναι η σιωπή, και μετά την μουσική έρχεται σιωπή. Ή μήπως δεν έρχεται ποτέ; Αν δεν υπάρχει απόλυτη σιωπή, αν δεν υπάρχει απόλυτο τίποτα, το απόλυτο μηδέν, το ποτέ δεν θα υπάρξει ποτέ. Δεν υπάρχει, και δεν υπήρξε. Ούτε ο χρόνος υπάρχει. Ο Χρόνος απλα είναι. Το σύμπαν απλά είναι. Όλα τα άπειρα πράγματα στη ζωή είναι. Και η ζωή είναι. Και μερικές φορές είναι καλή, αυτή είναι η καλή μαγεία. Καλή μαγεία σημαίνει να μπορείς να κοιτάς χωρίς να βλέπεις, να ακούς χωρίς να προσέχεις, να δακρύζεις με το που πάς να αγγίξεις το μολύβι στο χαρτί, χωρίς να ξέρεις γιατί. Να μπορείς να ξαναδιαβάσεις αυτά που έγραψες αρκετό καιρό μετά, και να πείς "εκείνη η μέρα ήταν γεμάτη συναίσθημα".

Πού πάει η μουσική όταν τελειώνει;

Έπρεπε να είχα σηκωθεί. Πόσες φορές πρέπει να καταλάβω ότι ζούμε μονάχα μια φορά, και ζούμε με μελάνι; Δεν ζούμε με μολύβι και γόμες, με οθόνες και αναιρέσεις. Απλά ζούμε, ένας πίνακας που θα τελειώσει όταν ζωγραφίσουμε την τελευταία μας ανάσα, ένα όνειρο που για να υπάρξει πρέπει να ξυπνήσουμε πρώτα.

"Όλοι οι έφηβοι λέμε ότι έχουμε προβλήματα. Προβλήματα με τους γονείς, με τις φιλίες μας, με τους καθηγητές μας, με τους βαθμούς, με την πίεση που δεχόμαστε - αλλά μήπως όλα αυτά είναι στη φαντασία μας; Μήπως, τελικά, εμείς ξεκινήσαμε εκείνο τον καβγά χτθές το βράδυ με τους γονείς, ενώ ξέραμε ότι έχουν δίκιο; Μήπως εμείς φταίμε που δεν τα πήγαμε καλά στο τέστ χημείας; Μήπως βλέπουμε προβλήματα εκεί που δεν υπάρχουν, επειδή έχουμε διαβάσει στο βιβλίο των Νέων ότι η ζωή των εφήβωβ είναι γεμάτη θλίψη, στενοχώρια και προβλήματα; Μήπως θα έπρεπε, αντί να ακούμε τι μας λένε τα βιβλία και οι ειδήσεις, να ακούσουμε -έστω και για λίγο- τους ενήλικες που έχουν περάσει αυτή τη φάση της ζωής τους και που εύχονται να μείνουν για πάντα έφηβοι;

Κάτι παραπάνω θα ξέρουν, γιατί να μην τους ακούσουμε; Προσωπικά, απολαμβάνω την κάθε στιγμή σαν να είναι η τελευταία μου σαν έφηβος, γιατί κάποια από αυτές τις στιγμές, θα πάψω να είμαι ένας έφηβος, και θα γίνω ένας ακόμα ενήλικας που θα εύχεται να είχε κάνει κι άλλες φάρσες, να είχε κάνει πιο πολλά λάθη για να μάθει κι άλλα πράγματα, που θα εύχεται να μείνει για πάντα έφηβος...

Η ζωή έχει δύο πλευρές: την αρνητική και τη θετική. Η μία δεν μπορεί να α υπάρξει χωρίς την άλλη. Όπου υπάρχει ένα πρόβλημα, υπάρχει και μια λύση. Πολλές φορές μεγεθύνουμε τόσο πολύ το πρόβλημα, που κρύβουμε τη λύση κι ας είναι μπροστά μας."

(εργασία για το μάθημα Νέων Ελληνικών, Α' λυκείου)