Man among Men!
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 20 November 2004, 3:44am
Its very much a routine! I wonder how I (for that matter every soul around) manage to turn up everyday with the same lethargy, same PJ's and same smoking area and that damn same coffee cup and discuss the same team building outing plan that we have been discussing for what..three months now!; and still vehemently argue that life is fun; hilarious - Have they gone out of thier minds!?!?!
Recently I had been too tired to work at night; all I did was listen to music, read a little, read blogs, maybe draw on my 'dreams' sketchbook. I am a little behind schedule still It felt good. Listening to music on my headphones while I work makes me feel at peace with myself and the world. I realize most of my anxieties come from my postponing of things. As soon as I get down to work on them, the hole in the stomach disappears. Working at night, I feel a man among men again.
To have something to look for, that keeps me going. I enjoy expectation. I dream about these virtual horizons of my life. Yesterday we felt economically kamikaze and went for sushi with my friend and got fortune cookies. Mine read: "a door closes; another opens"..
Current Mood: Happy Indeed!
Current Music: La La La La La - Whatever
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I write. But writing..
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 14 October 2004, 4:08am
Sometimes I feel I write too much. I can write forever. To me the mystery is why sometimes I don't write or I can't. Not a mystery, a question: why not write?
Writing waits for you. Writing spies on you.
I learned a second language, a second way to make mistakes, a second way to write more. So, Why stop? Writing knows it.
I just know a few words, but I keep combining them all the ways I can.
I, for example, know and use a lot the word I. And the word "ways".
Writing is also a word I use a lot. A lot too I use. :-)
Writing keeps.
Writing asks.
Writing is a remnant of something else. Maybe a first tongue, a second body, a third state.
Writing remembers well or forgets beneath.
Writing is either untrue or endless. It can be use for fiction or for lies. Writing writes.
Writing is not a door. Writing is represented by letters.
Writing descends in clouds of quotes. Writing has an East.
Writing times.
Yes..Writing waits and Writing spies.
It repeats, in paragraphs.
Writing is not mechanical nor a flux. Writing goes and comes.
Writing reappears in a different place, now and in future.
Writing is here....
Current Mood: Amazed
Current Music: Cleaning Out My Closet...
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Lets Practice Leaving Me the Hell Alone!
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 29 September 2004, 4:11am
It's a glorious, beautiful holiday here. I'd love to be in my pajamas, lazing around, doing nothing,
looking at the lazy spoiled kids in the neighborhood playing around with their oversized dog!
Instead, I'm here, at work, vainly trying to use my non-existent graphic design skills to finish up the presentation. I work 12 hours a day, non-stop, I rarely (never) have time to whine and fool around. It's not a matter of improving my time management skills, as all the time I have is busy being managed by a never-ending rush of phone calls, meetings, programs, and more meetings -- oh yes, and sometimes I try to eat. The infinite number of unread e-mails clogging in my mailbox, the un-answered phone calls, both official & personal, has started giving me nightmares.
There is a finite amount of work that one human being can do. If you want someone to be able to do everything well, you need to give him a reasonable amount of things to work on. 4 hours spent finishing up a presentation for an Israeli VP, no matter how important, is 4 hours I couldn't have worked on marketing, new proposals & programs, acquisitions or anything else.
When doing the entire program by one's own self, one cannot do everything, and therefore, rational creatures might let him off the hook; for not being perfect at maintaining his training record or for not single-handedly 'marketing' the management fantasies all over the globe or for not implementing 'high-priority' programs and research guidelines or for winning the Nobel Peace Prize and saving starving orphaned wallabees in Africa, on his miniscule 20-minute lunch break.
Granted, that became a rant more than a list of reasons, but I think the point can be considered made. I sometimes wonder whether I'm expected to work this much, and that in order to do everything that I'm expected to do, I should really be working more.
Looking through some of my old file archives, I ran into some old self-portraits from my time in college... I looked so different then. I almost could not recognize myself. Some non-describable sadness in my eyes; an uncanny feeling, may be a pure bachelor emotion, a form of estrangement, weird unfamiliarity, to say: was that really me? Also, did I really look like that? The pain inside is so evident from the face. I wonder: How come I did not realize it back then?
Current Mood: Screwed
Current Music: where the hell is the time for music!!
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WE LIE IN WAIT - Id Love to Wear a Rainbow
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 21 September 2004, 10:39pm
While I have never been more disappointed about human nature, I have been feeling extremely enthusiastic about my work. Even though poverty is still the sign of my times (it has alwayz been that way, no matter what I earn) it looks like if I hang tough and don't kill myself before in a desperate act of weariness and utter melancholia, the future may even look quite bright...
My work and sporadic exposure to psychedelics of human mind are what keeps me going (especially working with a team at New Jersey, where I keep laughing and enjoying the exciting challenge of managing people who stop working when I wake up & vice-versa). I still continue to read a lot (poetry, critical theory & more psychoanalysis) and my beard keep growing...
If that profound form of sadness did not keep growing within me I guess there would be nothing to stop me from achieving now what I most deeply desire. Still, that pain is still there, and, ironically, gives me the energy to get up every morning and let my life run the show for itself..myself, whilst I play the role of an amused wayfarer...
Honestly, I am still amazed at how when things seem to be the worst I still manage to feel optimistic and energetic. I wonder if I only cheat myself, or if in reality I will always need that weariness, that deep sadness to face everyday in life.
Current Mood: Heartbroken
Current Music: - One Hand In My Pocket
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WE CAME DOWN FROM THE TREES!!!
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 14 September 2004, 6:44pm
And then I realize the only physical exercise I did this week-end was climbing up and down the stairs. And it is already Monday, and the hours had passed by swiftly, by the minute, as always. I am not a morning person, in the sense that I don't look forward to it. But I still think & whine about the time to have breakfast, to smell the coffee, read the papers on line, a post here & a mail there, listen to music.
But I couldn't possibly work during normal hours, having to rush in the morning, not having time to think, to stare at the screen while say, Kathryn Williams whispering to my ears. My eyes are still half-closed, and my brain is not quite up yet, but my mind is still between a broken dream and a promised land. It will take me at least one more hour to be ready to start typing any coherent phrases, to make up my mind about all the things that have to be done if one wants to be a normal person.
I think of mornings as this space and place for recollection and reflection. I am reminded of the gorillas I saw at one of those National Geographic Zoo explorations sometime back, how they grabbed their heads with their hands, as if they were involved in some deep phenomenological diatribe, or as if trying to forget some painful memory. I was deeply moved by the immobile anxiety they showed; it was the unquestionable evidence that we had more than one thing in common. Unlike other primates in the zoo, the gorillas would not even move at all, unless for a slight movement of the left hand to scratch some area of the head. One of them was lying flat on his back, and held his head with both hands, sometimes covering his eyes. And I could not but feel empathy.
My mornings are like a day in a zoo: the consciousness that I am being observed, that things must be done, performed, that I am not totally on my own, and that I am not really free to do whatever I may want to. Mornings are the place where I realize that we came down from the trees, as they say, very slowly, but violently at the same time, by force, as when I fall out of bed, hurting my head. To start a new day, a new week, is painful. I cover my eyes and my ears with a pillow, and realize someone, out there, is looking.
Current Mood: Worried
Current Music: We Came Down from the Trees - Kathryn Williams
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::..THE GROUND BENEATH HIS FEET..::
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 2 September 2004, 9:18pm
Current Mood: Bored
Current Music: Macy Gray - A Moment To Myself
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Ah! He caught me off-gaurd...
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 26 August 2004, 6:13pm
I was flying around in airplanes filled with half the population of this country. It always amazes me that How those two or three sweet air-hostesses are able to cater to all our needs, given the fact that most of us hog as if that was the sole purpose of boarding the flight. I am told that there is an operator who operates flights at significantly cheap rates 'coz they don't serve food on board!!! And I thot the jet engine & its fuel were the ones that are costly...
Anyways on the way home from the heavily crowded airport the driver (my corporate mask gives me that privilage) tells about his view about the world.
"I don't believe in coincidence" he says, turning onto the Main Road
"No, everything happens for a reason."
I concentrate on the road, a little unnerved.
"There's no point trying to change your destiny, fate will eventually catch up with you."
His words remind me of how the buses here often have a statue of Lord Ganesh in the spot where the fire extinguisher is meant to be - the rationale being that if you are meant to die you will and the extinguisher will not help.
"I'm not angry at my wife for leaving me" the taxi driver says
"No. Not at all. I understand that she had to do what she had to do."
We turn into the Road No 10.
"She thought I lacked ambition but she didn't realise that I had lots of plans. I wanted to start a business."
"Turn left here" I say, somewhat sympathetically.
We drive past the cemetery on the corner.
The taxi driver points at it. "You know, people who live around here aren't allowed to be buried in that cemetery" he says.
Really? How strange I thot. I voice my surprise. "Why not?"
"Because they're not dead yet."
Ah! Nice one. You got me.
Very good. Now, just drop me off here.
Thanks.
Current Mood: Dumb
Current Music: No Sugar Tonight...
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Guess what..I just discovered whats wrong with the system!! - lazy pricks
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 13 August 2004, 7:01am
These days I drive my Esteem from home to work (and back)everyday, and there is a process as to how I do this. When get into the parking lot I make sure that I always park at the right end. You know why? Because thats where the entrances for the escalators are. Unsurprisingly everytime I get in at 11'O clock in the morning (early by my standards), I find that the right end of the parking lot is absolutely full..So I roam around and reach the next parking floor to see that the right end is full again..all this with the left side completely empty.
After my routine round trips across all the three parking floors; I end up parking at the left end, cursing the whole world for their laziness, and walk across to the escalator at the other end. I can recall a few days when they would find the escalator not moving, and at this there would be a collective sigh. Some punk kid prevented their and my lazy asses from riding the escalator. I guess we'll all have to just take the stairs.
I remember being taken aback, reading some stories written by a writer by the name of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. His stories were satirical, funny, had some attitude, and they all spoke very loudly about his opinion about advancement and discovery. Underneath these clever stories would be a foreboding tone that all this advancement, technology, and discovery, is the apocalypse of man kind.
I couldn't agree more. I along with several other people who I simply see everyday are living proof of this. People wonder why the obesity rate has risen, so much so that they call it an epidemic, but what do they expect when our society discovers all these new things to cradle us so that we don't have to put as much effort into it? So it makes it easier.
Our society has become so goddamn lazy and dependent on these new "advancements" that it has come to us mooching off the handicapped. What do I mean? I see this constantly at a nearby shopping center. There are several sections of the path that are cut off and separated by doors. There is nothing obscure about these doors you push and pull them to open them, however to the far right of every one of these entrances is a big silver button, with blue illustration of a stick figure in a wheel chair. 98% of the people I see pass through these entrances and when the door shows any signs of closing, they press the button again so that it quickly opens again, and they carry their stuff through, no fuss, no muss.
Remember when you were able to throw garbage out? Remember how easy that used to be? You just throw it out and that's all you have to do. Not anymore. If you have the fortune of eating at a newly opened food court one of these days, at the end of your meal start prioritizing. Separate your regular garbage, then cans, then glass, then paper, and then you're all set. Otherwise you will end up bringing all this stuff mixed up to not one, not two, not three, but four different garbage cans, with big signs on them. And then you have to do this all while you're there because you wouldn't dare throw all that out in the regular garbage bin with all those people looking.....well at least throwing out trash has us put some effort into it, that gets us moving. Taking out the trash takes some effort now.
What about snail mail? Remember the joy of writing a letter? You'd fold it up three separate ways, sock it in an envelope, and plunk a stamp on there. You would leave your domain and walk to a mail box, drop it in and leave with a smile on your face anticipating it's arrival wherever it may be going. Now we have e-mail. Unbelievably convenient, but if you ask me the invention that was discovered to bring the world together is simply keeping the world apart. You would think the populace would take advantage of such a device to keep in touch with one another but instead since it is so convenient and at your disposal, some people find themselves saying....."oh I can just as easily send this to him tomorrow." Or don't you love the people who don't even want to go through the effort of writing you an e-mail, they simply send you a forward of some lame joke, or self healing jargon to let you know that they still think of you, or you inexplicably are somehow still on their mailing list. It's not bringing the world together. How do I know? I'm sitting here right now talking to no one, so that I can type this for you to read.
And of course the one discovery, advancement, that should be completely outlawed in my opinion is the cell phone. I do own a cell phone, but I hope I never had one, because frankly I'm reachable enough as it is, and I don't want to be out and about and have someone calling me, "sorry I'm on my time." Cell phones not only have contributed to rudeness among person to person interaction, (e.g. you're out with someone having a conversation, their phone rings and they say "excuse me," answer it and start chatting away) they also have made you think twice about wondering if someone is insane or not. Whenever you see someone talking to themselves now you don't assume they are crazy, you look for the little ear piece first. One thing cell phones have done so horridly well is make people impatient. They can't wait to get home and have a conversation, they have to have it right then and there on the bus, for 5-10 minutes your let in on details of a persons life that you really don't care to know, but people will always feel free to expose you to it.
Now, I am not martyr, I am guilty of not wanting to walk certain places, and taking easy cliques that I am surrounded by, it's inevitable, our society is grounded on it.
But in all sincerity, and if that sort of money ever came to me I'd definitely buy a farm-house, and enjoy my stay over there; and instead of flipping a switch for a fire place to be activated, I would rather go outside, chop some wood, and bring it in to heat my wood stove.
Current Mood: Itching For One
Current Music: Welcome To The Machine - Pink Floyd
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Whaaat a predicament!!
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 12 August 2004, 12:04am
Can now say, unequivocally and with total confidence, that I have finally seen the worst movie ever made by mankind...
It was made in the 70's, and it is called "Zombie". It was made by Italians, and every single person involved in its production, including every single actor, is Italian, but the film is about Americans with awkwardly indeterminate British accents.
The plot centers around a "zombie island" called "Matool" where people are inexplicably rising from the dead and v e r y s l o w l y attacking everybody.
The framing is so bad on most of the shots that you are generally unable to see the characters' faces while they are talking. There is also a long scene where all you can see is an intense close-up of a person's shoulder. And there is the most unnecessary, gratuitous booby-shot I have ever seen in a movie, involving an actress scuba-diving topless, which seems unbelievably ridiculous to me.
Okay, so apart from all of that very compelling evidence, can I just tell you that the movie involves a scene in which this topless girl scuba dives down to the bottom of the ocean to take pictures of fish. While she is down there, she is attacked by a shark. The shark is listless, fat and looks unhappy. We also soon stopped laughing when we realized that the way they filmed this scene was by removing all the shark's teeth. This made me very sad. My sadness was lifted only slightly by the revelation of what I consider the film's true selling point as Worst Movie Ever;
After the woman is attacked by the shark, she backs slowly into an underwater cavern to hide from the shark, which is still swimming sluggishly above her, its apathetic movements suggesting heavy dosages of tranquilizers. The woman backs slowly...slowly....and then, BAM!
UNDERWATER ZOMBIE!!
okay, I know what you're saying. You're saying, "I agree with you. You need say no more--this truly is the worst movie ever made!"
But you haven't heard the crowning achievment of the film: The shark comes back around, and the zombie starts actually trying to EAT the SHARK!
ZOMBIE VS. SHARK, I AM NOT KIDDING!!!
It's honestly the most f***d up thing ever. The toothless shark is so emo, but Zombie vs. Shark is so amazing. Think about it. Underwater Zombie vs. Toothless Shark. Oh god. What were they thinking?
Then the woman makes it back up to the boat, and they lug her out of the water, breasts jiggling, and she gasps and gasps for air, and then she says, "there was a...a...a MAN!"
Current Mood: Desperate
Current Music: i shot the sheriff
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What a wonderful day...I envy life!
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 7 August 2004, 1:08am
Don't you hate it when you have the day off from work and you plan on getting a lot of things done but all you end up doing is sleeping and sitting around in pajama pants that are way too big for you and watching ESPN?
Except for the sleeping part, yes.
Reading "Dead Souls" helps pass the time and makes me laugh when I'm reading it in public. The guy out next door saw me reading it and called me a "grad student". Hmmm, How I wish!
Current Mood: Bad Hair Day
Current Music: aint no mountain...
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socially insensible hokums!!
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 27 July 2004, 4:52pm
I do know that being highly preoccupied with other stuff has got nothing to do with decent blogging (whatever 'that' is), so my apologies to anyone who has been peeking in and out of this place for the past week, anticipating something clever or witty or insightful. ;-)
In more "I couldn't give a crap" news:
I am surrounded by Chinese engineers these days...Since most of us, including yours truly, cannot pronounce those names properly and out of sensitivity for the shortcomings of our pronunciation skills they introduce themselves as john, mike, sharon etc...
There is an old politically incorrect russian joke that goes: Do you know how Chinese people name their children?
(pause...)
They throw some silverware down the stairs and name the child by the resulting sound.
Well, as an enlightened soul with a supposedly profound knowledge about more subtler things in this wide vast world, I dismissed them as a culturally insensitive nonsense.
Just the other day, during a working lunch (I hate 'em!!) my friend inadvertently dropped a spoon in our room, and this Chinese guy (who introduces himself as john) suddenly responded from his table down the hall, 'yes'..!!
We looked at each other!!!
Bewildered, I thought, is there anything to this? Does it deserve a follow up experiment?
Scene II: 3 hours later..
Couple of other colleagues of mine were around this time, so I say this with the weight of 6 ears. I happen to accidentally clank my cup on the table. This time John was in his seat inside the cabin. 'Yes', he said but then walked over to the door and checked to see if anyone was there.
It must be that he has highly sensitive ears and quietly knocking friends..!!!
Current Mood: Wicked
Current Music: its what we are all about...
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Loosing my beloved ones - a pain in the neck!
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 20 July 2004, 3:38pm
Current Mood: Sad
Current Music: find a job..get a life
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Here I am! Im OK!
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 8 July 2004, 8:14am
That experience, the experience of being Not Ok, all the while exclaiming its opposite, is now summed up (for me) in those two words, not unlike their peculiar - urban? - incarnation, in which the phrase is used in combination with 'no', most usually to a street vendor:
"Street Sheet?"
"No, I'm OK."
Maybe every utterance of I'm OK is a way of expressing how exactly the opposite everything is.
But I really AM individually OK after hours of sleep. In addition, we went around all over the place. We saw a jungle. We saw some kids playing a complicated clapping and shouting handgame. We saw some sales. We saw people waiting in lines, and we stood in lines. We saw the windows across the way. We saw the clouds turn color.
I'm OK..
Current Mood: Happy Indeed!
Current Music: its a party..
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Let the polemics begin!
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 6 July 2004, 10:40am
I have a a lot to say, Guess it will get it all out of my head so that I do not burst from the accumulation of unexpressed thoughts, which can be quite messy if you've ever witnessed it.
Every day, I look around in complete horror. The difference between what is versus what could and should be is so large that the contrast is almost unbearable. Just once I'd like to turn on the television and hear that something noble and heroic happened in the world. Something inspirational, to serve as a sort of "spiritual fuel" to combat the weariness from the daily bombardment of irrationality.
Still, they say one must never give up hope. If ever there was a time that positive change could be enacted, it is now. The web permits the access to, and transmission of, ideas at speed never before experienced. It is ideas that change the world, as philosophy is the foundation of human existence. At this point I wish to give credit where credit is due. Ayn Rand has had the most impact of any thinker upon my life. She gave me the words to express what I have always felt, but could not properly define by the moral code which most of society adheres to, consciously or not. www.aynrand.org is the place to begin learning about her philosophy, which she calls objectivism. As for myself, I am not an official spokesperson for objectivism, nor is anything I say to be assumed to be in strict compliance with her teachings. First hand research would benefit those who are interested.
Let the polemics begin.
Current Mood: Cold
Current Music: the summer of 69
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The Ideal - Do you get it or be it?
Stand-Alone Dreamer | 6 July 2004, 12:31am
This is an interesting distinction, one which always seems to exist:- of people who worry about and strive to be good enough, and those who worry about having enough. (someone might want to portray this as a battle between the self-perfectionists & the hedonists)
It seems more women worry about being good enough themselves (for example so many focusing on their weight), and more men worry about having enough (for example, feeling that they "always deserve" a beautiful women, or at least focusing more on wanting one than on their own worthiness).
It isn't a total dichotomy always, of course; everyone is some sort of combination. Judging by your actions, senses of empowerment, and regrets, do you want to be 'your ideal' one, or do you want to have 'the ideal' one? Do you know why..do you like your reasoning?
Most of the times I want to be my ideal..to be happy with what I'm doing ..to be able to think well of myself. That gives me considerable control over myself, and makes me second guess my social interactions..Generally it makes me confident..
..albeit the fact that having my ideal too would just be the icing on the cake ;-)
Current Mood: Mooney
Current Music: TMBG - Older
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